A few ways to make it better

Ok. I want to say, this is a nice shopping cart. However there are some defiant improvements that can be made.
Getting the taxes to work can be a challenge. I can understand it is setup to be highly customizable. But I was doing a simple state wide sales tax. Their needs to be a easier way to set up taxes. Maybe have an option for simple tax mode and complex tax mode.
Also I noticed that I had to go to different sections to get things to work right. While I can understand you may feel a certain option is best suited in a other section like the settings, why not have that same section in the tax section too. I’m referring to the Taxes section of the store settings. Sometimes when people are working in the section to set their zones and stuff, they are focused in that section. I was. So I didn’t think the problem was elsewhere.
The admin panel really needs to be setup to be more user friendly. Theirs a huge learning curve and it can be very troubling to set up. Again, I’m all for advanced options, but the layout isn’t the best.
We need the ability to do bulk changes. Like I had to go through and delete thousands of places I do not plan to sell too. This as extremely time consuming. I would have liked to simply disable them but their was no way I was going to go though nearly 4000 places to disable them one by one.
The general store layout needs to be easier to figure out too. I remember when I used his program before, It was complicated on getting it figured out. Again I am their setting up and need to figure out how to get my products and categories to display on he front page.
Also, their should be a master reset. It’s nice that you give products and stuff in it right from the start so we get an idea. But their should be a way to do a clean install where the databases values start back from the beginning as well.

Interesting.... My experience was opposite. I had my OpenCart set up and working beginning to end in less then 2 hours with the look customized to my liking too.

(I agree with the master reset though).

Mike

I agree with cue4cheap. After trying to figure out magento for 6 months on and off, I had opencart running in a few hours, customized within a day. Much lower learning curve.

I agree some hints would be nice on some areas (like be sure to also set up x if you are setting this up) and being able to quickly remove the default loaded data would also be nice.

As to displaying products and categories on your front page, extensions > modules and use latest, categories, etc.

labeshops wrote:I agree with cue4cheap. After trying to figure out magento for 6 months on and off, I had opencart running in a few hours, customized within a day. Much lower learning curve.

You all must be very smart Peoples, since past January, I am rather busy, trying to get familiar with this piece of software, and very slowly, I am in the process of begin to understand how it does 'things'.

But, after all, I don't just need a Shop to work, I need this 'thing' to get familar with PHP as well. Possibly, this is not a very easy way to do it, but it enables me to get used to the framework-type programming culture as well.

To be honest, I surely miss the SPEED of Perl, when working with OC. Recently, I opened one of my test-auction Sites carrying about 800 (empty) categories, but all beeing counted and displayed in the Cat-Section. I recall 0.21xxx Seconds to have the FIRST page built..! Done by Simple Indexing the genious FLAT-DB type File System. Don't even need MySql 'til you get xx'xxx Site Users.

Some may ask themselfs, why I not just use a Perl Software to create a Shop. I already have created some nice ones. The Problem is, that Perl just creates a type of STATIC Pages. Exept for a few (number) JS-Gizmos, the entire Page is actually needed to be reloaded to present NEW/CHANGED Values. SInce IFRAME is potantially dangerous to use, If would be, under Perl, the only way to get some 'more' kind of Interaction.

OC ist great, it just contains much to much 'preset' Stuff in the default Version. And this much to much Stoff makes it big and slow. It would probably have been much easier for many users, not to have to carry the burden of so much Software to use it for a comparably small Community.

But, as it goes, it's hard to redesign a Concept, I am aware of that. SO, I will continue to shrink my OC version to what it is planned to be used for. If I succeed, I stay with it, otherways, I just invested 1'000 hours of my life into getting to know PHP better! I love it!

Ernie