After mulling it over for a while I have decided to tackle the Big Update.
Yes that's the complete shop overhaul!
OS Commerce has come up with an 3.0 alpha version with a more controllable template CSS and all that and I don't need the outstanding items flagged for later releases.
This time I am going to integrate the shop with the rest of the site whilst retaining the existing URLs and take the opportunity to update the overall appearance: colour scheme, Menus - the works. I'm even going to replace the database to remove any wrinkles that may have crept in.
As far as I can see I just need to rent a second database and set up a development area in my existing web space to be able to develop and test as I go along. Then I should be able to change over quickly and easily.
Never the less I expect this will take quite some time and if I hit anything interesting I'll do more posts.
Other wise it has been a quiet summer again while the students are on their holidays. There are occasional download problems as new browsers come out and I have reinforced our Firefox recommendation because no matter what other issues occur with Firefox from time to time the download functionality seems to be very stable and user friendly. The You Send It facility which we rent as a backup distribution solution has never failed. The new sample player is one of the occasional casualties on my set up but it never generates complaints so I am sticking with it.
Yes that's the complete shop overhaul!
OS Commerce has come up with an 3.0 alpha version with a more controllable template CSS and all that and I don't need the outstanding items flagged for later releases.
This time I am going to integrate the shop with the rest of the site whilst retaining the existing URLs and take the opportunity to update the overall appearance: colour scheme, Menus - the works. I'm even going to replace the database to remove any wrinkles that may have crept in.
As far as I can see I just need to rent a second database and set up a development area in my existing web space to be able to develop and test as I go along. Then I should be able to change over quickly and easily.
Never the less I expect this will take quite some time and if I hit anything interesting I'll do more posts.
Other wise it has been a quiet summer again while the students are on their holidays. There are occasional download problems as new browsers come out and I have reinforced our Firefox recommendation because no matter what other issues occur with Firefox from time to time the download functionality seems to be very stable and user friendly. The You Send It facility which we rent as a backup distribution solution has never failed. The new sample player is one of the occasional casualties on my set up but it never generates complaints so I am sticking with it.