jerseyjoe

When creating new products, it's tedious to click "no" on every entry. I've looked but can't find the code that would change the default. Help, please? TIA

I was not having a Product Option until today. I'm building a restaurant catering operation menu. The option is "quantity" and the options are serves 10 serves 20 serves 30 serves 40 I created a product "Greek Salad" and its basic price that serves 10 is. let's say $50. Then went into Product Options and assigned it the price for each quantity serves 20 - + 50.00 serves 30 - + 100.00 serves 40 - + 150.00 and clicked "Add Product Option." I did this for each qty - but when I raised my eyes from the keyboard (I'm a heads down typist). The items were not on the list But when I went into the store and looked at the items, the repetitions are there. For example, Greek Salad now has two options for Serves 10. However, since they are not on the list on the Product Options page, I can neither delete the duplicates nor edit the original. The product is in the drop down list - but adding only creates yet another duplicate. Further, I then went to items that I had entered this morning and that had assigned options without any of the above weirdness - and as I edited each, it disappeared from the list. Have I got a bug, or what? Any idea what's happening UPDATE - forget I said anything. But let's leave the issue stand here because surely I'm not the only one who has - or will again - encounter the problem. There are two things that contribute to what I encountered and one of them is within the scope of CC design to address. 1) the admin screen is a higher res screen. I run my displays at 800 by 600 beacuse I design for everyone, not just for those who run 800 by 600. Beside which, anything higher res on my ultralight notebook is so tiny that no one can read text. 2) the list of items with Product Options defaults to 10 lines. \The eleventh item starts a new page. But the fact that the system is adding pages, rather than continuing a list longer than 10 items is obscured by the fact the Page 1 > 2 links are above the top of the screen AND off the screen to the right AND there is no Page 1 > 2 link at the BOTTOM of the list, to indicate what is happening. I will copy this email to Al in hopes that the issue is addressed in future releases. It probably is unrealistic to ask that the admin panel be more standard-res friendly - even though that is a defendably reasonable request. But at the very least, the Page 1 > 2 indicator could be moved to a more visible position at the left side of the list - at both the top and bottom,, where it can't be missed. Sheesh . . .

You will find it helpful to look at these free video tutorials: http://www.cubecart.com/site/tutorials/

That's great info. I've found one of their fonts that the client probably will accept as a alternative. THANKS!

Yes, it is exactly what I need - and as soon as I searched for a place to buy it, I see your point. I'm finding there is more than one Xerxes and they are not even similar - so far I haven't found someone who actually can sell me a copy of the version I need. If anyone has a copy or knows where I can buy one, I'd appreciate hearing.

I'm working on a CC for a Greek business. I need to create a banner in Photoshop with a font like this image: There are many genuine Greek language fonts that come up in a Google search but the above isn't really Greek, just something that catches the look. Anyone have a free version of the above so I don't have hand draw the characters?

That would be very welcome I'm sure. When you are ready to post it, send the forum moderator a PM and ask that it be made sticky as a new topic. Meanwhile, as the author of this thread, I'm now asking that the moderator unstick it. My original post has now become outdated by two significant developments and therefore is no longer be authoritative or useful. The two developments are: 1) MSAS is no longer widely available. Its replacement (JSAS) has a different interface. The steps described in my original tutorial no longer apply. 2) there is now a far more superior method available using another Open Source program. It is EasyPHP (http://www.easyphp.org/presentation.php3). In typical geek fashion, the so-called instructions for its installation and use are written for those who don't need them in the first place. The text describes the results, not a step by step tutorial on how to achieve them. That opacity is further aggravated by having originated in French, the language of the product's talented developers -and then poorly translated into English. A set of instructions that begin with the sentence, "Launch EasyPHP - We can't properly talk about the launch of EasyPHP, it's only the fact of starting the Apache and MySQL server." is not going to be very helpful. Even in its original language, it's an example of why programmers should not write manuals or tutorials. They make assumptions based on their own intimate knowledge of the software and make great leaps over what they consider obvious information. Further, in my experience, programmers are usually lacking in language proficiency and syntax. Too often they do not grasp the concept that English-language syntax, grammar and punctuation are is just as important there as they are in computer code. So, I will write a new set of instructions in English, on how to install CubeCart (or any script that requires PHP and MySQL) on devices such as a desktop, laptop or USB drive so it can be customized and/or simply used as a demo, without the need for an Internet connection and remote hosting server. It will use EasyPHP as the tool. My churlish comments aside, EasyPHP is an amazingly compact and sweet tool for its purpose.

That depends. For example, the home pages I create often are based on Category photos that are linked to the page for the category - and then the sub-cat. A example of that approach is http://vikolya.com/ To do that, I did not simply use the thumbnails of the larger photos. I made a set of photos whose only purpose is to appear on the home page and as Category photos. For that reason, in Photoshop, they were made uniformly square and then tweaked to add a bit of 3-dimensions, a border and a drop shadow. If ou could see the upload folder When you click on a category (such as the one for jewelry stands) you are taken to a page of sub-categories of jewery stands. Unfortunately, the site owner has either forgotten or doesn't want to bother preparing the sub-category graphics in the same way. You can see that a few of the photos are those I created when I built the site - and then, as the product line has evolved, the owner has not prepared the more recent photos the way I taught her. So the layout is now kind of messy. When I asked her why she allowed this messiness she explained that her sales were so strong (a dozen container loads a year from China) that "I don't have time for fooling with the photos. And the line changes every few months so it's just not worth the trouble to make nice graphics." Here's a site (http://egameland.com) with a different approach. The site is under construction, awaiting customer-supplied materials. Therefore, the home page category photos are not linked to the sub-cats. But click on the menu item "Hardware" and you can see how it follows through on a subcat page through to a product such as Sony Playstation. To identify the source and properties of any of the photos, right click and choose "Properties." Since you are not using categories on your home page, but going directly to products, you could get by with making all of the large photos a uniform size and then using their thumbnails. The key to taking a set of rectangular photos and making then either square, or a uniform rectangular size, lies in using the "canvas size" tool in Photoshop. I'm not going to present a seminar here on how to that. But if you have experience with PS it's really not difficult.

Oh, I meant to suggest that you strive for uniformly sized thumbnails, especially on the home page. You can do that easily in Photoshop > Edit > Canvas Size > fill expanded area with neutral bg color to match exisitng.

It's a clean and simple reskinning of Legend. That's a good choice from which to start because it displays well across various monitor settings. A few suggestions. Take out that big PayPal notice above your products. The smaller one below is more than adequate. Let your product thumbnails have that prime real estate. Reduce the height of the box titles. They kind of overwhelm the page and distract from the products. Reconsider the Google ads and banner ads for your competitors. Pulling traffic is one of the biggest problems faced by even the best designed store with the most appealing offerings. Why share your success with competitors? The pittance of one month's Google revenue from those ads cannot begin to equal the loss of profit that you may earn from just one sale of your own goods. Good luck with your project

A few points are worth clarifying about copyright. A copyright includes not only the original image but its content and derivations. Since I know zip about games and game characters, I'll have to use more broadly recognized content to make my point. Let's say you were to take a graphic from a Mickey Mouse comic book or advertisement and remove everything but Mickey's left ear, blow it up, change its colors and then make that appendage the entire graphic and put it on a tee-shirt. As long as what remains is recognizable as having begun as Mickey Mouse's ear, you may not reproduce (copy) and/or sell that tee-shirt, with or without profit, unless a copyright license for putting Mickey's left ear on a tee-shirt is obtained from Disney. Legally, you could not even make a single tee-shirt like that just for yourself. Point is, derivative works are the same thing as the work itself and merely changing an image does not go around the rights of its original creator. There are exceptions known in law as "fair use" for use in comment for artistic and cultural purposes such as a book or a video about the significance of Mickey's left ear in the history of graphic art or to teach people how to print tee-shirts, etc., (maybe) but the concept is a not a rigidly defined one. Each situation stands on its own and a lot depends on a court's opinion of someone's intentions. There are frequent law suits over what constitutes fair use as opposed to what is copyright violation and improper exploitation of someone else's work. Further, none of what you say: QUOTE I really dont understand how you can say we have blatantly ripped off someones site, Its a completely different graphic design, we store more content, we are cheaper by far, and do not freely advertise that the images are owned or have copyrights to any images we have on our website. As for dubious business practise, this is only dubious based on profit which we do not make, its to cover the site running costs nothing more so dubious you are wrong END QUOTE matters at all. First of all, please do not object again to the use of the word "blatant." It means "brazen," as in open defiance of rules or law. Surely that is the case here, regardless of whether you agree or not. 1) a "different graphic design" that uses recognizable characters and/or color scheme, symbols, etc. is nothing more than another example of Mickey's left ear. If the totality of the design isn't yours, it is someone else's property. 2) your offering of "more content" does not create a copyright for you. It is merely a bigger violation of more copyrights that belong to more creators. A bigger crime ca be an excuse only if you are the President or Attorney General or Prime Minister of a large country and can b.s. enough people. But the rest of us have to respect the rights of others or none of us have rights. 3) it does not matter if you claim a copyright or do not. The fact is, you are blatantly selling access to what appears to be someone else's creative product. Even if you gave the stuff away, that would still be a violation of someone else's right to copy (and control copying). Think of it this way . . . were I to make copies of Pirates of the Caribbean, then stand on a street corner and hand them out, that would be as much of a copyright violation as selling them. 4) On that same note, that fact that the revenue is not sufficient to leave you a profit beyond expenses is not merely inept business but foolish because you will need funds for a lawyer when the copyright owners come after you. An aggrieved copyright holder may very well want more than merely shutting you down. He would have every right to make an example of you by demanding enough damages to bankrupt you - or if you are a minor (which I am kind of suspecting by now) - the copyright holder could sue and demand to take away just about everything your family owns. That's been done in the area of downloaded music. The well-publicized lawsuits against teenagers at home were carefully crafted to make it clear that being a minor was no shield and parents who did not supervise their kids are financially vulnerable. Also you say: QUOTE Its also our understanding of the law. END QUOTE As judges often say, ignorance of the law is no excuse. "What do you mean that's theft? The car was sitting there with the windows rolled down and keys in the lock. Are you trying to tell me now I broke the law by taking it for a ride? Who knew that's illegal?" The only thing that can recommend a defense of "I didn't know" or "that's my understanding of the law" is that judges and lawyers need a good laugh once and a while just as much as humans do. And you go on to say: QUOTE: As for signing up for subscriptions to services, thats a personal choice which many people make based on content, END QUOTE Inducing some one to buy something you do not own is not "personal choice." The fancy word for that kind of statement is "sophistry." Look it up. I know these comments are not what you came for but someday you may be grateful for them when you hear about what similar activities have cost someone who did not heed this advice. Stick to creating your own stuff and you'll be a lot happier - and richer.

If I understand you, you too do not have a copyright. Copying and selling copies of a graphic without the express permission of the creator or licensee is a violation of that party's copyright. The owner of a copyright does not have to claim or display a copyright notice in order to establish and protect that copyright. The fact that you do not claim a copyright is irrelevant. Unless you have a copyright license from the creator of the graphic, you do not have any rights regarding the item or its derivations and edits. Or am I mis-understanding?

copyright, not copywrite. an easy way to remember . . . it refers to the right to make, distribute or sell copies. As for more than one party claiming copyright, that's not at all unusual. Think of a copyright as an infinite loaf of bread with as many slices as the owner cares to define and license to others. Thus, it is possible that more than one web site can purchase and make public claim to a copyright license for the same graphic for use as a screensaver, even though neither of them is the original creator of that graphic. Meanwhile, a tee-shirt maker and a poster printer can each claim a public copyright license if the original owner sels or grants them one. And all the while, the original copyright holder retains the entire copyright. Hope that helps . . .

hmmmm . . . one irony is that while the gamewallpapers.com site is better focused, with many fewer irrelevant links and lacks the silly "rate me," it is no less ugly - and it is arrogantly hiresolution which, it must be admitted, at least the copy-cat site avoids.

As you read my response, just remember, you asked. If the purpose of this web site is to show off disparate graphic design skills, it's adequate. If the purpose is to show how you have learned to integrate those techniques as a way of optimizing the visitor experience, the site shows the opposite. Most important of all, since this is a shopping cart, if the purpose is to sell something, it is not even close. This site is too much about the designer and his skills and his personal interests, and not enough about the customer and the products and getting the one to buy the other. The banner is totally overdone, and has nothing to do with what you are selling. It's hugely too high, effectively shouting on every page and screaming that the visitor should ignore the products and the ordering process. Its complexity is shouting, "Hey! Look at what I can do." The essential navigational links (i.e. - "home") are placed where you want them, not where experience and common use says the visitor will mostly likely look for them. Further, it appears that even after someone logs in, the boxes for login and price and favorites persist at the top of the left hand column, forcing the visitor to scroll down in order to find the navigation to the categories and products. Asking "rate my site" is what kids do, not merchants. Merchants want sales, not votes. And what's with the pages of banners and hosting links? How do pages of games keep visitors focused on buying the merchandise? Text - even in the menus - is centered and multiple colors. Is this to demonstrate that such things are possible - or it simply to slow down the user and discourage reading? I think I'd better quit before I say what I really think. I probably have pissed you off and that is sincerely not my attention. Telling you what a great job it is is not going to help you. With sincere respect, I encourage you to Google up such phrases as "web site usability" and "website usability." The second phrase will get you three times as many responses as the first variation. Reading and applying the content of the first few pages of either will yield a gold mine of ideas. Also search on phrases such as "online marketing", "internet marketing", "website navigation", etc. I don't agree with or endorse every idea they offer because there are so many exceptions and variations that hard and fast rules do not apply universally. But they are food for thoughts about creative AND effective web site design. Good luck . . .

Please tell me which version of CC did you install? And how did you install it - using Fantastico's installer or FTP upload to server? Thanks

Generally good design, but you may want to reconsider the 187 px height of your banner. Allowing for the space taken up by users' common browser settings with tools bars above, status bars below, etc, those 187px become about 40% of a 600 px high display. This may be a good opportunity to address an old question, "Yes, size does matter." But this is an exceptional case where bigger is not better. When you consider that the banner appears on every page, I think it's reasonable to ask, what good effect can that height have on a user's experience? What do you think happens by the time a user has clicked through ten pages and had to scroll down on every one, just to avoid being told what web site is being displayed? A 60 px banner could be devised that would offer the same information in a less obtrusive way, without negative consequences on sales. Finally, a huge banner is about your store. Keep in mind that an effective web site is not about your store. It is about the customers and making it easy for them to see and buy your goods. Hope that helps . . .

While I know it is not malicious, that is exactly the derision that discorages me from offering unasked for advice on this point. HAd the question not been asked, I would have said nothing. I am not the issue. My advice does not deserve ad hominem comments. This is about what your site visitors (or enough of them to be of concern) are seeing. Web design is not about pretty pictures and handsome layouts. It is about maximizing the ability of the intended users to get your message in the format that they are able to get it, not the form in which you wish to send it. The basic power of the Internet, universal unsupervised publication of content, is also its largest drawback. Anyone can publish anything in any form, even if large portions of the intended audience can't read it. The funny thing is that too many senders assume (yes, parse that, please) that just because they know what they publish, the intended recipient does too. A fundamental rule of communication was stated long before the Internet because it applies to everything from slips of paper taped to a pigeons leg, on up to a 100 volume set of encyclopedia or even a chain of television stations. "The effectiveness and efficient of any message is 100% dependent on the sender." I'm paraphrasing Marshal MacLuhan, the 20th Century expert on communication. That means that if your intended audience is the entire population of Peapack, New Jersey and you send it a message written in Urdu, do not be surprised if no one there gives it attention, even if you personally put a copy in every hand. Likewise, if you are selling something on the Internet, do not be shocked that people with monitors set a different resolution than the one you used when you designed your web pages can't see what you think you are sending them and ignore it.

BTW - when you look at the 800 by 600 display - if your monitor is the increasingly common LCD, a setting of 800 by 600 may not look too nice. The elements, especially text, may appear distorted. Too many LCD monitors, by nature, don't do low-res very well. To complicate matters further, laptops often have a wider aspect ratio (width to height) than desktop monitors. As a result, in that situation, the display, even if it fits within the display, will be "fat." Faces and objects will be stretched. Not by enough to make the display ugly or illegible. But definitely noticeable. But CRTs, the big bulky monitors that many users still have in service - and will for years to come because many of them are a sturdy as an assault tank - do an excellent job of displaying 800 by 600. While my own daily computer is a laptop with the described issues, I still have a 21 inch Panasonic desktop sitting here in front of me that I bought as "remanufactured" about 12 years ago. It probably needs degaussing and recalibration of the colors but otherwise it is still doing so well that it would be silly to get rid of it. Your web site will look good on those CRT screens even at 800 by 600, if you just do some adjustments.

[quote name='2Tall' date='May 23 2007, 06:45 AM' post='128219' Stevie what do you mean about the right column being out of the body ?

Actually, I think you need need more than just a re-install of CC. It appears that you removed required root files. I suggest that you contact your hosting provider and ask them to reinstall your domain from a backup. (They do provide backups, . . . yes?) That's a simple, 15 second thing and they shouldn't balk at it. To help you avoid a repetition of the problem, please tell us how you did accomplish the CC installation. Did you use Fantastico? Or did you upload its files to your server using an FTP program?

Hi Sir William, may I ask why it won't work in a iframe? While I don't know Sir William's reasons, I can tell you that if you intend to use the PayPal Gateway, they say don't do it. Here's a link to the PayPal developer forum explanation And if SW offers a different reason, trust it. He knows.

If you did your own installation, you definitely did create a MySQL Db, and it follows logically that you did assign a user name and password to it. Logical because otherwise CC would not work. Question - how did CC get installed? Did you upload the files yourself, or did use Fantastico?

Did you watch the tutorial video - and did you note that it told you to upload the CONTENTS of the folder called upload, NOT the folder itself? And did you note the instructions on how to use the /install/ folder to do the installation of the contents of the upload folder? Respectfully, those instructions need your attention.

Thanks for that info. Ise that definite that ther is no single upgrade script? If so, I'm still not finding the upgrade files for step by step. Do you know where they are? TIA