Geeklog Forums

I have been working for quite sometime on a plugin for Geeklog to use osCommerce as a store. I think I am in the final stretch and am in need of people to help test it. There is still a bit to do but all the basics are up and running (and hopefully functional). If you have a bit of time and are intrestred in seeing this completed (I do plan on releasing it when its done), please test it out. There is a bit of adult content on the site so if your at work make sure your boss isn't looking over your shoulder when you test it. The site is in test mode so no products will ship nothing will be billed.

Make up your personal info, the only thing it needs is a proper email address so geeklog can send you your password. If you run into any issues please post them here or email them to me at osc_gl@theouldsod.com

The url for the test site is here

Thanks for your input and testing

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Yes I am mental.

I don't want to make you mad or anything. I am just telling you the truth ok.
I looked at that site. And I don't know if it's the pulg-in or the layout.
But even a big lover of Geeklog that I am. It took me a min to understand your site.
Now think about it as someone totaly new.
They well be lost.
Most people well not even try. The thing about an oCommerce site. It needs to be easy to understand.
I hope you understand. I realy like the Idea. And want it for myself. (As Blain knows lol)
But it just needs to be easyer to understand.

Gotta disagree - I found the site and the plugin easy to follow - even learned a couple of things while I scoped the site. My wife will benefit more than I, alas - except for the OsCommerce plugin - that'll help me lots. Good work !!!

ya I may be wrong. Just not my kinda site layout is what I think.
I realy did not take to much time to look.
I LIKE BORDERS!
But hey thats just me.

Wow this is great actually. I have an OSCommerce site, and am very frustrated with some aspects of it. There is a PHPNuke / OSCommerce package you can get, but I don't like PHPNuke.

Keep us updated on how your progress with this plugin progresses, I'd love to give it a try when you have a stable version.

Also, how does the plugin react when you have additonal "contributions" installed in oscommerce?

The more feedback the better, there is no such thing as non-constructive criticism just personally valid view points.
This is true about most geeklog sites. It's basically a layout just like every other GL and osC site, except I added a couple center blocks to the GL home-page. Although I did do all the photoshop, I didn't do the basic layout design. I'm guessing your problems must be with the design, it just uses standard geeklog themes and standard osC layouts... It's not any harder, to change the look completely, then making a regular osC theme and a regular GL theme.


I am not sure how it could be much "easyer" to understand. If the site confuses you as much as it sounds, you could use any osC compatible theme and easily convert your GL site to use a similar theme.

Although probably not as elegant as what Blaine would do, I am sure his solution came with a price tag, this one will be free (at least the first properly working version). I will release it when its done and hopefully people like yourself will make it better for everyone including myself to use.

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Yes I am mental.

How will we know how stable this version is unless people like yourself sign up for an account and test it? Make up a name and a mailing address, COD is the only shipping option, the site is in test mode nothing will ever ship. I will purge all the testing accounts before the site goes live so your email will have no chance of going beyond my eyes.

I have a few contributions installed, the things I have added to osC are basically nothing more then contributions themselves. As with any contributions compatibility with other contributions will vary depending on what they do. I have added a couple to this site already without issues.

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Yes I am mental.

Good point. Since nothing will ship, I'll sign up tonight and play around. Thanks!

hehehehe great minds think a like.
see here

Now that I know what your using. also the fact that I changed the theme. I have lots of input. lol
This was an Idea that I was thinking about. But the osCommerce 2.2-MS2 set up is a lot deferent thin GL that I just keep them apart.
Now let me first tell you that I am looking at this as a person that wants a community, homepage, or news page first and adding the osCommerce to bring in income, but don't want to change the hole GL into a store. If you was just wanting an osCommerce site. Thin why add it to GL. see my point. lol

In the files.
osCommerce comes with 2 config files. one for the store and one for the admin.
Was you able to put these in the plug in file area?
The reason is, I just fell better if there is just no way that someone can find and/or look at them and get my passes to my database.
Better yet I rather it get that info from the GL config.

Also on languages.
I don't see the box that changes the language for the osCommerce (this is a good thing) But did you get it to work and change with the user prefs?
I see that you went with English only for the site.
Also you may want to add currency type to user prefs.

Also I see that the account page is not coming up.
I foresee problems with that. one of the big problems that may get overlooked and I want to make sure it don't. That page well now have to work under a SSL Url. Because according to what pay service you use. You may have info in there like payment info.
Also working as a community.
People like to use (like me) usernames.
But when you pay you well need a real name and other info.

Now on to the Admin.
Lets say this the easiest way I can.
If you did do a full integration with the admin. Thin you deserve some praise cuz that well be a big pain in the ars.
I am just guessing here because I am not an admin on the page and can't see the setup.
But if you just added a link to the main admin of osCommerce that well be good to.
Maybe even easier to understand.
But that well still need to be kept under a pass worded area.
But if you did do a full integration. Thin that means you can specify who can get in there.
Now on to what osCommerce can do and did you get it to work for GL.
The one thing I like about the osCommerce site is (hehehehe) you can spy on people see what there doing and were they are.
Did you get that to work with GL pages also.
And on that note. You can see and edit files in your server from the admin in osCommerce. Well that now work on the GL pages?

Now to the look of the store.
Say you come to my site. I don't want the first thing you see is "well you bye this". My site is a community first.

Placement of boxes.
Can you turn off and on the "New this month"
on the front page. Say like the center box with the forums. It well need to also need to have a way to place it were you want like the forums box can.
Also a smaller limit for how many items can be shown.
Say like if I was to add it to my site.
3 rows of items on the main page of my site is just to much. It well make my main page a mile long. lol
Also the other boxes that I am sure a lot of people well want an option to add to there main page, like Bestsellers and Specials.

Also something that osCommerce 2.2-MS2 don't have but I well really like to see added is discount codes.

Well that's it for now.
I well just like to say that. If you get this fully intergraded with GL.
I fill this well be one of the major downloads for GL and well make GL a hell of a lot more popular.

You might want to edit that link to make it work.


If my client was satisfied with the osCommerce list of features then I wouldn't have had to gone through so much trouble. But she wasn't and the combined feature set was what she wanted.

Since it is a plugin I didn't want to mess with the GL config file at all. So osC still uses it's own config files. Right now it uses the same database as GL but by keeping the config files separate it will allow for a future upgrade that lets it use a separate database.


This is possible but my client didn't want these features thus didn't want to pay me to add them. So I didn't add them.


What account page are you referring to? I am assuming you mean the osC account page. This page isn't the most functional page. The address book page takes care of all the name and address functions. The first time you make a purchase it requires you to put in your default address and name.

I haven't tested the SSL features of osC yet because the payment system my client is using doesn't need them as the actual payments are done on a separate secure server. But in the future I do plan on adding the SSL features to make it more portable to different payment systems.



The admin pages are fully integrated with GL's admin interface.


The "who's online" feature of osC only works on osC pages not on GL pages. The "file manager" feature works on all files on the site including all the GL files (assuming you have your permissions set to allow it).

That may be great for your site, but my client feels differently then you.


The center blocks are editable and configureable in a similar way to the forum center block. I didn't make an admin interface to change them since my client doesn't want to move them around, but you can change them in the plugin function.inc file. I might eventually get around to doing it but not in the first release.



I haven't bothered to convert all the default osC boxes into GL blocks cause my client didn't require it, but you can add php blocks to GL that can do anything you want.


There are loads of "contributions" for osC that add this functionality, and although I haven't tested them with my plugin I am don't see any problems adding them to this plugin.

Thanks.

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Yes I am mental.

Hi Gavin,

You have a problem on this site: new users never get their password mailed to them.

I've signed up 3 times with 3 diff. emails for the last month and I've never received an automated email with password.

Maybe you should look at this. It would make testing easyier.

For the rest, I salute your integration as I know the great potential of Geeklog and osC as separated entities. I can imagine their integration would be a wonderful answer to anyone whishing to offer great content, interactivity, community features and sales potential to a website.

I wish you'll succeed soon. It'll be good for both GL and osC.

Have fun.

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It ain't easy being you

I don't think it can be a problem with my plugin, as I haven't touched the mail functions. Perhaps your isp has my hosting company blocked? There has been about 60 people sign up in the last week and your the only who hasn't received the email. Do you use spam assassin or something similar?

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Yes I am mental.

Well, no. I don't have spam software. I'm still getting 30+ organ enlargment/pills/or other crap offers per day...

I've tried to create account "jef" a month ago from my home. I've never had problem getting mails at home... You send me the pw after I've mailed you.

I've tried to create "jef1" and "jef2" accounts today, from work, with my 2 different emails... Well, no answer and no pw.

Still, I can create endless accounts on any osC or GL ¸and always receiving automatic emails with pw. Very frustrating.

From there, I don't know what to tell you... I'll test other ways.

PS.: I think accounts are created, but I'm not sure the emails are sent. Have you checked that these 60+ folks have received anything?

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It ain't easy being you

Your accounts were created, I received the emails notifying me they were indeed created. The other testers must have received their emails cause many test orders have been placed so they had to login. The account you created a month ago might not work anymore due to the fact that I changed the login process since then. This is indeed frustrating, as I didn't change any of the email settings. Do you have any kind of free web mail like yahoo or hotmail? If so could you try to use one of those for a test?

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Yes I am mental.

OK, now I'm confused.

I've created a new account on my own GL site, and got my pw instantly.

I've tried to create a new account on LoveNectar using the work email I've used this morning and your system confirmed my email was already used, so accounts were created for sure.

I've just tried to create a fourth account (hiho) with a personal pop email I can retrieve from the web, and still no answer...

You know what? You have a problem somewhere. And when you say you never touched your email settings, well, maybe you did without knowing. Email confirmations may work differently in osC or GL and there's a conflict? This, or your automated emails are affraid to cross the canadian border...


Who knows?

I'll continue to test, keeping posting if I notice something new...

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It ain't easy being you

I have no idea what the deal is, I just used 4 different email addresses and received the account information on all of them. There is obviously a problem but I haven't figured it out YET, thanks for helping to track it down.

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Yes I am mental.

Ok, I've just received password for account "noemail"

But still sothing on the other mailboxes !!?? Weird..

Now I'll be able to order the dildo of my dream!!

And you know what? I'm not receiving email notifications from the GL forum either... Maybe I'm having the problem... I'll pursue the tests later at home.

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It ain't easy being you

I wonder if it is a problem with using ™ in the site name, I just noticed in a yahoo email that I received for an account that I just created it didn't put the last semi colon in the address. I took off the ™ from the site name hopefully that helps.

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Yes I am mental.

OK, so I know I'll never recieve my new Crystal Wand Ebony super duper dildo monster, but I've ordered it anyway.

It was a painless procedure, excepted for a few things:

1) When one is creating an account, you only ask for email and login name. You really should ask for the whole thing, as in default osC: address and everything you should need to order a thing. The fact is: no matter GL stuff and everything, your site is serving 1 purpose over the rest: selling stuff. It's not logical to have to enter your shipping-billing address as you buy something. This should already be done at account creation.

2) I've entered a very silly note when ordering. A short text in the comment text field. Then the system asked me about my addresses and blah blah blah... And then, the text was gone! I didn't had the inspiration to write back my silly text involving geespotting allusions, but nevertheless, I was frustrated (again). If you'd have taken my whole pedigree from the starting point, it would have worked I guess... As in standard osC.

3) There's no explanation about Male G-Spot. I was intrigued at first to read the words Male and G-Spot in the same sentence. Then, you left me down on my way to satisfy my thirst for knowledge. Again, frustration.

4) When we are in the "store" part of your site, there's the old standard osC message greating us: Welcome back Dude... or the name you entered with the address, and then, always on top, you have «Welcome to LoveNectar.com, loginname». This is more greeting than I need. You should configure your top message for showing the "real" first name of customers, and then, you should forget about asking for a login name, as you'll follow my counsel in item 1) and go for a standard osC login system: email + password, hopefully a password chosen by customers.

Finally...) Your top graphic is quite elaborate (and very 56k modem unfriendly). I think that everything below needs redesign. I won't go as far as telling you what you should do, I understand you were on a quest for breaking the block mold in opening the frontiers, but since your template is still basic GL-osC square formed, you should obey square rule #1: clear delimitation of the space. Otherwise, I'd suggest you break the whole column pattern and explore new ways of displaying infos, which I understand is more complicated. And please, strip your site from old osC graphic stuff. I think a good start would be to work on your css.

It's only my 50 cents canadian.

Do you need to test your work an another site?

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It ain't easy being you

Other point:

The GL footbar where you read:
«Copyright © 2003 LoveNectar.com
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Powered By GeekLog
Created this page in 0.24 seconds »

should appear at the bottom of the page, not the bottom of articles when showing stories. Look at "about Thia". Btw, she looks great for her "30 years training experience".

And don't forget to post something about Male-G-Spotting... I'm still intrigued.

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It ain't easy being you