Post by i2Paq » Tue Aug 17, 2010 5:08 am

Joxe wrote:I globally like OC but I hope that in future releases it could turn more 'user friendly'. I think that if OC goes towards less experienced programming users it will grow its community even more. The idea is to set the shop almost just in the backend, without to have to edit PHP files or so...

Keep the good work! ;)
If you could give an example of the not user friendly part?

I even got my 16 year old son to install and set up a store without problems ;)

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Post by Joxe » Tue Aug 17, 2010 5:51 am

i2Paq wrote:
Joxe wrote:I globally like OC but I hope that in future releases it could turn more 'user friendly'. I think that if OC goes towards less experienced programming users it will grow its community even more. The idea is to set the shop almost just in the backend, without to have to edit PHP files or so...

Keep the good work! ;)
If you could give an example of the not user friendly part?

I even got my 16 year old son to install and set up a store without problems ;)
Well...I would too...if I had a father-OC-moderator at home :P

But...just to give a small example: editing footer requires editing PHP file or making a field as mandatory... There are lots of examples..I'm shure I'm not the only one saying that. Anyway, I gave my opinion in a constructive way.

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Post by i2Paq » Tue Aug 17, 2010 1:15 pm

Joxe wrote:Well...I would too...if I had a father-OC-moderator at home :P
I didn't do anything, just give him some webspace, a copy of OC and these forums ;D
But...just to give a small example: editing footer requires editing PHP file or making a field as mandatory... There are lots of examples..I'm shure I'm not the only one saying that. Anyway, I gave my opinion in a constructive way.
I think that editing any footer will need some manual work, I know some programs that allow you to add something from the BO, but most of the times its still handwork.

I agree that there are fields in the registration/checkout procedure that could be made mandatory of not from the BO (like osCommerce) but once you changed it you never (in most cases) changed it back.

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Post by CUSTOM_UK » Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:01 pm

I came over to Open Cart from Zen Cart for one specific feature - the guest checkout. I think that it something that every site should have.

The whole problem (IMHO) is that shopping carts have historically evolved from the wants of web developers, rather than the needs of shop owners. Wherever did we get to the point of subjecting customers to having to fill out forms just to get a shipping cost, or instantly expecting them to have a pen and paper at hand to write down (and think of) a username and password.

Going back to the original point as to why folks should use OpenCart, apart from the much needed guest checkout, the admin area is much cleaner and easier to use than many other cart offerings out there. The code is also easier to work with and more logical than some of the obscure structures I have encountered.

Things I don't like about OpenCart is that there is only one template available, the 'others' I've seen are often just tweaked colours. You just get the one template supplied with OpenCart, take it or leave it... :( Things like a PayPal Express checkout and shipping estimators should be part of the core program, not as paid commercial offerings from third parties. Once you start adding the cost of those paid offerings up, you can end up with a program that is more expensive than the commercial solutions that offer 24/7 support. :-\

OpenCart is still undergoing its early evolution and I don't know whether its future lies as an open source alternative to the likes of CubeCart and Zen, or whether it will eventually position itself as a semi commercial offering?? As it stands at the moment, it is certainly a decent open source solution and Daniel and others have put a lot of hard work in to creating an easier option to the likes of the bloated Zen etc.

Despite the above gripes, OpenCart is definitely in the top five cart solutions for me. :)

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Post by i2Paq » Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:17 pm

CUSTOM_UK wrote:I came over to Open Cart from Zen Cart for one specific feature - the guest checkout. I think that it something that every site should have.

The whole problem (IMHO) is that shopping carts have historically evolved from the wants of web developers, rather than the needs of shop owners. Wherever did we get to the point of subjecting customers to having to fill out forms just to get a shipping cost, or instantly expecting them to have a pen and paper at hand to write down (and think of) a username and password.
I think that after registering the customer should gets his user-name and password in an e-mail.
In my current shop I have this and this helps people "forgetting" there password.
Going back to the original point as to why folks should use OpenCart, apart from the much needed guest checkout, the admin area is much cleaner and easier to use than many other cart offerings out there. The code is also easier to work with and more logical than some of the obscure structures I have encountered.

Things I don't like about OpenCart is that there is only one template available, the 'others' I've seen are often just tweaked colours. You just get the one template supplied with OpenCart, take it or leave it... :( Things like a PayPal Express checkout and shipping estimators should be part of the core program, not as paid commercial offerings from third parties. Once you start adding the cost of those paid offerings up, you can end up with a program that is more expensive than the commercial solutions that offer 24/7 support. :-\
I'm having troubles with what you are saying. It is not up to OpenCart to give more then 1 template for free, neither to give difficult to build payment modules away for free. That is up to the community. Everyone is free to build a template and provide it for a fair price or a small amount. The goal for the developers is to build a stable core with functionality that 80 to 90% of the users need. Additional functionality should be build by the community (for free) and as long as this does not happen you still can buy it. That is a choice that is up to you ;)
OpenCart is still undergoing its early evolution and I don't know whether its future lies as an open source alternative to the likes of CubeCart and Zen, or whether it will eventually position itself as a semi commercial offering?? As it stands at the moment, it is certainly a decent open source solution and Daniel and others have put a lot of hard work in to creating an easier option to the likes of the bloated Zen etc.

Despite the above gripes, OpenCart is definitely in the top five cart solutions for me. :)
A free and stable core + commercial support or add-ons is someting that I see as the future for OC.
There will be a time when there will be a commercial add-on and one build for free by community members. But as long as the community is young and most members are just here for a short while I think we will see just a few free add-ons.
Free ad-ons also lack support and updates when a new version of OC comes out, commercial ones will be updated as the seller has other priorities.

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Post by CUSTOM_UK » Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:59 pm

i2Paq wrote:I'm having troubles with what you are saying. It is not up to OpenCart to give more then 1 template for free, neither to give difficult to build payment modules away for free. That is up to the community. Everyone is free to build a template and provide it for a fair price or a small amount. The goal for the developers is to build a stable core with functionality that 80 to 90% of the users need. Additional functionality should be build by the community (for free) and as long as this does not happen you still can buy it. That is a choice that is up to you ;)
A newcomer (like myself) comes along from having tried perhaps over twenty other cart solutions out there and with OpenCart and its one template I can only create one 'look' apart from a few tweaked colours?? You have to admit that that scenario is hardly likely to attract all the folks that want to build a shop for themselves. Looking through the live shops, apart from different banners and colours, the shops look very much the same, as there is no real instruction anywhere of even how to change the default template. If OpenCart only wants to attract technically competent developers that it fine, but if it wants to attract a much wider audience, it does need to accept that folks have different levels of technical ability perhaps? You couldn't really expect the average shop owner to have the skills to radically alter a template, or to create their own. Evolution doesn't have to be built on exclusion. :-\

I have no problems with folks making money from selling commercial add ons, but I guess a lot is what you consider an optional extra. PayPal Express is one of the primary payment gateways and with PayPal having over one hundred million account holders worldwide, some folks might suggest that PayPal Express (and Google) should be integrated as part of the main program. No good having any kind of shop, unless you give customers a choice of payment that is acceptable to them.

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Post by Joxe » Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:17 pm

BTW: must say that the guest-checkout was one of the top feature that made my choice on OC. After several weeks of shop running now, I've come to a conclusion: none of my costumer had made an order as guest...They've all signed up before ordering.
So I disabled this option but also because of trying to edit PHP code to make postcode as mandatory...I got some error message right in the postcode field... :-\

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Post by Daniel » Tue Aug 17, 2010 7:22 pm

CUSTOM_UK wrote:
i2Paq wrote:I'm having troubles with what you are saying. It is not up to OpenCart to give more then 1 template for free, neither to give difficult to build payment modules away for free. That is up to the community. Everyone is free to build a template and provide it for a fair price or a small amount. The goal for the developers is to build a stable core with functionality that 80 to 90% of the users need. Additional functionality should be build by the community (for free) and as long as this does not happen you still can buy it. That is a choice that is up to you ;)
A newcomer (like myself) comes along from having tried perhaps over twenty other cart solutions out there and with OpenCart and its one template I can only create one 'look' apart from a few tweaked colours?? You have to admit that that scenario is hardly likely to attract all the folks that want to build a shop for themselves. Looking through the live shops, apart from different banners and colours, the shops look very much the same, as there is no real instruction anywhere of even how to change the default template. If OpenCart only wants to attract technically competent developers that it fine, but if it wants to attract a much wider audience, it does need to accept that folks have different levels of technical ability perhaps? You couldn't really expect the average shop owner to have the skills to radically alter a template, or to create their own. Evolution doesn't have to be built on exclusion. :-\

I have no problems with folks making money from selling commercial add ons, but I guess a lot is what you consider an optional extra. PayPal Express is one of the primary payment gateways and with PayPal having over one hundred million account holders worldwide, some folks might suggest that PayPal Express (and Google) should be integrated as part of the main program. No good having any kind of shop, unless you give customers a choice of payment that is acceptable to them.

opencart is one of the best structured and easy to code for carts out there. just because you lack the skills to do basic php tasks then don't blame opencart. there is no other application out there that makes customisation as easy as oc does. i don' know which cart your comparing oc to? magento, oscommerce, zen-cart, prestashop? don't make me laugh!magento takes 100 hours minimum for creating a descent template!

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Post by CUSTOM_UK » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:00 pm

Daniel wrote:Opencart is one of the best structured and easy to code for carts out there. just because you lack the skills to do basic php tasks then don't blame opencart!
I am not talking about me Daniel, I am talking in general. If there is this plethora of skilled Opencart template builders out there, then how come they all look the same apart from a few tweaked colours?

Most sensible enterprises irrespective of what they are purveying, actually listen to feedback from their customers and analyse what is being said, rather than being defensive. If making a template is as easy as you suggest, then why not simply bundle a second template with OpenCart. At least potential users will have some sort of choice then, rather than no choice at all.

Incidentally, I am perhaps one of the few people that has actually made a financial donation to your project. :choke:

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Post by Xsecrets » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:24 pm

CUSTOM_UK wrote:
Daniel wrote:Opencart is one of the best structured and easy to code for carts out there. just because you lack the skills to do basic php tasks then don't blame opencart!
I am not talking about me Daniel, I am talking in general. If there is this plethora of skilled Opencart template builders out there, then how come they all look the same apart from a few tweaked colours?

Most sensible enterprises irrespective of what they are purveying, actually listen to feedback from their customers and analyse what is being said, rather than being defensive. If making a template is as easy as you suggest, then why not simply bundle a second template with OpenCart. At least potential users will have some sort of choice then, rather than no choice at all.

Incidentally, I am perhaps one of the few people that has actually made a financial donation to your project. :choke:
I agree that most of the templates are simply tweaked colors. I have no idea why because opencart is much easier to template than pretty much any other cart out there. I can assure you it is much easier than oscommerce, zencart, magento, and cs-cart which I have personally done themes for each.

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Post by Qphoria » Tue Aug 17, 2010 9:25 pm

CUSTOM_UK wrote:I came over to Open Cart from Zen Cart for one specific feature - the guest checkout. I think that it something that every site should have.

Things I don't like about OpenCart is that there is only one template available, the 'others' I've seen are often just tweaked colours. You just get the one template supplied with OpenCart, take it or leave it... :(
This is no different than zen-cart. Aside from a longer time in existence, templating zen was quite painful and its all the same 3 column crap. And that default brown (now green) template makes me want to stab my eyes out. But for opencart I've actually seen quite a few different theme between algozone, opencartthemes, and the live shops that make it look unrecognizable to me.

But it all comes down to what the custom template makers wants. Sometimes a simple color shift is all that is needed as the default template is already so clean and well laid out.

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Post by i2Paq » Tue Aug 17, 2010 10:24 pm

CUSTOM_UK wrote:I am not talking about me Daniel, I am talking in general. If there is this plethora of skilled Opencart template builders out there, then how come they all look the same apart from a few tweaked colours?

Most sensible enterprises irrespective of what they are purveying, actually listen to feedback from their customers and analyse what is being said, rather than being defensive. If making a template is as easy as you suggest, then why not simply bundle a second template with OpenCart. At least potential users will have some sort of choice then, rather than no choice at all.

Incidentally, I am perhaps one of the few people that has actually made a financial donation to your project. :choke:
I made several donations to Daniel, Qphoria and others who work on OC, this is personal and in some cases on purpose to get something done.

Have you ever looked at PrestaShop, that comes with one template as well, osCommerce has no templating at all.
All custom PrestaShop templates are default templates with a twist, like most OpenCart's.
It is not up to the dev Team of OpenCart to provide a store, or any store, with a smashing look and template, that is up to the store-owner. Having one or two "default" templates will not change the way standard OpenCart stores look, the only thing that will change it that you have 2 ways of recognizing a OpenCart store.

It is funny that every once in a while the discussion on the default template comes up. Most store-owners seem to know how important a "own" look is but they refuse to invest money in a custom template to get that look. Because OpenCart is fee they want this special look for free as well :-[

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Post by CUSTOM_UK » Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:45 pm

i2Paq wrote:It is funny that every once in a while the discussion on the default template comes up. Most store-owners seem to know how important a "own" look is but they refuse to invest money in a custom template to get that look. Because OpenCart is fee they want this special look for free as well :-[
I can change the colours in the stylesheet, I can also change the colour and shapes of the 'header boxes' in Corel Draw and all of a sudden I have my own unique look. Takes me about ten minutes, for which some folks seem to charge extortionate rates, but it is still the same default template albeit with a few 'tweaked' colours. I could submit dozens of those to Opencart, but really what's the point in having slight variants??

What is much harder for folks to do without having technical knowledge (or even documentation to help), is to rearrange some of the elements on the page to create a more defined look. It's not about folks getting things for free as let's be honest, you can get someone selling dozens of OpenCart based sites, who will never contribute anything back to the community, but what it is about is giving the folks that are new to OpenCart a helping hand.

If however you want to compare OpenCart to other cart offerings and say we don't do this because cart XYZ doesn't, then you just become a clone of all the other open source offerings, with nothing different to offer. ???

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Post by i2Paq » Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:54 pm

CUSTOM_UK wrote:If however you want to compare OpenCart to other cart offerings and say we don't do this because cart XYZ doesn't, then you just become a clone of all the other open source offerings, with nothing different to offer. ???
Your not getting the point: 1, 2 5 or 10 free templates will not change a thing. Default OpenCart stores will still look as: default OpenCart stores. If you find a good template builder then build one your own, it will cost you about 250 - 500 USD.
See it as a car, see one Ford Fiesta, see them all, unless you buy additional set of side skirts etc. and do a special paint job. I'll bet no one ever complained to Ford about the default look of a Fiesta, and it is not even Free! :D

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Post by Qphoria » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:01 am

i2Paq wrote: I'll bet no one ever complained to Ford about the default look of a Fiesta, and it is not even Free! :D
I'm pretty sure they complained :) That's why they don't make it anymore :laugh:
But really it just comes down to the theme makers being more or less creative. We can't control them.
I would like a better template system tho, something "tag" based on joomla has. Then you could take any theme and add the "tags" and be done with 1 file

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Post by Xsecrets » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:31 am

Qphoria wrote:
i2Paq wrote: I'll bet no one ever complained to Ford about the default look of a Fiesta, and it is not even Free! :D
I'm pretty sure they complained :) That's why they don't make it anymore :laugh:
But really it just comes down to the theme makers being more or less creative. We can't control them.
I would like a better template system tho, something "tag" based on joomla has. Then you could take any theme and add the "tags" and be done with 1 file
This is true. Following the lead of the CMS packages would probably be the best way to go with a template system. I admit that all the CMS systems have template systems that are much easier to use than opencart, but when you compare apples to apples and look at other carts opencart wins hands down. That's not to say that we can't try to go above and beyond other carts.

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Post by CUSTOM_UK » Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:54 am

Xsecrets wrote:That's not to say that we can't try to go above and beyond other carts.
That is exactly the attitude to have to push the product forwards. ;D

The folks over at Coffeecup came up with a novel idea last year, by creating a separate designer program to complement their little cart offering. It allows the unskilled to design their own themes. I don't know whether it would ever be feasible to have a designer program to ever work with OpenCart in the same way?? I am talking about a paid for program of course. ;)

If folks can keep an open mind about what can be created in the future, with the same voracity they use to defend the current product, then the possibilities are unlimited. 8) ;D

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Post by Maansy » Sat Aug 21, 2010 9:54 pm

i want to comment on one point.
yes you can change colors easy to have a different look, but oc template is still very simple to understand to do major changes to the templates.
you can either change colors or adopt any complex design what so ever to it with ease.

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Post by HTMLCSSNoob » Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:41 pm

Qphoria wrote:This is no different than zen-cart. Aside from a longer time in existence, templating zen was quite painful and its all the same 3 column crap. And that default brown (now green) template makes me want to stab my eyes out.
LOL, my sentiments exactly! I'd rather cut off my right arm and have a cat vomit directly in the open flesh wound than use that ugly Zen-Cart default theme. ;D

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Post by CUSTOM_UK » Sun Aug 22, 2010 5:32 am

Maansy wrote:but oc template is still very simple to understand to do major changes to the templates. you can either change colors or adopt any complex design what so ever to it with ease.
I think the essential difference with programs like Zen Cart. is that there are several templates already available, many of which have extensive support threads advising how to achieve different things with them. Opencart (1.48b) comes with one tabbed template with no real documentation on how to achieve simple things with it, which severely limits the potential for non techies to easily create their own design shop. :(

There are many things I like about OpenCart, including the clean admin interface, the guest checkout and the floating shopping cart. I don't like the fact that shop customers have to fill all their details out just to know what the shipping is. but that shortfall also exists in some other carts out there too.

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