Basic Configuration of Your Store

Click on the icon once you have activated osCommerce through your control panel or go to http://yourdomain.com/admin. Login to your password protected directory with the user name and password you created using Web Shell/Protect. If logged in, you should see:

A good place to get started here is in "My Store". This setup is like most other carts. Highlight a title, click on it and either hit the "Edit" button on the right to change its value or type it in the text box and hit "Update". The entire back end of osCommerce follows this basic procedure and is fairly easy to use for anyone with basic knowledge of a PC, website administration or the internet in general.

Installing osCommerce through the control panel

Editing the PHP (source code) file to customize the HOME page and settings.

If you already are familiar with the PHP scripting language skip the rest of this tutorial. The following is for beginners or those who have never edited code before.

Basic Configuration of your main Storefront page: www.yourdomain.com/catalog/default.php

Assuming your cart is in English:

There are 2 PHP documents you should edit in order to customize your storefront.

Login to your site via the control panel, click on WebShell and Download/open these 2 documents that you will see in the WebShell file management system. When you highlight the pages in WebShell, you will notice open and edit buttons on the right hand side.

Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/includes/languages/english.php
Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/includes/languages/english/default.php

This is not a PHP lesson, this is the simple procedure to help you perform basic customization:

2 important things to remember if you've never edited PHP before:

Any line that starts with "define" can be edited, for example:
define('HEADING_TITLE','What\'s New Here?') could be changed to:
define('HEADING_TITLE', 'Welcome to Our Store!')

Do not touch anything else in blue unless you know what you are doing!

Open default.php using WebShell or WordPad:

define('TEXT_MAIN', 'This is a demonstration online-shop, any products purchased will not be delivered nor billed. Any information seen on these products are to be treated fictional. If you wish to download this sample shop, or to contribute to this project, please visit the <a href="http://oscommerce.com">support site</a>. This shop is based on ' . PROJECT_VERSION . '.');

define('TABLE_HEADING_NEW_PRODUCTS', 'New Products For %s');
define('TABLE_HEADING_UPCOMING_PRODUCTS', 'Upcoming Products');
define('TABLE_HEADING_DATE_EXPECTED', 'Date Expected');

if ($category_depth == 'products' || $HTTP_GET_VARS
['manufacturers_id']) {
define('HEADING_TITLE', 'Let\'s See What We Have Here');
define('TABLE_HEADING_IMAGE', '');
define('TABLE_HEADING_MODEL', 'Model');
define('TABLE_HEADING_PRODUCTS', 'Product Name');
define('TABLE_HEADING_MANUFACTURER', 'Manufacturer');
define('TABLE_HEADING_QUANTITY', 'Quantity');
define('TABLE_HEADING_PRICE', 'Price');
define('TABLE_HEADING_WEIGHT', 'Weight');
define('TABLE_HEADING_BUY_NOW', 'Buy Now');
define('TEXT_NO_PRODUCTS', 'There are no products to list in this category.');
define('TEXT_NO_PRODUCTS2', 'There is no product available from this manufacturer.');
define('TEXT_NUMBER_OF_PRODUCTS', 'Number of Products: ');
define('TEXT_SHOW', 'Show:');
define('TEXT_BUY', 'Buy 1 \'');
define('TEXT_NOW', '\' now');
define('TEXT_ALL', 'All');
} elseif ($category_depth == 'top') {
define('HEADING_TITLE', 'What\'s New Here?');
} elseif ($category_depth == 'nested') {
define('HEADING_TITLE', 'Categories');
}
?>

What\'s New Here? Which is the page "heading title" can be easily modified. As can anything I've highlighted in RED.

Tips:

1. Make copies of english.php and default.php in a separate folder before editing the source code. This way, if you inadvertently mess up the syntax you can always start over with the untouched file. Failure to do so could destroy your cart.

2. You can insert some HTML tags like or in between the ' ' where the text resides. For example: define('TEXT_SHOW', 'Show:');

3. When you are done editing any PHP file, upload it back where you got it from and refresh your storefront page to see the changes. In WebShell make sure the properties of the PHP file are marked as "Executable" on the right hand side.