Customer Reviews

The Programmers' Guide to osCommerce: The nuts and bolts of osCommerce customization

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a potential osCommerce store owner, and I bought this book to increase my understanding of osCommerce. I am not a programmer, though I've had to learn some coding to trial osCommerce.

First impression; I was expecting a large-format paperback, but it's a 6"x9" paperback. I didn't pay attention to the listing so don't know if it mentioned format/size. Perhaps I assumed a larger format due to the price of u.s. $26?

More than half of the book is spent on mods to the Admin section, which are not of that much interest to me. Showing how an install happens; listing the actual code and showing how the changes look. This is useful and informative, though the code takes-up a lot of page space. Some of the dialog snapshots take up way more space than they should; nearly a whole page for some. Shrinking these would free up space for more in-depth writing.

I tried the procedure on page 170, to replace a box header with an image, but it didn't work for me; tried three times and am using osC 2.2 MS 2, as is the book. Other procedure worked OK.
I appreciated learning where to and how to change box background color, and the book helped me find that.

There's some sense that the information in this book is gleaned from the osCommerce community docs, and that's OK given the state of disorder and sparseness of information there.
This book fills a void in the osC documents, but it left me feeling a bit unsatisfied overall, especially for us$31.

Oh, ship date kept getting further out and mine took 16 days from order to delivery; It shipped from the U.K., so not so bad, but I got no notification of shipment.

I can recommend it to fill in gaps in your osC documentation.

I am not really an osCommerce newbie, I've been toying with it on a casual basis for about a little over a year. So working around in the admin section, adding content through the front end, and any other mundane routines I am very comfortable with. Thankfully, that kind of information isn't what The Programmers' Guide to osCommerce offers.

What Myles O'Reilly does offer in his book is a very comprehensive guide to using osCommerce for your development needs. There are many different aspects involved in any web project. What I really enjoyed about this book is that as a beginner programmer, I was able to pick this book up and understand it really well.

Tips are offered throughout the book so as to make the most efficient use of osCommerce.

I would venture to say this book is probably good for both the beginning programmer as well as the advanced programmer. The beginner will benefit by being exposed to programming concepts and how to develop business logic. The advanced programmer will be able to use this to pick up on the specifics of osCommerce.

While my particular interest in this book was to learn more about developing modules and components, that certainly isn't the only thing addressed in this book. This book is a very good survey of how flexible osCommerce is.

Half of the book is the exact copy of the OSCOMMERCE Manual, so I'm giving it 3 stars only. BUT the second part of the book is awesome. Step by step you will learn how to personalize that cryptic world of oscommerce and all those php files and "includes" files. Good half-job.

Just got the book two days ago and have not put it down except to read "Building Database Applications on the Web Using PHP3." (another great buy.)
I am new to osCommerce and this book is something worth buying. It is written for both techies and non-techies, and if you have the desire to learn osCommerce, buy this book. It is the most concise and well written book on the subject ever.

Make sure you block out a chunk of time, because once you start reading, you will not put this book down. It fills the gap where other books fail. I buy an average of 5 or so books a week and I guarantee that most of them will be covered with dust before I put this book down.

If you have the desire to learn on your own and want to learn osCommerce...

BUY THE BOOK! Don't wait! Sell something if you have to, get a second job. Whatever it takes, you can not be without this book!

I've been creating web pages with HTML and CSS for several years. First as a diversion, then for work, friends, etc. I had the need to use oscommerce for a project. I bought a couple of books and stumbled through it. Never really "got it" just got through it.

When I picked this book up it HAD STUFF IN IT I NEEDED! It helped me do the things I needed to do in the real world. I'm not a full time web developer, and this book helped me understand the code and how it works.

I would say it is a GREAT buy for the new and advanced user.

The table of contents appears to be very complete but the actual contents are shallow with no details. The book could have been an excellent reference if the author took time to explain the programming paradigm behind the code and how one section of code is related to other areas. I recommend this book if you are trying to get your feet wet in osCommerce for the first time as a programmer with middle-level knowledge in PHP.

I've built a few osCommerce based sites in the past and was always frustrated when I would figure out something and then try to go back a couple of months later and not be able to find where I made that change..

If nothing else it's nice to have a paper book to dogear and markup where the important changes for you are.. The second half of the book is incredibly useful for anyone wanting to make custom changes to their website without worrying about figuring it out by trial and error..

A few others complained about the price for the "size" of the book, but looking at what other people are charging for their books I'm not sure that it's a valid way to judge a book.. I'm a little more interested in what is in the book rather than how large it is..

Pros - Having never bought an "amateur" book before I must admit I was very sceptical about buying this one. Boy was I wrong!

This is the first book I have read that will be relevant to both beginners & seasoned developers alike. The text is very straight forward and easy to follow for a beginner while the included code and variables will enable the more experienced developers to delve deeper and really get to grips with the inner workings of the cart. To me this is a unique and interesting way to write the book - you can purchase the book as a complete beginner & stay with it all the way through your 'OsCommerce Career'.

The book is littered with 'Tips' Boxes as well as skull & crossbone 'Warning' boxes, this makes it very easy for the reader to see useful tips / common pitfalls at a glance (lets face it, as a noob OsCommerce developer you're more likely to have your face buried in the code & miss less obviously noted warnings).

Another great feature are the included screenshot images, I have lost count of the amount of time someone has given me instructions on a certain feature & when I've done what they say I'm left wondering - 'Hmm, is that what it's supposed to look like?' The screenshots leave you in no doubt.

To address a previous reviews comment that half of the book was taken from the OsCommerce help pages, perhaps it was but I can't be the only one that didn't even bother with the official documentation because it was so hard to find / understand? I'm sure Myles wrote this book with the intention of being useful to all user groups and thats exactly what he has done (IMO) - therefore if a few paragraphs were cobbled together from the official help pages & presented in one place then, frankly, so what?

Cons - Really, none that I can see although I may be too much of an OsCommerce beginner to notice the flaws / lack of content in the more advanced dialogue sections (coding - in depth explanations) although given the attention to detail in the sections of the book relevant to me, I highly doubt it!

I agree with the other reviewer -- a big price to pay for such a small book. I bought the book, however, I ended up returning it to the store within a day, because I couldn't see spending $27 for a 6 x 9 by half inch book. It reminded me of the exam cram books they sell for $15-$19.

On a positive note, It takes the current documentation and expands upon it with some real examples. That was nice. It does make sense of the structure of OSC, if you don't have that down.

Written in the book is everything you need to know about customizing osCommerce. I should have bought this book when i was a newbie or lets say this book should have existed when a was a newbie 3 years ago.

Kudos to the author of the book!