OpenCart is Really Good- With some caveats

First off, I'm a new user of OpenCart but not new to Open Source. I see a really good start to this project but perhaps I came in a little early to the party.

It is apparent that this code base was directed to linux users and I don't have a problem with that. Linux is a terrific platform but, I use Windows on Wampserver and probably not going to change any time soon.

Having said that, Installed OC on my internal test server and was at first jumping for joy, url alias built in, pretty good seo, simple but practical categories and product creation.

Then, I get into it a little more... Url alias is broken, modules don't show up, categories don't show subs, imaging upload/download is a mess, code flow is confusing (multiple same file names)  etc. Having to search for bug fixes and finding multiple fixes for the same problem is insane.

I can deal with fiddling with config files for tweaks but basic functionality is a bit much. Then I'm seeing code tweakers who are modding base code to get core functions to work ie subcats, url's.

Please, for versions after .78 let's have a sane bug fix path and some docs would be helpful too. Since I'm new here, I don't know the personalities invlolved but I am grateful for your efforts...

Welcome to OpenCart golfer...

Let me first start out by saying I too saw what you saw.. A lot of promise, but still had some places to grow. Being intermediately familiar with web development, I saw this as a good thing. A cart that I could hopefully be a part of its growing process. But it can be overwhelming to find a lot of the common features aren't implemented or are just bugged.

So let's quickly address some of your concerns:

- Aimed at Linux. I don't think this is necessarily the case, as there is some code in place to use the correct slash '/' or '\\'. But there is a bit of hard coding using the / which maybe should be managed better. Oddly enough, windows doesn't seem to mind it, except in the config file. But I've got everything working on my windows server with only a minor config file edit.

- URL Aliasing. It works fine for me on both windows and linux, not sure what you mean by broken. Tho you do have to ensure the htaccess stuff is in your apache config.

- modules don't show up. I assume you mean in the admin section when you click under extensions? that is a bug that is fixed in the next version. Search the bug tracker for a quick fix.

- Categories not showing subs was something that caused me grief too.. So i quickly made a contrib to do it. More info here

- Code flow I find to be better that a lot of other carts, multiple same filenames but all in a diff category so you can always match up which language file goes with which controller, etc.

Remember, its an opensource cart. Be thankful that Daniel and hm2k and all of us community helpers are taking the time to do this for free. At this stage, it might not be perfect, but all the help we can bring together will benefit all of us.

Qphoria

Your points are well taken, and I agree with you in that the developers and contributors are as always sometimes unappreciated in an Open Source setting.

I've managed by a lot of trial and error, to created subcats and attache a product to it.  Without any docs and no hints from within, it wasn't very obvious.

I do have your contribution for the subcat display, just haven't tried it yet.

Url Alias was and is still a problem, applied the code patch about htmlcharacters and now I can actually get urls to display about, cart, etc. but with alias=no  Before I got a foobar html code for &. Am I supposed to have ReWrite rules in my instead?

I can now get images attached to cats and products, again with no hints anywhere.

All in all, a very good project and thanks to all for their efforts

Hi Golfer,

I have made an SEO Upgrade pack that both fixes url aliasing and gives you a tool to automatically generate the urls here.

-Dave

golfer01 wrote: Qphoria

Your points are well taken, and I agree with you in that the developers and contributors are as always sometimes unappreciated in an Open Source setting.

I've managed by a lot of trial and error, to created subcats and attache a product to it.  Without any docs and no hints from within, it wasn't very obvious.

I do have your contribution for the subcat display, just haven't tried it yet.

Url Alias was and is still a problem, applied the code patch about htmlcharacters and now I can actually get urls to display about, cart, etc. but with alias=no  Before I got a foobar html code for &. Am I supposed to have ReWrite rules in my instead?

I can now get images attached to cats and products, again with no hints anywhere.

All in all, a very good project and thanks to all for their efforts

It also depends on what you are used to. I came from Zen-Cart and the structure there for images and stuff is a lot different.. not better, not worse...just different. It takes about a week of sniffing through the code to fully understand the structure so don't get too frustrated with it, you'll get it.

I agree that the documentation is a bit lacking, but the dev team is rather small, and there is a lot to cover, so it takes time.