Post by thienvk » Wed Dec 01, 2010 12:56 pm

@Qphoria
can you dev Store Credit extension ?
concept: add fund from credit card, paypal or other payment method

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Post by Qphoria » Wed Dec 01, 2010 1:41 pm

thienvk wrote:@Qphoria
can you dev Store Credit extension ?
concept: add fund from credit card, paypal or other payment method
I already have a store credit extension

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Post by alex1 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 1:57 pm

I just converted 2 of my sites from OpenCart to Magento simply because there are too many small things that OpenCart lacks in 1.4.9.2. I have a few more sites still running on OpenCart, but these are the features I think are essential for OpenCart 1.5 to be able to compete:

1) Have Google Checkout as a bundled Payment Option
2) Fix the duplicate URL issue (I read the topics, but even with canonical statements, Google still picks up the non canonical and causes problems)
3) Fix the non SEO urls in Google Base
4) Allow Customers to be able to do a shipping quote estimate w/o having to go through the registration process
5) Make it easier to setup OpenCart without having to manually delete all of the countries and zones that don't apply to you
6) Make default "does not subtract from stock" and more than "Quanity of 1" as default for those who drop ship
7) Show the brands Logo on the brands page (what's the point of uploading the logo in the first place if it's never shown?)
8) The ability to change the title of the page (so it doesn't have to be the name of the category)
9) Easier way to do excel/csv/xml imports
10) Ability to add or remove fields in the checkout process of what you ask the customer
11) Ability to have a specific field in the admin where you update the tracking number for the customer, and the customer receives it as a hyperlink so they can just click on the tracking number
12) Make "home" links SEO from the start
13) Fix the search! The existing search system is not very good.
14) Better use of tags, maybe a page that lists all of the tags used (helps with SEO), similiar to manufacture page
15) the user being returned back to the site after making a payment with PayPal (or Google Checkout)
16) sales tax report - so you can easily calculate how much sales tax you collected
17) Ability to turn system cache on or off (it causes more problems when it's on, on a small install)
18) Google Sitemap module should only list the canonical URLs

I know some of this stuff is available as "aftermarket" modules, but it would be better to have this as part of the core system so that when there are updates the modules won't break. Plus, no offense, but many of the modules released by the community are garbage... most of them break or are not written very well.

Don't get me wrong, this is in no way bashing OpenCart. I think it's one of the better open source systems. My reason for this post is to simply give some suggestions to make it an even better system so it would truly be the obvious choice.

Thanks for your hard work OpenCart team!

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Post by thienvk » Wed Dec 01, 2010 2:34 pm

Qphoria wrote:
thienvk wrote:@Qphoria
can you dev Store Credit extension ?
concept: add fund from credit card, paypal or other payment method
I already have a store credit extension
but customer can't fund to store credit

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Post by Qphoria » Wed Dec 01, 2010 2:56 pm

alex1 wrote:I just converted 2 of my sites from OpenCart to Magento simply because there are too many small things that OpenCart lacks in 1.4.9.2. I have a few more sites still running on OpenCart, but these are the features I think are essential for OpenCart 1.5 to be able to compete:

1) Have Google Checkout as a bundled Payment Option
2) Fix the duplicate URL issue (I read the topics, but even with canonical statements, Google still picks up the non canonical and causes problems)
3) Fix the non SEO urls in Google Base
4) Allow Customers to be able to do a shipping quote estimate w/o having to go through the registration process
5) Make it easier to setup OpenCart without having to manually delete all of the countries and zones that don't apply to you
6) Make default "does not subtract from stock" and more than "Quanity of 1" as default for those who drop ship
7) Show the brands Logo on the brands page (what's the point of uploading the logo in the first place if it's never shown?)
8) The ability to change the title of the page (so it doesn't have to be the name of the category)
9) Easier way to do excel/csv/xml imports
10) Ability to add or remove fields in the checkout process of what you ask the customer
11) Ability to have a specific field in the admin where you update the tracking number for the customer, and the customer receives it as a hyperlink so they can just click on the tracking number
12) Make "home" links SEO from the start
13) Fix the search! The existing search system is not very good.
14) Better use of tags, maybe a page that lists all of the tags used (helps with SEO), similiar to manufacture page
15) the user being returned back to the site after making a payment with PayPal (or Google Checkout)
16) sales tax report - so you can easily calculate how much sales tax you collected
17) Ability to turn system cache on or off (it causes more problems when it's on, on a small install)
18) Google Sitemap module should only list the canonical URLs

I know some of this stuff is available as "aftermarket" modules, but it would be better to have this as part of the core system so that when there are updates the modules won't break. Plus, no offense, but many of the modules released by the community are garbage... most of them break or are not written very well.

Don't get me wrong, this is in no way bashing OpenCart. I think it's one of the better open source systems. My reason for this post is to simply give some suggestions to make it an even better system so it would truly be the obvious choice.

Thanks for your hard work OpenCart team!
Yes you spammed this a few times... we get it

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Post by alex1 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 3:10 pm

Qphoria wrote:Yes you spammed this a few times... we get it
I spammed it?

I posted it once, and then it disappeared, so not sure how I "spammed" it.

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Post by SapporoGuy » Wed Dec 01, 2010 9:18 pm

IF SEO are as bad as you say, then yes, those points would be good to fix.
7 and 8 are easy enough to fix on your own.
The rest sound like specific items that can be done eventually.

Does Magneto do all that for you?

Why don't you start a SEO thread and those of us who want this to work properly will show up.

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Post by HTMLCSSNoob » Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:01 pm

alex1 wrote: 8.) The ability to change the title of the page (so it doesn't have to be the name of the category)
SapporoGuy wrote:IF SEO are as bad as you say, then yes, those points would be good to fix.
7 and 8 are easy enough to fix on your own.
So how would you change the title of the page exactly? I've wondered this myself as I would like to have a more SEO friendly title other than the name of the product or the category.

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Post by OC2PS » Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:19 pm

HTMLCSSNoob wrote:I would like to have a more SEO friendly title other than the name of the product or the category.
What would be more SEO friendly than product name? Right now product name = h1 = page title = (hopefully) url

P.S. Call to i2Paq - please split this thread!

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Post by SapporoGuy » Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:40 pm

Code: Select all

echo $heading_title;
Just change that part. Probably have to dig into the controller to throw out something better.

lolo, this thread has gone to the dogs in regards to be being on topic.
It's like the 1.5 screen shot thread too.

The titles should be changed to: What else would you like added or discussed about in regards to 1.5.0 :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

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Post by Johnathan » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:28 am

SapporoGuy wrote:

Code: Select all

echo $heading_title;
Just change that part. Probably have to dig into the controller to throw out something better.
The way I do it is to use the Meta Keywords field as an optional "page title" field, and override the default title if anything in Meta Keywords exists. It's an easy, one-line edit:

IN:

Code: Select all

/catalog/view/theme/YOURTHEME/template/common/header.tpl
REPLACE:

Code: Select all

<?php echo $title; ?>
WITH:

Code: Select all

<?php if ($keywords) { echo $keywords; } else { echo $title; } ?>

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Post by Daniel » Thu Dec 02, 2010 10:49 am

1) Have Google Checkout as a bundled Payment Option
Good

2) Fix the duplicate URL issue (I read the topics, but even with canonical statements, Google still picks up the non canonical and causes problems)
This is not a problem. People are a bit stupied and read some bad information in a forum some where. it has already been said by google themseleves and other search engines that googles algorithm will decide which url to use when the content is the same. I have been creating web sites now for some 10+ years. I know all about SEO.

3) Fix the non SEO urls in Google Base
You only need SEO urls for categories and products. SEO urls don't even give you a higher ranking. again google has said this.! You are just showing that you havn't got a clue about SEO. Its all about creating unique content and not just copying and pasting manufacturers desciptions. also write some unique content on blogs and put links to your products from it.

There is a set W3c standard on how urls should be writen so they can be parsed using php and javascript. Why mess with the standards so urls look better?



4) Allow Customers to be able to do a shipping quote estimate w/o having to go through the registration process
Good, will be in 1.5.0


5) Make it easier to setup OpenCart without having to manually delete all of the countries and zones that don't apply to you
You should be only need to setup opencart once.

6) Make default "does not subtract from stock" and more than "Quanity of 1" as default for those who drop ship
Just for you

7) Show the brands Logo on the brands page (what's the point of uploading the logo in the first place if it's never shown?)
Manufactuer page will change in 1.5.0


8) The ability to change the title of the page (so it doesn't have to be the name of the category)
Pointless

9) Easier way to do excel/csv/xml imports
In a later version I'mn sure this can be done.


10) Ability to add or remove fields in the checkout process of what you ask the customer
In a later version I'mn sure this can be done.

11) Ability to have a specific field in the admin where you update the tracking number for the customer, and the customer receives it as a hyperlink so they can just click on the tracking number
In a later version I'm sure this can be done.

12) Make "home" links SEO from the start
There is no such thing as seo links.

13) Fix the search! The existing search system is not very good.
Maybe

14) Better use of tags, maybe a page that lists all of the tags used (helps with SEO), similiar to manufacture page
No it does not. search engines don;t use them. only people might use them. search engines look for contant not lots of comma sperated words that look like spam.


15) the user being returned back to the site after making a payment with PayPal (or Google Checkout)

this already happens. if it does then maybe there is a problem with your site. you can also set this in paypals profile section.

16) sales tax report - so you can easily calculate how much sales tax you collected
Good

17) Ability to turn system cache on or off (it causes more problems when it's on, on a small install)
I'm looking into this

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Post by Sheldon.Kirk » Thu Dec 02, 2010 10:59 am

Daniel,
The ability to change the title of the page (so it doesn't have to be the name of the category)
Pointless
It's not pointless to be able to change the title of the page, having it locked so that it's only the name of the category or product is a real pain in the butt. For example if I chose to optimize a Category called Ice Blocks for the search engines, I would want to probably change the title to not just be "Ice Blocks" but be "New Zealand Ice Blocks and Ice Creams" or something, depending on what keywords I am targeting for that page.

I think this is a real must for the next version, to be able to choose Meta Keywords, Meta Title and Meta Description for each page, even if Meta Description and Meta Keywords don't do anything for the Search Engines it's still important for SEO purposes to know where you are and edit if you need to.

Thanks
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Post by CUSTOM_UK » Thu Dec 02, 2010 3:23 pm

The original concept behind 1.50 seemed to be putting essential elements such as PayPal Express and a shipping estimator into the core program. The feature request list now seems to be adding more and more complexity into the program to the point where I am wondering what benefit it will offer over the likes of Zen Cart with its plethora of free add ons?

Without bashing the 'competition' based on personal experiences and preferences, in practical terms how will Opencart be a better proposition than the other established carts out there? That's not sarcasm, just a genuine question.

Speaking as a shop owner with multiple ecommerce sites, I look at things from a shop visitor's perspective. That means good navigation, a clear layout, the ability to format descriptions and offering enlarged views of products. I know some web developers delude themselves that sites need flash animations, annoying pop ups and irritating videos you can't turn off, but the reality is thay don't aid sales, but simply act as a distraction to potential buyers.

SEO I have a different take on. Reality is there are only ten spaces on the front page of Google and you have to ask how many pages folks will go back to find something. SEO has more to do with WHAT you are selling and the number of other shops selling the same, or very similar item. Specialised niche products probably have to do very little in the way of SEO purely down to the fact that they are selling niche products.

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Post by i2Paq » Thu Dec 02, 2010 3:38 pm

CUSTOM_UK wrote:The original concept behind 1.50 seemed to be putting essential elements such as PayPal Express and a shipping estimator into the core program. The feature request list now seems to be adding more and more complexity into the program to the point where I am wondering what benefit it will offer over the likes of Zen Cart with its plethora of free add ons?

Without bashing the 'competition' based on personal experiences and preferences, in practical terms how will Opencart be a better proposition than the other established carts out there? That's not sarcasm, just a genuine question.

Speaking as a shop owner with multiple ecommerce sites, I look at things from a shop visitor's perspective. That means good navigation, a clear layout, the ability to format descriptions and offering enlarged views of products. I know some web developers delude themselves that sites need flash animations, annoying pop ups and irritating videos you can't turn off, but the reality is thay don't aid sales, but simply act as a distraction to potential buyers.
Well said!

Most people seem to forget that 80% of their request is based on their own needs, in most cases 80% of the others aren't looking for this kind of features.

Additional shipping and payment modules should be separated from the core and down-loadable for those who need them.
Same goes for some functionality, most things can be added by a separte module, or just change a small part of the core.
Lets NOT pollute this great piece of software like they have done with Zencart or Prestashop!

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Post by xds » Thu Dec 02, 2010 4:05 pm

I would like to comment about how so many people keep begging for 1.5 release yet at the same time keep popping out a million feature requests. The current plans for 1.5 are more than enough for a release, begging for a ton of more features to be added only delays the release date...

In addition to that, I also think all of these feature requests really should go in another thread instead of filling this "Progress" thread in the News & Announcements board with so many posts begging for features...

I'm really not bashing here, I have lots of changes myself that I will want in 1.5 after it's released. Instead of getting this new version delayed for more months, I am probably going to end up paying people who have already made these modules. There are several people like Q who are making quality modules / addons / hacks and they are also willing to take suggestion for modules. As if that wasn't enough, these addons are being sold pretty damn cheap. You get a FREE, well coded, OPEN SOURCE shopping cart package that based on my review of 1.4.9 is a hell of a lot better than any other cart I have looked into. If you are opening a store, I see no reason why you can't afford to buy a few modules and still be able to donate a few bucks to Daniel...

Thanks for 1.5!


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Post by Skyhigh » Thu Dec 02, 2010 5:07 pm

All those features would be nice, but many can be supported with mods.
Ok it's not great having to plug in lots of mods, but most products require this to get them to work exactly how you want as they only provide core functionality (e.g. wordpress) :)

1) Theres a mod for this
2) This would be nice, I agree.
3) Try using Q's Google base mod
4) Theres a mod for this
5) Um "UPDATE COUNTRIES SET STATUS = 1 WHERE COUNTRY_ID != 222". Or at least I did something very similar against Countries and Zones/GeoZones. Took 30 seconds.
6) Again, you can mass update this with a simple UPDATE against your Products table. Default on/off will suit everyone differently.
7) This works for me. If not, there's a mod for this for older versions.
8) There was a mod for this. It's not hard to write your own anyhow...
9) Works well for me, plus theres the Excel import/export mod and CSV export/import mods, which have always worked fine for me...
10) Edit the template.
11) Theres a tracking mod for this (several in fact)
12) Yes, this would be nice, but its related to 2
13) Theres a mod for this, to make searching more flexible.
14) Tag cloud mod. Tags are displayed on product pages too. You can easily pull these from the DB if you want them.
Just dump a SELECT UNIQUE onto a page.
15) No experience of this. But in most gateways its a setting on the gateway "return user to THIS url after purchase" ?
16) There are 3+ sales reports in the Extensions area.
17) Would be nice. Although the cache stores the thumnails of the images. The only other way of doing this would be to generate the thumbs when you add/edit a product image. Not a hard change to make yourself...
18) Would be nice, not a hard fix for you to make yourself. Just get the 'seo url' and add the Canonical link for it.

Yes some of the mods you have to pay for, but they're cheap.
Over the past 2 years I've probably bought about 20 mods (and 8 in the the past couple of months when the Extensions area appeared).
I could do the work myself, true - but it would cost me more in time. Its cheaper to buy a mod.
I could keep requesting these features be put into the core, but I know the devs are very busy - plus its hard enough being a developer when you get paid (I know..).

So I buy mods to extend functionality, which supports the OC dev's in a small way (or encourages them I hope).

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Post by SapporoGuy » Thu Dec 02, 2010 11:14 pm

Ahhhh, thank goodness the feature creep patrol has showed up. :D
I too thought the never ending request was never going to stop. :-\

@ SEO
errr, does that mean some of the tables are going to disappear? I bring that up since my GF's cousin makes his living basically off of building SEO targeting sites and we've been going at it about tables, links, keywords (which are apparently going out the door), proper use of H1-H4 and such. Interesting too is that Yahoo US went with Bing and Yahoo Japan went with Google ... now WTF is that ???

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Post by Xsecrets » Thu Dec 02, 2010 11:47 pm

SapporoGuy wrote:Ahhhh, thank goodness the feature creep patrol has showed up. :D
I too thought the never ending request was never going to stop. :-\

@ SEO
errr, does that mean some of the tables are going to disappear? I bring that up since my GF's cousin makes his living basically off of building SEO targeting sites and we've been going at it about tables, links, keywords (which are apparently going out the door), proper use of H1-H4 and such. Interesting too is that Yahoo US went with Bing and Yahoo Japan went with Google ... now WTF is that ???
Ha I love it the feature creep patrol all have a feature they want :laugh:

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Post by alex1 » Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:45 am

Daniel wrote: 2) Fix the duplicate URL issue (I read the topics, but even with canonical statements, Google still picks up the non canonical and causes problems)
This is not a problem. People are a bit stupied and read some bad information in a forum some where. it has already been said by google themseleves and other search engines that googles algorithm will decide which url to use when the content is the same. I have been creating web sites now for some 10+ years. I know all about SEO.
This has nothing to do with reading information. I have been building sites since 95 and have worked for major online sites. When you are browsing categories, the sidebar changes to display the category you are in. However, when you browse an individual product from the canonical URL, the categories do not show. Now only is this less keywords for SEO purposes, it also is not good user experience because they would likely convert higher if the categories were displayed and they could pick a different product.

I've been watching how Google indexes my new OpenCart sites, and its been picking the canonical URL in about 60% of the cases. It will likely pick them eventually, but in the meantime, until it figures it out, the pages don't rank.

My suggestion would be a simple fix of changing the canonical URL to include the categories. It would shut everyone up.
Daniel wrote: 3) Fix the non SEO urls in Google Base
You only need SEO urls for categories and products. SEO urls don't even give you a higher ranking. again google has said this.! You are just showing that you havn't got a clue about SEO. Its all about creating unique content and not just copying and pasting manufacturers desciptions. also write some unique content on blogs and put links to your products from it.

There is a set W3c standard on how urls should be writen so they can be parsed using php and javascript. Why mess with the standards so urls look better?
If someone has SEO urls enabled, I don't see why it doesn't pass over to the Google Base module. It's not even about ranking at this point, it would be about consistency. The URL is important because when people share your link, you want the same link to be shared over and over, not one of three different links: Google Base Link, Drill down category link, or canonical product link.

Obviously this is your product and you can do what you like, but I would think consistency would be key. And W3C standards have nothing to do with clean (seo) or non clean URLs.
Daniel wrote: 5) Make it easier to setup OpenCart without having to manually delete all of the countries and zones that don't apply to you
You should be only need to setup opencart once.
Typically yeah, but OpenCart is great in the sense that you can launch a bunch of micro targeted ecommerce stores... one for a differerent manufacture or type of widget.
Daniel wrote: 6) Make default "does not subtract from stock" and more than "Quanity of 1" as default for those who drop ship
Just for you
Thanks :)
Daniel wrote: 8) The ability to change the title of the page (so it doesn't have to be the name of the category)
Pointless
I think this would be a killer feature, because sometimes you want to include other information in a title that you don't want to include for the product name or category name... maybe "Free Shipping" or a certain phrase that people search for.
Daniel wrote: 12) Make "home" links SEO from the start
There is no such thing as seo links.
Consistency.
Daniel wrote: 14) Better use of tags, maybe a page that lists all of the tags used (helps with SEO), similiar to manufacture page
No it does not. search engines don;t use them. only people might use them. search engines look for contant not lots of comma sperated words that look like spam.
You're right, but it would help to create more pages that SE's can index.


I forgot to add one more feature request...


it would be awesome to have a product with free shipping stand out more than a product that does not. Maybe on a listing page it would say in red letters "Free Shipping" above the price or under the price. Would be nice to have that option. Can you tell I'm not in favor of hacking templates? I'm always afraid work will be lost during version change updates.

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