Liae Blog

When it comes to finding a free open source PHP script shopping cart, you simply can’t ignore osCommerce.

Reason number 1, you don’t need to install another content management system like joomla or mambo for their version of FREE virtuemart – which, for many, remains a popular choice. But wait a minute. For a shopping cart to work, I thought I only needed the cart. Right ? But I was wrong. You really needed everything. You needed the firstpage, last page, products, categories and a whole lot more, oh yes, including the taxes and allowing customers to login. I guess, you can’t run a store without the buildings. Same goes for scripts.
osCommerce is itself a CMS for online store. You can use it for FREE to run online store and in fact be one of the richest dude on the block. The only thing that’s lacking is, you and i doing nothing! LOL !!
Reason number 2, there are a lot of good reputable online shopping sites which are older than others that run under this script. So, for me, it gave me confidence in terms of security and usage. What works for me, may not work for you and what works for you may not work for me.
Without talking too much, let me give you the links you have been waiting for. I have only tested a few of these, but changing yourself manually seems to be even fun. So find a few of my know-hows at the end.

Free oScommerce Templates .

• http://addons.oscommerce.com/category/Templates_and_Themes – why would you look somewhere else ?
• http://www.onixsoft.com/FREE-OSC-templates.htm has a list of some intersting and free templates
• http://www.freetemplatesonline.com/templates/Pets-Store-175.html – 1 Pets Store 175 (osCommerce old version)
• http://www.templatemonster.com/sampleDownload.php?id=27 1 template for new version
• http://www.webmaster-tool.co.uk/webpage-templates/free/osCommerce-template.htm 1 Business Template
• http://wvw.downarchive.com/2008/06/24/10-premium-oscommerce-templates.html – 10
• http://www.7dana.com/download/pafiledb.php?action=category&id=4 – 4 7dana templates for oscommerce.
• http://darylwtlau.googlepages.com/jewellery_green.rar - google pages, one jewellery template
• http://myersleisure.com/ – 1 template. click to download.
• http://info.template-help.com/sample_templates.html – 4 templates old/new look for word oscommerce there..
• http://www.badeziner.com/2008/07/12/gg9-free-lightbox-oscommerce-template/ - gg9 template
• http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=71985&package_id=119333 – old version
• i
• will type some from my bookmark tomorrow.
• thanks guys.

How to modify default or any template for this matter. While the script does have a way for you to manually change contents of many files such as index.php, you might find it your-way to change them using text editors then FTP to server.

Knowing these Five Files will save you a lot of trouble. View them and you should be able to make your own DESIGN. Cheers!!

Files under

includes\header.php    footer.php   left_column.php   right_column.php    and

stylesheet.css on the default folder. There is a wonderful post on this and many, don’t forget to read it.

oscommerce.com : forum : Template Design
(1) remove osCommerce logo/text at  the footer. Let’s face it. Who is going to buy stuff from yoursite if you show your users that you don’t even hire programmers ?? A flashy color and design and those 10000s of products you are listing should show your users that you own the script. Right? Wrong ! and what the heck, I could be wrong and you could be right.

Showing that you care about others should make your users feel good rather than hiding the facts. Users today are smarter than we think. They will probably land on our web page going through lots of websites. I personally would leave the link and all and I would add “Proudly Powered by” to show that you REALLY care about other people. Those who want to remove, just edit the footer.php located under includes folder.

(2)  The first thing anyone want to do with a script is to change what it shows on the front page although everything the programmer wrote is perfectly fine to use. Ready to get a call from a customer who says, “i just bought it did you not get it… ?” ha? what? well you know what i mean. locate the file includes\languages\english\index.php (or any other language file you are using) then change everything in between ” of define(‘TEXT_MAIN’,'what you want to say goes here’);

For me, that define TXT_MAIN has to be the most scary function to edit. How abou you? Having seen how powerful it is, it makes you think that what is not possible to put in a variable ? Earth??? I did get problems with that since I rush a lot. May be you won’t. Just a note, be sure to leave the two string characters ” <---- e.g.

Could many of us be searching for help, only because we hate manuals ? I seem to be doing just that and I mean it.
Here is one heck of a wonderful post you ought to read. http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=274968

See ya.

if you liked what i gave, can you at least say thank you. <— who put this here…. please help ! LOL !!