New to Open Cart - Some Questions on Feature Set

Hello to the Open Cart Community,

I do SEO and am regularly involved in the development of small-medium sized business websites.

So, I am now looking for a shopping cart solution I can use regularly on all future jobs.

After checking out the available options, and following the recommendations of a friend, I see that Open Cart looks like it could be a good choice for me (intuitive, customizable templating, no bloat, clean code). There seem to be some features I want that are not here, but I could possibly get the developed.

Anyway, I have downloaded Open Cart to make a test install, but I also thought to ask the community about some specific features, to see if they are implemented in the core or in modules (I didn't see them), or have previously been talked about:

1. SEO URLs
I see some posts here that say it isn't working, but I do see a button to turn SEO URLs on in the admin.

Anyway, there are two dimensions to this, one is whether URL rewriting is possible (Admin panel suggests that it is), but the real issue is HOW URLs are rewritten.

Is it customizable? Can I do this:

domain.com/category/manufacturer/product
or
domain.com/category/product

as I may wish (different sites have different optimization requirements)?

2. RTL Support

I regularly develop sites in English and Hebrew. I see there are no RTL languages available, but are there any restrictions on this code wise? I looked at the lang files, and I could put together a Hebrew version (RTL) pretty easily, as long as nothing else is stopping it from working properly.

3. Newsletters

I see there is some basic newsletter functionality in the admin. But is it possible through any modules to extend this, or has there been any discussion? I'd like to be able to send emails to customers based on product(s) purchased, or, category of products, or, manufacturer of products.

Also, the way newsletters are sent, is there any throttling possible? Sending email to thousands of customers at once is sure to make a shared hosting provider unhappy.

If these things are not available/planned, are there any plugins/birdges for more advanced mailing systems such as pommo?

4. Accounts
Can customers log into an account, and see their history?

Thanks in advance.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes

I thnk you need to do some more research.

"I see some posts here that say it isn't working, but I do see a button to turn SEO URLs on in the admin."

Just because one pleb can not get SEO urls working does not mean it does not work! |IT WORKS

I try to make the instructions as clear as possbile but some people can not even do the most simplest
of things!

they don;t even know if they are runnign apache or anything about mod-rewrite.

What's a computer?
Do I need one to run OpenStore?
Will the internet come to me or do I have to find it?
How do I copy files to a folder?
How do I unzip a zip file?
I typed in my name into the address bar, but I guess I don't have a site?

Qphoria wrote:What's a computer?
Do I need one to run OpenStore?
Will the internet come to me or do I have to find it?
How do I copy files to a folder?
How do I unzip a zip file?
I typed in my name into the address bar, but I guess I don't have a site?

Is this how you guys welcome people here?

Anyway, I do know what I am talking about, and I do know how to investigate things.

I also think part of community + open source is being able to ask questions and get help. I actively help and ask questions at modxcms.com - I came here with the same approach.

So.

Quophoria also wrote yes X4 to my questions, but they are not all answerable by "yes". So, I guess I will try once more.....

First of all, I checked the documentation http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... troduction

and didn't find any direct answers to my questions.

I then checked the wiki http://wiki.opencart.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

with the same results.

Finally I used google search operators on the site, for example: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ao ... =firefox-a with no love.

Daniel, regarding seo urls:

You say that seo url instructions are clear - where are these instructions? I can't find them at all. Any assistance as to the instructions would be helpful. I am not talking about renaming ht.access to .htaccess - I understand that rewriting of URLs is supported. I am talking about customization of the rewrite process (eg, like in wordpress or modx).


RTL - ok, the answer is "yes", thanks. I take that answer to mean there is nothing hard coded in the core that poses difficulties for RTL integration.

newsletters - yes to what? ability to send newsletters to different groups is built in? Is there any documentation on this feature specifically?

Customer accounts- I was answered "yes" - but again, is there any documentation. It is not at all clear to me where and how...

LOL Well i was just joking with the questions.. it was more aimed at daniel.

And I answered YES because I only read the titles.. sorry.

1. yes you can customize SEO per product.
2. No there is nothing stopping you from RTL.. it is supported. In the main language file just change "ltr" to "rtl"
3. Newsletter is basic email about anything, no throttling. Hosting providers in 2009 should have no trouble sending mass emails.
4. Customers do have accounts. They click on "my account" and it shows the history. Not really dire need to document that.

Talking to me about offering community help is like asking the pope if he's ever prayed. But sometimes when questions can be answered by taking a few minutes to try the demo, it can get monotonous to answer. In your case the first 3 questions did require some further explanation, so I apologize.

At any rate, welcome to the forums. I do invite you to try it out, go through the admin menus, try some test purchases and see for yourself.

Ok, so, thanks for the welcome then ...

... and for looking at my questions a bit more deeply.

I have done my test install, and started by looking at the url rewriting. I see how it works with "seo keywords" etc., but I also see that the install has no .htaccess (or htaccess.txt) file. A search of the forums dug nothing up, except a guy with the same issue, and an ensuing conversation with gems such as "If you mean the SEO URL's they are a complete waste of time and they are very buggy." (Daniel ?)

So, guys, I am trying hard here to research stuff before asking... but.... where is the htaccess file.

And, before I go too much further with Open Cart, do the devs still find SEO URLs a waste of time and buggy ? The post was from Feb, so (I hope) things might have changed.

Apart from that I'm going to say I love the feel of the back end, every very orderly and usable. So, it is not all negative here at all.

Thanks.

it does have a .htaccess file

maybe your server or ftp program is set to not show hidden files.

download again and look in the upload folder.

Daniel wrote:it does have a .htaccess file

maybe your server or ftp program is set to not show hidden files.

download again and look in the upload folder.

Daniel Hello,

I use transmit on Mac and it shows hidden files by default. I am on localhost, and I can see a .DS_Store file in there, and I can see the .htaccess files in other local host directories I have.

I tried unzipping the download again, and now it IS there. Don't know what happened.

thanks.

I see what happened. I unzipped on my desktop and copied from there to my localhost directory via drag and drop. Because of the . prefix, this method doesn't copy the hidden file. Renaming to ht.access allowed me to copy over from my desktop without opening terminal.

Hi babel, I also develop in hebrew, i tried to translate the code to rtl, but i'm having some difficulties with the Theme. Could u do something??

mcaldas wrote:Hi babel, I also develop in hebrew, i tried to translate the code to rtl, but i'm having some difficulties with the Theme. Could u do something??

I still haven't done anything in Hebrew with it yet. Maybe you can post some code and we can take a look.

Howdy,

There is an issue on the pretty/friendly (notice the lack of the term 'SEO' here) urls as per http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=7898 but its easily worked around as explained.

OpenCart is by far the easiest to alter/customise to ones own needs, I've found the layout really easy to work out and already deviated from the based code heavily, but its easily updated when an update is released using a text comparison program.

Give the code some close attention and you;ll see why people use it.

Matt

It was like that when I found it, honest!