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Hmm, interesting! There is a 3rd party mod to display categories on the front page (see www.cubecartforums.org), however, there isn't a "popularity" count for categories, only for products. You could easily sort by the qty. of products in each category - but this wouldn't be popularity. To do it well, you would need to add a popularity field to the categories table, and write code to increment it on product and category view pages. Jason

You should be able to export the product inventory table from OSc into a csv file. From that, you will be able to create a CSV file that you can import into the CubeCart inventory table. This will require use of myPHPAdmin. If you only need products imported (ie you'll manually create categories), this is a pretty straight forward task. You will need a spreadsheet program - OpenOffice works great at creating CSV files. Jason

That domain is running on a Windows Server, does your hosting company have some kind of control Panel to change file permissions. You won't be able to do this via your FTP client. I think, that this last stage is not really required - you could try editing "config.inc.php" and changing the "installed" variable to 1 Then remove the install directory and it should work. I know this question has been asked before - so search the forum for the previous answer, which should have more information. Jason

Not as part of the standard install. There are 3rd party mods for this- visit cubecartforums.org Jason

The documentation for the template engine can be found at: http://www.phpxtemplate.org It looks pretty powerful stuff. In fact, I've just uploaded the new class (0.4.0 to see if it works - CubeCart is using an old version), and all is fine. Not too sure if there is much difference (speed or features), the file is larger, but it looks to have much more comments than the old file. Jason

This error message is related to directory permissions on the server. /images/uploads and /images/uploads/thumbs should be writeable - so set them to 777, which will allow PHP to create/write files. Jason

Hi, This article has been posted on a mailing list I subscribe to. I'll be of interest mainly to UK online retailers. Jason Online rights and wrongs A recent ruling has given online shoppers greater rights when buying computers and electrical goods, says Alan Wilson Friday July 27, 2007 Guardian Unlimited Online shoppers can have more rights than those buying from a high street retailer. http://money.guardian.co.uk/experts/legal/...2135107,00.html If you are one of the growing number of consumers who prefer to buy computers, software and electronic goods online then you should get a fairer deal from this month after an intervention from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Following action from the OFT, dabs. com was among a number of firms who agreed to change their terms and conditions, which previously misled consumers about their right to return goods and get a refund. Article continues The amended contract is set to serve as a model for the online IT market - it is unthinkable other suppliers would carry on using the offending terms. The amended terms and conditions include those that made the consumer pay the cost of carriage when returning faulty goods, imposed time limits for reporting defects, and refunds being conditional on the return of cancelled goods. A further condition excluded the company's liability for errors in the descriptions of goods. Ray Hall, director of the OFT, said: "The office welcomes the changes made by Dabs - consumers now have fairer and clearer terms and conditions. "IT suppliers that sell to consumers online, by mail order, or telephone must make sure their consumer contracts do not limit consumers' rights." Know your rights Online shoppers have stronger rights than those buying from a high street retailer due to the Distance Selling Regulations (DSRs), which came into force in October 2000. These state that consumers must be given clear information before they buy, including details of the goods or services offered, delivery and payment arrangements, the name and address of a supplier - crucial information if you're buying a PC and might need to contact a firm if a problem arises - and information about your right to cancel. Online shoppers have the unconditional right to cancel an order within a seven day cooling-off period starting the day after delivery. You do not have this right if you buy from a shop. The right to cancel is in addition to your statutory right to reject faulty or misdescribed goods under the Sale of Goods Act. If you do cancel an order the trader must refund your money, as soon as possible and within 30 days at the latest. You may be required to send back the goods and pay the costs of doing so, but only if you were told about this in writing before making the contract. If you fail to return the goods and your contract requires it, the trader can charge you for the cost of recovering them. But the refund can never be made conditional on you returning the goods - your right to a refund is absolute whether you return the goods or not. Bear in mind also that you can never be made responsible for the cost of returning faulty goods or substitute goods, which have been supplied where the ordered goods are not available. In these cases the cost of returning the items and arrangements for their collection must be borne by the trader. In all cases, however, you are under a duty of care to look after the goods while they are in your possession. You must also make them available for collection on receiving written notice from the trader. If you send them back you should package them carefully, ensure they are correctly addressed and use a reliable delivery service. Exceptions to the rules If the goods are made to your own specification or clearly personalised the agreement is not covered by the rules. This also means the cooling off period might not apply if you order a computer manufactured to a unique design. Importantly, though, a relatively standard product such as a PC assembled from a standard range of components is not exempt, so don't let the trader use this as an excuse for denying your right to cancel. Most computer software is sealed and needs to be unsealed before use. If you break the seal on any software you buy you lose the right to cancel and the DSRs no longer apply. However, you should be told about this in writing before you enter into the contract. You should also be informed about the main characteristics of the software, including the hardware requirements and any limitations to the software's functionality. If you opt for a separate add-on service contract for installing your computer or for support and repairs, you must be told in writing about your right to cancel this contract as well as the goods contract. But the cancellation period for goods and services might not always be the same. If you consent to a service starting before the end of the usual seven working day cancellation period, your right to cancel is terminated once the work starts. Don't forget you have the legal right to claim a refund plus the cost of returning the goods from the trader if they are faulty or misdescribed. Whatever a contract says, these rights can never be taken away from you. You are entitled to insist on financial compensation and do not have to accept a credit note. Also, the trader cannot avoid giving a refund by blaming the manufacturer - responsibility always rests with the trader. Don't delay your complaint for too long as you might be judged to have accepted the goods if you leave it more than a few weeks after delivery. In these circumstances the right to a refund might be lost, but you can ask for a repair or replacement instead. However, if you agree to let the trader try to fix faulty goods this would not affect your rights. If the repair fails you can still reject the goods and claim a refund. When buying online it is important to get the geographical address of the trader - you will need it if you want to complain, and your rights can vary depending on where the trade is based. You cannot assume an internet trader is based in the UK simply because the web address has ".co. uk" in it. Although EU countries have similar legislation to the UK the law is very different in the USA. Generally, you will find it difficult to solve consumer problems outside the EU so it's not a good idea to buy computer equipment from traders based on the other side of the globe.

Hi! What a nice 1st post :-) I also found the forums here to be a great resource. Most questions have been asked previousl, and its often much quicker to search for a few mins, than to post and wait for someone to answer. I wish you all the best with your new store, Jason

It will depend on who is doing the work, the support offered and the CubeCart experience of the person/company doing the work. Would this price include a dedicated server? If so, its much more reasonable. For a company to pay £3000, it may well be a board level descision, not just down to one person - and they may want to deal with a Ltd company for a supplier. If you're dealing with a private individual (ie working from home in the evenings), I'd say it was expensive. They can't put serious time into the project (3 or 4 hours/night max, if they have a day job), and any queries will have to wait until the evening for a response. If you paid £3K for a store and the server was down, but the designer was unreachable, you'd be pretty mad. However, for an full-time buisness, that isn't unreasonable - they would have much higher overheads. But I still think it is expensive if they are familar with CC. If the store needed extensive customisation (you've not mentioned this), the price will of course be higher - and can rapidly get into bigger numbers. They should also be able to offer proper office hours service and take telephone calls, or do face-to-face meetings. Here is a real example on whats possible: This morning, I've installed CC3.0.17, with a few free and paid-for mods (purchased today), in the space of 2 hours. (also involves coffee). Payment is via PayPal IPN - so easy and quick to set-up. PayPal Pro would need more work than PayPal IPN, and I need to find/purchase a skin - or using someone to design one -usign a 3rd party will take more time, and cost more than an off-the-shelf one. My customer is a graphic artist (TV graphics), so should have a banner (or can make one), so that leaves hosting, and SSL (hosting is in place, and SSL is quick and easy to sort out). If I found a skin today, the difference would be PayPal pro (and SSL), and a lot more money. If I charged £1000, for this mornings work, it would be nice :-) I could then have £500 for a really special custom skin, and be 1/2 your price. The mods & cc licence would come to less that £50 - the skin price will vary wildly. I'm not sure of the nature of your question, have you been quoted the fiqure, or are you looking to charge this figure? If you're looking to charge that price, and you find someone willing pay - superb :-) I would be more inclined to price lower, but have an option of monthly support/retainer, say 1 day/month. This can be on-going, and keeps you in contact with the customer for when they want a new system/upgrade. That type of system can work really well. If you've been quoted this, post a detailed specification on cubecartforums.org and invite quotes with sample stores by PM. Jason

Hi Ryan, I've just placed a test order, and your store appears to function as I expect. However, I was able to order a ~$900 gun, and your store was offering free shipping to the UK.. You can restrict your shipping locations by ISO code. I'm a bit confused on your comment about the store being "non-functional" - can you please eleborate? Navigation, search etc all work fine. I can't see any mods on your store, apart from the SEO mod (which is free). So you have a working store, and your only expenditure is CubeCart licence. Did you pay $160 for VBulletin? The CubeCart license is curently $89, but was on discount for some time - so you may have paid less. So, you paid close to 1/2 the price of the Board software on something fundemental to selling your goods online. When you signed up a lease on your physical store, did it have the sign/tills/decor you needed - or did you have to pay extra for these "mods" As it stands, you've not had a lot of expenditure for your online store, compared to what you could have paid. There are quite a few free mods that would make a big difference to your store, and also a few free skins, that you may want to consider. For free and commerical mods/skins, visit www.cubecartforums.org and www.cubecart.org - see you over there! Jason

Hi Ryan, I can't see many inbound links in to your store - and you don't have many pages indexed on Google. If you've read any SEO forums, you'll know that you need some links to your site. Place your site url as your signature in the forums you frequent (including this one) -obviously, don't spam. Try to find similar sites to link to you. PR isn't all its cracked up to be - there are other ways to bring in customers. Search for CubeCart mods on google- the #1 site has PR0..... Searching for cubecart skins has a PR4 for #1 site. Do you advertise anywhere? This will include Google Products (Base), and MSN product search - both are free, and I get many sales from Google Product search. Look at your stats -where are your visitors coming from? A smallish store should get somewhere between 10 and 30 visitors (not hits) a day. As a guide, I set-up a store last November, and she has a PR0, but gets about 10 visitors/day- she's done no promotion for various reasons. As a last resort, consider changing hosts (or asking them to move you to a different server/ip address) - a site sharing your servers IP address may be blacklisted by google... Hopefully you can see there is quite a bit to look at. The only thing you can measure well is visitors and where they come from (and how they found you). Google will re-evaluate PR every few months, so any change will take time to have an effect there. However, if you're not using Google Products/MSN product search, sort it out now, and once the feed has been validated, you should see increased traffic. Obviously there are many things to influence sales, so I'd concentrate on a traffic increase for now. I assume you are having some sales (just to ensure your cart is working) Regarding the price of CC with Mods -you'll find its still good value, if you look at other options. A BBS will be different, as many BBS owners are running their board for fun, so are happy to share their code - there is little money in that area of the web. Stores, however, are all about money - and whilst there are many free mods/skins, authors soon latched on to the fact that store owners are buinesses people and may not want to learn PHP/CSS/XHTML -hence the commercial side. Not many ecommerce solutions will try to do everything. That said, for less than $100, you should be able to get a pretty good CC store, fully licenced. If you're serious about the project, that is a very small cost. I note you're using one of the default skins, and the SEO mod is the free version, so apart from the licence fee, you've probably had very little outlay. I hope this is of some help and encouragement. Jason

Just to clarify - CubeCart is not Open Source, but I know what you mean. I tested CC for a few weeks before purchasing my 1st licence, I'm very happy with the community and level of 3rd party services. I hope you are able join in the community, here and on the other sites. Jason

As seen in the CubeCart license agreement at http://www.cubecart.com/site/faq/license.php You are NOT permitted to: # modify and/or remove any copyright notices or labels on the software on each page and in the header/footer and output html of each source file. This includes "(Powered by CubeCart)" in the browser title and "Powered by CubeCart ©Devellion Limited" page footer. This may only be done if a license key has been purchased. [ more info ] I think thats pretty clear. Whilst you are retaining the message, you have changed the code. To be honest, you didn't need to move the message to test the software, knowing that it will be automatically removed if a licence fee is paid. My personal feeling is that you've had to move (or clone) it, but you've kept it as prominent at the other links on the page - so you've not hidden or obscured the message in any way, so no harm done. However, to follow the letter of the license agreement, you're wrong, and I can't really see how moving the copyright message will help you test the software. Jason

www.cubecartforums.org www.cubecart.org Jason

Hi, CubeCart mainly uses StyleSheets for layout and style control. Your overlapping problem is due to the height of the "latestProds" style. Edit /skins/classic/styleSheets/layout.css Find; .latestProds { float: left; text-align: center; width: 131px; height: 120px; } Tweak the height and width to suit. I would generally use bigger thumbnails (say 100px wide) and perhaps have only 2 products across the screen. Back-up the file first..... There is quite a big market for 3rd party skins (and mods/tweaks), visit www.cubecartforums.org to for more info. Jason

Not much more to add to the above - but I'll try... I come from a Industrial/Research automation background - and are very familiar with "one more thing" - normally this requires expensive physical items and days of extra design and software. The haggling usually took place towards the end of the project when deadlines werelooming.. The most important piece of work in a project is the specification -if you didn't write one (or ask your client to write one that you agreed to), you don't have much to bargain with. Your next project will be better :-) Obviously, if you're only making beer money - you can't spend a week on creating a specification. I generally have a .pdf document that outlines all the cubecart features and many of the 3rd party mods. I then have a generic specification that contains the basics which is tweaked. It looks good, but isn't much work to send out. If the store is currently trading, do not take it work without consulting with your client. Leave this as a last resort. Do change any passwords (so they can't back-up the store - obviously take your own backup) The goals here are for you to get paid, and your client to have a store that meets their specifications. To get to these goals, both of you will need to compromise. Find out exactly what they need, if the list you've provided is their entire feedback, its not good enough! They need to tell you *exactly* what they need. I'd expect a paragraph or more for each item, or example web sites, in any case, more than a single line per item. Write the amendments down, and make sure you tell them exactly what they will get, and get them to agree. I'd then write to them, listing the changes required, and explain what parts you feel are above your original quotation. It would be worth including your original specification/quotation, so that can see the difference. Depending on the profit made, you may feel its worthwhile to split any costs (you should be putting a labour charge down for your time!) This should be seen as a sign of goodwill, obviously if the additional costs are very low and your profit was high, I'd be inclined to swallow the small loss at the benefit of a better relationship with your client. Make sure they know the costs you're absorbing whatever the decision. How things go will depend on the type of company and your negotiation skills. By being a bit more methodical, and making them explain their requirements in greater detail, it should make sure they treat the project and you a bit more seriously. If they can casually fire off an email and you'll jump on the changes, they will keep doing it. Jason

Hi, use the default CubeCart PayPal system for now (disable Estelles mod) - and make sure the total is correct. This will rule out any easy-to-do typos on the 3rd party mod. If the total is still wrong, double-check your PayPal set-up, and post back more information- ie your CC invoice and the PayPal invoice. There are various settings for PayPal, some include Tax, and Shipping -so its best to start with a stock, working system before you use mods. If the default Cubecart PayPal system works fine, then as Steve suggests, the best place to discuss this would be www.cubecartforums.org Jason

Not with the standard install of CubeCart. There are 3rd Party mods to achive this kind of thing. View the 3rd Party modifications sites for more information. Know these mods have been discussed this week, so there will be some info on www.cubecartforums.org Jason

Its worth mentioning that this can be overridden via .htaccess If you want a php or other page to display, add the following line to your .htaccess file in the root of your site; DirectoryIndex trythis.html index.php Normally, it will find index.php as the others will not exist- however, you can use an alternate php/cgi/htm/html/shtml file (or anything else your server will handle). I don't personally like intro pages. Most visitors will find your site via Google/MSN/Yahoo, and will probably land on an internal page, so will never see your intro page. The only real justification I can think of, is where the site is primarily flash based, and the media needs loading before it can continue. Jason

Hmm - thats right Steve... I totally forgot they wanted x% extra for Credit card payment. Hmm! (and Grrr!) Chatting to my GF here, she paid 1.3% extra for £920 flight to AUS (booked via Ebookers). Does anyone here have a recent internet merchant agreement that fancy reading? Obviously, if we all had to go back to Cheques & Postal orders, the cost of processing would be more than a few %. I'm not sure where I stand - if the buiness model is of low margins and high turnover (ie flights/concert bookings etc), then I can see why you need to charge. I wouldn't pay a credit card surcharge on most goods, espescially where I can get it elsewhere. Jason

Sounds like a typical night out in my town... Jason

Hi Clevershopper, Can you please abide by the license agreement and reset the Cubecart copyright style or purchase a licence to remove it completely? Cheers! Jason

Hi, as this is a cPanel system, its fairly easy. You can either ask your new host to copy the account (you'll supply them with the account details on your old server) - its fairly quick.. The other way is to generate home directory backup, and then a mysql database backup. Download these - double-check they look ok (the database back-up will contain lots of SQL statements, you can open it in notepad) On your new host, providing it is also cPanel based, you should be able to restore from these back-ups. View the cPanel video tutorial. I also assume you'll have some kind of overlap, ie won't halt the old account immediently. Jason

Hi, as this concerns a 3rd party mod, you'll get a better reply from the author, or in www.cubecartforums.org It sounds like a mis-understanding on Googles Part- or you've got your CG account set for BuyNow type buttons, rather than full integration. However, chat to the Mod author who should be able to help. Jason

I've had this problem for ages - sometimes it works, other times it doesn't... If you're not using IE- see if it works with that. I wonder if its the SEO mod... What happens if you disable it? (no need to enable seo mod during development, apart from testing some mods) I now use basic .htaccess password, or put the store into a subdomain, its fairly easy to move. Jason