jerseyjoe

One thing that has stumped me - and I've not found after a search - is which code I should edit to move the search box and login/registration links (legend skin) approximately 20px to the left (or whatever)? Anyone, please? TIA

We have a municipal ordinance that requires a person walking a dog to pick up any parsed code that happens along the way and deposit it, wrapped in plastic, in a trash receptacle (bins you call there there, right?). Most people accomplish this by inserting their hand into a plastic bag and then, when needed, pick up the offending object, and turn the bag inside out; important step that last bit.

If I understand you correctly, you want Categories on the Home Page, see this. www.vikolya.com All I did was edit the Home Page by installing a table, three across and as many down as needed, insert a category image in each cell and then make each image a link to the same target as that category in the Shop by Category menu. Of course, if you only have a limited number of products, let's say a dozen or so, you could put those images on the Home Page and link directly to them.

How does that affect apostrophe display? I'm not getting your point.

I was also wondering why my address bar on my web page showed that too? I have aguess at the cause - but not a clue for the sure. I've found a a discussion on a web site where a lot of windows programmers hang out. They were fooling with getting non-standard characters to show in the title bar by forcing it to use a font that contained the desired character sets. An apostrophe, to a computer, is a character based on a specific code. If a font set lacks a certain character, it will, instead, display the code itself. So I think that whichever font is being used for the titlebar, it lacks the character for an apostrophe. So now the issuare two . . . 1) learn which font sets have an apostrohe - and 20 learn how to get the browser use them Keeping in mind, the font chosen must be on everyone's computer. Otherwise, changing the font is a wasted effort. Anyone know how to do this without making things worse?

I'mwondering about your hosting service. Who are you using? Wait, I see youareusing 1 and 1. So the next issue is, are your certain that you are an Apache server? Did youthen go to the "intall" process? All 5 steps?

Thanks for the clarification. As I said, I have no intention of doing any harm to CC. In fact, I have CC's copyright removal terms quoted in my written proposals along with notice covering that portion of a store that is my own copyright, as well as the copyright for any mods that may be included in any particular installation. I require that a client sign this before we start a store. Joe

That's a good question and I'm curious to hear the answer. I've already done it for a licensed shopping cart. I'm not trying to mislead anyone or cheat CubeCart. It's just that I learned early on that the client for whom I created the store became very confused when the completed installation was turned over. By substituting my own logo (etc.) throughout the entire Admin Control Panel the confusion ended.

Basically, you have two choices. 1) set up a password protected folder on your current web site and install Cube Cart there. The advantage of this method is, you can share the progress with any working partners or parties who have to know. When you are ready for Prime Time, you can move the installation to a public folder or just un-hide your completed installation and use a splash page linked to that folder. 2) install CubeCart on your local hard drive or even on a thumb drive. There is a tutorial here in these forums on how to do that using the Mambo Stand Alone Server (MSAS) or its heir from Joomla (JSAS). Either works well. The tutorial here will spare you a lot of headaches. Search for it using the key word "thumb" or MSAS. It will be easier to create (no uploads / downloads) and you don't need to move the files around. You can create a copy of the original download and work on it all you wish. Make backups as you go along into other new folders. If you screw up, just overwrite from the original or a recent version. Moving a finished cart from a local drive to a server so it can be published is not as simple as option one above but there are people here who will advise you when you are ready to do it. Forget about Front Page. It may be a great tool for rapid development of web pages, and even entire web sites, that are built on straight HTML, but Cube Cart, and a whole world of other valuable programs, are now created using the powerful combo of PHP and the Db MySQL. These programs also use files written in CSS, TPL, JS and so forth, usually as modules - and those make customizing a CubeCart much easier. CC is very well done in that regard. Front Page has almost no utility for working on pages written in PHP - and what little there is requires outside the box tricks. To work on a site built like CC, you'll want some basic tools: A strong and dependable FTP client for moving files back and forth. There are partisans for various programs. After having been disappointed by too many, I have found satisfaction with WS_FTP. There's a free trial version. After that 30 day period expired, I gladly paid for the pro version. It's the only FTP client I found that can be depended upon to complete a long unload / download despite a bad ISP connection or balky server. A versatile code editor. Customizing CC requires that you edit various files. That's not difficult once you learn the concept. People here will provide tons of free support - and there is a sister web site (cubecart.org) where all the experts hang out and offer both free and paid modifications, known as 'mods," that add functions beyond the richness of the basic CubeCart software. The best tool I have found for editing all those files is PHPdesigner. It's free. Configure it to be the default editor for all those files types except your Db. To edit Db - and that is not required unless you get into some serious but fun stuff - your hosting company should provide the free (and strangely named) "phpMYadmin." This comes with the cPanel that better hosts provide to their customers. cPanel also includes a small - and not well done but adequate - utility for creating Dbs that CubeCart will complete at installation. Good luck. Holler if you need help

Thank you for those details. They may help someone else diagnose your problem. I mis-understood the problem, thinking it was the classic problem encountered at Setp 3 in the installation. KLet's see if someone more familar with your issue can step up.

Can you be more specific? Those are unfamilar generalities. What program are you in CC? cPAnel? I can't see what you are see unless you tell me. What screen are you on? Exactly (word for word) what does it say?

Maybe that's a typo (I'm the world's biggest offender) so don't take offense) but it seems to me that you should be looking for www.mysite.com/shop. If that is what you realy mean - and are getting a "not found", it suggests that you have not really installed the store. Uploading is not installing, any more than moving in furniture is the same as decorating. There's more to be done. Try www.mystore.com/install (or if you have installed in a folder) www.mystorecom/folder/install and that will start the process of installation. If you have not already done so, read the "read me.txt" file that was packed in the download. Unless you've been playing with programs based on PHP / MySQL for a while, you can't bluff your way to an installation. There are no secrets. Just a few not-so-obvious steps. Best of luck.

Think of CC as an automobile. You have moved the body, the chassis and all the interior goodies (radio, seats, etc.) Now you have to move the engine (the database). There are articles here in the forum on how to do that. Use search and they should come up. Don't be intimidated. It's not rocket science. Pay special attention to the instructions on how to make a back up and restore of a Db. Doing that before you try to move the Db will let you go to sleep tonight. Good luck!

see my tutorial on this subject, It is based on cPanel so if you are using a different Control Panel, you may have to do so interpreting. http://buildinghosting.com/CC_Step3_cure.htm Post another message in this thread if that doesn't work. Good luck

Thanks for the sound tech advice regarding the issue. As for the rest, what I have to say about the general design, and those fonts in particular, is not fit for public posting. See my PM, to follow.

It's interesting that the default text uses the American-ism "check" but almost all other national dialect differences in the /en file defer to the Queen's Spelling (behaviour, flavour, etc.). There are other issues in the language file that deserve attention. For example, there's the disturbing, "Your session has been destroyed" message that jolts a user on log out. A code writer knows what that means but it causes the average user to be scared spitless in this world of file-destroying viruses. Then there are geo-political differences. USA order forms do not ask for "Town" or "County," the defaults in CubeCart's /en file. We here use "City" and ignore "County" as meaningful delivery information. We do not commonly refer to "Postal Code," although that phrase is understood as what we call "Zip Code" or simply, "Zip." So, I have created a language file version based on common American usage. It's around here for download. Just upload it over the default version. But before you do, open it in a PHP editor and make any changes you wish. Some of my edits are idiosyncratic, such as inserting apostrophes where needed and generally fixing the grammatical inventions and syntaxial fantasies and punctuation howlers that I find common among programmers, such as "data is" or "media is" when they really mean, "data are" and "media are" (both words being plural), and so on. You may not agree so, caveat lector.

In the ACP > General Settings > Browser Title, it's easy to edit the text that the visitor's browser bar will display - but I'm not getting what I want. For example, apostrophes appear as "& # 39 ;" (I had to separate the characters to show it here) which I recognize as the key code but there must be a way to respect the language and display possessive case and other uses of this valuable bit of syntax. Ideas, please?

Please see: http://www.winterbottomsantiques.com/index.php I've removed the title bar graphic. If you roll your cursor over what appears to be an empty space above the first item in the list (home page) you will highlight - and thus reveal - that the phrase "Shop by Category" is still there. I know how to remove the phrase - but what I really need to do is remove the space where the phrase appears so the Home Page links will move up in its place and be level with the center column. How to do, please? BTW, the expanding menu uses the excellent Advanced Category mod available on cubecart.org. TIA

I'm in the process of building a CC for local pizza shop. He wants orders to come by fax. His drivers have state-of-the-art wireless credit card wipers. So he needs neither a payment gateway nor shipping module. I'll install a form that the shopping cart will fill out. Customers will print it out and fax it. I think that's just about what you want. That form is, as ansuk says, already in Cube Cart. You only need to configure that as the only payment option and you have what you are asking for.

You said, "Whoever you use, make sure they offer good bandwidth, and good support. More often than not, people are complaining because they can't get in touch with the hosting company to sort some problem out." Respectfully, I disagree. If you look at what is popularly offered and shouted about, you'll find that footprint (server space) and bandwidth (volume, not speed of the connection) are heavily touted. That's because those are basically meaningless metrics. Those who push them know that and I discount their integrity and ultimate trustworthiness for that reason alone. Useless promises are a cousin to false promises. How many shopping carts consumes 100mb of space? And how many need a few gigs of up/down traffic per months? I'm willing to make a money bet that of all the carts shown in the forums here, and all those listed in the Sales section of CC as examples, fewer than 10% exceed 25 mb of space or have anywhere near a gig of traffic per month. Those two measurements, in my opinion, to put the best possible face on them, are useless in choosing a host. Server space and bandwidth are cheap. Here's what really matters: 1) how long has the host been in business? 2) does it publish - without your begging for it - a verifiable, generous list of clients whom you can query regarding their years of experience with the host? 3) what Administrative Control Panel does it offer? If it's cPanel - you have the best. If it's Exim - and unless they have changed their email system - get ready to have your system clogged with spam. If it's a home grown panel of their own, go back and consider item #2 again. 4) What tech support do they provide? Tech Support is not cheap. a $10 per year host cannot provide any worth mentioning. Until you get into the $20 per month range, you won't get much of any Tech Support when the emergency hits. Regardless of price, can you get support on the phone at 3am New Years Day? Will they respond to an email ticket within an hour? Who provides that Tech Support. Is the person you speak with an outsource in India, Bulgaria, Dominican Republic, or maybe even someplace you never even heard of? Or is he/she in North America or England or some other country with native-speakers of English? Does your hosting package include a variety (not just one) of sohisticated Web Traffic Analysis tools such as Awstats, Urchin, Webalizer, etc. so you can find out what's happening or not happening when you do promotions or pay-per-click ads? Do you get access to complementary programs such as forums, support tickets for your customers, etc? Bottom line, unless you are building a store just for the experience to add to your skills, if you expect to build a business and make a profit, low price and fluff-ball metrics should be the last thing on your mind. And don't kid yourself that you can start out with cheap hosting and then upgrade after you are making real money. You will never get there that way. Just do a search in these forums and you will find a tale of woe almost everyday about hosting companies that disappear, taking all the files with them, hosts who put your domain in their name and then hold you up for more bucks, hosts who . . . There's more, but I hear myself ranting - and that's not pretty.

In Legend, where do I set the width of the left column (Shopping by Categories) and the center column? Is the first (the left coumn) in the viewCat.tpl where it says: <table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" class="tblList"> or somewhere else? And where for the center column? TIA

Sounds like you intend to import a list directly into the database, perhaps a list of Catageries and/or Products, without having to tediously key them into the CC ACP. If that's what you want, go to CubeCart.org and check out the CSV import mod by Sir William. If you are dealing with a large amount of data, the cost will be worth it. That would alow you to key your data into a spreadsheet or import them from any of the usual Db formats such as a comma or tab delimited file, complete with pre-defined references between specific items and their respective images, product descriptions, prices, etc. and then upload the whole thing in one shot into the database. As for uploading the images themselves, assuming that the image names are matched to the products, you would simply use FTP to put the images into the upload/images folder. CC includes functions that will convert the images to thumbnails and limit sizes in different locations.

That's an unusal problem but there are not sufficient details (e.g: browser, etc.) to attempt to duplicate the problem as the first step in fixing it. While waiting for help from someone with more diagnostic skills than I, take a look in your hosting control panel. If you have a featrue called "Fantastico" it will install CC for you in a few clicks.

Also, there is an excellent (hardly does it justice) free editor for PHP, MySQL, CSS, TPL, JS, HTML, etc. called PHPdesigner. See www.mpsoftwareweb.com Even though it is nominally in beta, I have been using it for close to a year and have never had a problem.

I'm meeting with a new client soon and need inspiration. (I do not copy - but I could use something to jog my creative juices). TIA