Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition

By : David Mercer
Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition

By: David Mercer

Overview of this book

<p>The book can be read from front to back, but each chapter is self contained so the reader can skip chapters to read those that they are interested in. Each chapter will move from basic to advanced where applicable and also relate what the administrator (reader) is doing to how this affects what the client sees on the site.</p> <p>So, for example, the customization chapter will start off with a discussion on the concept of design and how to relate this to your business. Once the reader has a clear idea of what they need to do, we look at some really simple changes such as modifying the site's language, before moving to some advanced modifications which may involve some PHP programming. At the same time the discussion will demonstrate how the changes made affect the site.</p> <p>Throughout the book, much consideration is given to the "right" way to doing things. Readers will have the great advantage that they begin, from the very start, doing things properly. This will save them a lot of time and effort in the years to come as they build on and modify their site. Utilizing best practices and sound methodologies is a great asset for beginners and experienced users alike.</p> <p>At all times, the coverage given in this book pays homage to the fact that, ultimately, the reader has a business goal in mind. To this end, the material never gets bogged down in technical issues or long discourses, but rather focuses on what is practically important for the online business and then moves on. To complement this, there are plenty of suggestions and hints as to how and where to look for further information.</p>
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Foreword
Introduction
Index

Chapter 10. Tools, Tips, and Tricks

The previous chapter focused on fairly complex additions to the site. While these are certainly important, not all additions need to be large and powerful in order to add value. There are plenty of neat little applications that you should consider implementing in order to tweak the final appearance and functionality of your online store. Like any physical product, a car for instance, you can look at the development of your online store as being more or less completed, with the engine, chassis, and body all in place; it's just a case of adding airbags, windscreen wipers, cup holders, and so on.

As you might expect, over the course of osCommerce's lifetime a huge number of scripts have been written to perform the multitude of tasks each and every store owner has required. Obviously we can't hope to cover all of those in this chapter, but you already know how to make use of the community in order to search for what you want. You also have a good idea how to...