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

Highlighting a Generic Process!


As mentioned, the most important thing to gain from this chapter is not just the use of these three new features (although, they are very useful in themselves), but rather the process behind adding them. To summarize, you should:

  • Think about what you want to add to the site and ensure it relates well with the business goals of the site.

  • Perform a fairly in-depth requirements analysis so that you know what type of functionality you are working towards implementing.

  • Back up your site before beginning any work on the additional material.

  • If you are writing your own code, then you need to plan how everything will fit together before embarking on the coding process.

  • Create, write, and/or install the feature.

  • Thoroughly test everything about the new feature and confirm that all the wrinkles have been ironed out.

  • Analyze any possible security holes and spend some time thinking about how you might try to break this new code. (If you don't, others certainly will.)

  • Back up...