Bts Fancy Template

Tonys Tech Blog» Blog Archive » oscMax Templates BTS process

These are just my running notes on using the template system in oscMax.

I use a dev server at home and edit all my websites as copies from the live servers. This makes it easy to get to the files either as a hosted site or as a Windows Explorer fileshare. So I setup a new oscMax dev site specifically for template creation.

For me the easiest thing to do is not use an existing osCommerce or similar template. If you are swapping to oscMax from osCommerce or any of the forks of that application then take the opportunity to learn the new template process and refresh your website. I dithered on and off for a month trying to find a way to convert from old to new. Waste of time I think.

So I grabbed one of the existing templates in the oscMax install, copied it to a new directory under templates, and set my dev install of oscMax to use the new one as the default. Where? In the admin for the store:

Not exactly obvious but you probably do not need to use it too often.

Ok so I now have a directory. What do I need to edit? Potentially everything and possibly little. It will be tweaking the css and the controller scripts.

I use EditPlus as my script editor and have done for 8 or more years (I cannot remember but its a long time) for php and html.

What I do is have my EditPlus open and set for the template folder and I use the Search in Files option to find the references I need to change. In tandem with Chrome or a browser with element analysis option you can pretty quickly work out what the scripts call the item that you want to change and then find it in the appropriate script or css file. If you are a newbie then try using the w3schools site for basic css and html lessons.

So into the templates for oscMax. The default option I copied is a template called Compromise. It has a distinct WordPress feel and suited the template design that I wanted to develop. Note that I am working from a template or design in Photoshop.

Perl template toolkit

Perl Template Toolkit

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