Essential Contributions for osCommerce

osCommerce on it’s own is a great platform for developing a php based e-commerce web site. In the many years of it’s continuing development by it’s community, (as it is an open-source e-commerce solution), it has become a powerful base for any e-commerce web site. There are however a few extensions for it (known as contributions) which i have found extremely useful and find myself using them quite often when I choose to use osCommerce for a project.

Now before I get into my list of suggest contributions, a little information about osCommerce and it’s community extensions.

OsCommerce, being an open-source e-commerce platform, has a large community of users and developers. Over the years there have been many contributions written for the platform. Now, I would suggest first off that unless you have some based html and php programming experience, you may want to do a little research into those first, as depending on the contributions installed in osCommerce, it is not a task for the in-experienced and feint of heart! Unlike other open-source platforms like WordPress and Joomla, osCommerce does not have a “plug-in” system where you can simply download and “install” a plug-in into osCommerce. You will need to edit the php files and manually change/edit/remove peices of code from the source code. However, most contributions come with fairly easy to follow instructions detailing step by step what needs to be edited, files to be replaced or uploaded.

Before you install ANY contribution in osCommerce, I STRONGLY suggest you backup both your files AND your database for your osCommerce web site project.

Ok, now that we got that info out of the way.. here is a list of some various community extensions that you may find useful…

Simple Template System (STS)

This is a much easier to use template (skin) system to applying a design to the front end of your oscommerce site.. I use this quite often with my projects. It allows the template to be designed in one php/html file and style sheet, as opposed to the default osCommerce system where you need to edit the header, left and right column and footer php files in the includes directory.

I suggest this be the first thing to install on a vanilla (fresh) install of osCommerce.

Basic Template Structure v0.9

This template system is a step-up from the STS one. It’s alot more complex and more difficult to install but it has a VERY useful feature (especially for web developers!).. the system when installed and set up, will have modified main page files (like index.php, contact_us.php etc) which have the core code in them, and then the template directory will have the “tpl” template files, which contain mainly the display code for those pages. This means that core root functions are left untouched, and the template file for a page can be edited. For a developer this is kinda cool, because if done write, you can modify/edit/add functions to lets say contact_us.php via editing the contact_is.php.tpl in the template directory. You then can simply copy over this file to another site using the BTS system as well…

I Suggest, as with the STS, the BTS should be the first thing installed. Also note that adding additional contributions can become more tricky once you install BTS as you will need to deal with the .tpl files as well as the main php files for some situations.

Mindsparx Admin

Although there are not many admin mod’s out there re: the style/look of the admin, I have to say this one is GREAT. It really add’s a more modern feel to the back end admin look for osCommerce. It’s fairly easy to install as well.

Ultimate SEO URLs

This contribution modifies osCommerce to have search engine friendly URLS.  This is important to allow search engines to spider your site and give them human readable url’s for your products etc on the site. (instead of having a url of for example http://www.somesite.com/index.php?cpath=13_23 the contribution would make the urls look like http://www.somesite.com/mens-clothing-brown-tshirt-c23.html, which a search engine will be MUCH happier with

fast easy checkout

This contribution makes changes to really streamline the checkout system in osCommerce. Standard osCommerce first has a shipping page where the customer selects their desired shipping method, then they are taken to the payment page to select their payment method, and then finally to a confirmation page to verify and then complete the order. This FAC contribution merges the shipping and payment pages into one page, then the confirmation as the second page which really optimizes the checkout process for customers. Another important feature is FEC also add’s the ability for a customer to checkout and purchase products without having to first create an account on the site (as osCommerce vanilla makes them first create a account on the site before they can check out).. this as well is very good as it can increase sales as many people just want to buy things as quickly as possible and not spend time filling out pages of information if they do not need to.

One note.. newer versions of this contribution use AJAX code to update shipping information.. some people (myself included) have had problems with the ajax working correctly. I would say it’s best to restrict using this contribution woth sites that do not have live xml/soap etc data feeds to pull price information for shipping estimates (i.e UPS/Fedex and Canada Post). I would use it for sites using flat rate, free , table rate shipping.

If you do use this MAKE SURE you  backup the entire site and database first… better safe than sorry.

There are a few other free “one page checkout” contributions.. but personally i have YET to find one that works without errors… Ajax is a tricky thing. There is one PAID contribution I’ve heard alot about, but have yet to by and try it myself.

Order Editor

This contribution add’s a feature that me (as i’m sure alot of osCommerce admins) am suprised is not in the base osCommerce package, the ability to EDIT orders. This is a very essential contribution to add to a new site IMHO.

Admin Create Account 1.0

This contribution will allow the store admin to create new accounts on behalf of customers from the back end of the site. It will also email the new account owner a random-generated password for their account.

More to come soon…