OS Commerce For Blog Sites

[brittney08]

I am new to open source CMS. I want to know, how I can make a blog for my games website with OS Commerce and link it to the already existing site design? Is it possible? How easy is it and can I do it on my own, or will I require the assistance of a developer?

This is an awesome place. Every time I have a problem, you guys have helped me. Hoping to get one this time too.

[rpoy]

Hi!

OS Commerce is not really a CMS. If you want CMS you might want to look at Joomla or PHPNuke.

OS Commerce is a online store front, but it may be overkill if you only have a few games to sell. If you only have a few games to sell you can look at paypal (some people have had problems with paypal on this board) or google checkout.

As far as installation goes, take a look at your host - most hosts offer a ton of different open source solutions (OS Commerce, Joomla etc). They usually have some kind of installer that takes all of the pain out of installing it yourself. The only shortcoming is that they are usually a couple of versions behind the latest.


Most of the Open source stuff has community contributions so that you can customize your installation to make it do additional things that the core program wont do. But if you want to really change the look and feel to match your existing site you will have to know about PHP, HTML and CSS and if you dont know it then a developer would be needed.


To link it to your existing site - all you would need to do is add a button with the address of the new installation's index.php.

hope that makes sense.

[ktaylor310]

osCommerce is a free online store software, but can be very complicated. If you install "as is" it will include tons of things you will never use or do not want to use. Modifying the store through the installation of contributions is not easy, and one screw-up (that you'll never find) will mess up the whole store. If you go this way you will need someone to help you. I've installed the store on two sites that only sold one product - a gift card. It was the same amount of work as other large stores I've installed - minus the input of more product information. I agree w/rpoy. If you are only selling a couple of items use something else. If you will be selling a lot, hire someone to help install and modify osCommerce.

Other things to consider - - if selling w/osCommerce (or any other shopping cart) in order to take payments by credit card you will have to purchase a merchant account and gateway (or hook into PayPal)

[pete]

What are your priorities?

If true CMS is you main goal, use Joomla. It's free and so is a free shopping cart made just for Joomla - VirtueMart.

If you are more interested in blogging, there are several free shopping carts available for WordPress, as well.

And if you are offering just a few items, say 50 or less, you can always use PayPal Buy Now Buttons or PayPal's simple cart.

I sell hosting and install cart daily for my clients. I'll be glad to help you zero in a the best solution if you will give a more detailed explanation of your goals.
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[bhartzer]

, how I can make a blog for my games website with OS Commerce

Your best bet is to install WordPress in a folder (like in yoursite.com/blog/) and then have your web designer update make the blog look like the rest of your site by creating a custom theme for it.

Then, you will want to edit your OS commerce template so that it has links to your blog. You will also want to edit your OS commerce template so it automatically pulls your blog's RSS feed into it automatically.