Platforms & Shopping Carts
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Nine: CSS Begins, Font Glitch
CSS is the language of appearance. It shapes and reshapes HTML markup, changing its presentation based on contest. In this article, I will begin writing the style sheets for the Alien Authority website. The site is built on the WordPress platform...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Eight: Draft HTML5 Markup
Creating a basic HTML markup before trying to add PHP and platform-specific functions can help to speed up the WordPress development process. It can be pretty tempting to just dive into a various template files found in an existing WordPress them...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Seven: More Functions for the Custom Post Type
Custom post types allow developers to extend WordPress and include content like product detail information. This article is the seventh in a series created to demonstrate how to use WordPress to develop an ecommerce site that sells virtual produc...
45 Tutorials for Magento Go
Magento Go is a software-as-a-service ecommerce platform from Magento. It is a simple and customizable option for developers who need to create and manage cost-effective stores for their clients. Magento Go has four pricing plans that range from ...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Six: Create a Custom Post Type
In WordPress, custom post types allow a developer to define the administration interface for content like product detail information. Creating a custom content type for product detail pages requires surprising little effort, and what follows is a...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Five: Install WordPress, Copy Theme
WordPress is one of the easiest web content management systems to install and use, which no doubt contributes to its popularity. Perhaps one in six websites use it. The platform's flexibility also makes it suitable for basic ecommerce application...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Four: Facing Design Challenges
Transforming a graphic design into a working site typically includes challenges. As much as possible, it is a good idea to anticipate and address those challenges before you begin writing code. With this approach, I am going to describe several k...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Three: CSS Grid, Home Page Design
Responsive site designs that adapt to a user's device are a keystone of good web work in 2012. Responsive design, however, can and does add a level of complexity and some extra work as the web worker needs to create additional graphic designs, st...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part Two: Logo and Color Palette
Whether a site is displayed on a smartphone, a desktop, or a television, how it looks will affect how much visitors trust and respect it. With this in mind, planning and executing a graphic design should be one of the first steps in a web develo...
Installing Magento Community Edition on an Ubuntu LAMP Stack
The popular Magento ecommerce platform is built to run on a Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack and installing it on Ubuntu 11.11 takes just a few simple commands. At the time of writing, the most recent version of Magento's free Community Edi...
Using WordPress for Ecommerce, Part One: Defining the Project
WordPress, the popular, open-source content management system, can be a good choice for developing ecommerce sites. This article is the first in an Ecommerce Developer series that will describe in some detail how to use WordPress to develop an ec...
17 New Magento Tutorials
The Magento open source ecommerce platform has an installed user-base of over 100,000 merchants. Magento supports an active developer community and a frequent stream of helpful tutorials. Here is a list of recent tutorials for Magento. There are...
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms: Part 11 TomatoCart
TomatoCart is a free, PHP-based, open-source ecommerce platform that features an Ajax administration panel, very capable reporting and analytics, and a rich user experience. This review of TomatoCart is part of my ongoing series of articles inten...
A Checklist for OpenCart Launches
After 16 years of website building, I think I know enough to launch a site with complete confidence, knowing I have performed all the necessary configurations. Unfortunately, the reality is that despite my own self-confidence, I always miss someth...
29 New WordPress Tutorials
WordPress is a highly customizable platform. But tailoring a WordPress site to fit your needs still takes work. Fortunately, there is always a steady stream of new WordPress tutorials to help. Here is a list of recent WordPress tutorials. There...
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms, Part 10: Zeuscart
Zeuscart is a free, open-source, PHP-based ecommerce platform available under a GNU license. The platform provides many important features including support for digital products. This review of Zeuscart is part of an ongoing series of articles me...
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms, Part 9: jCart
Free and open source, jCart is a shopping cart based on PHP and jQuery. It can be added to an existing website with ease, enabling an Ajax-driven user experience and PayPal integration. This review of jCart is the ninth installment in a series of...
Localizing OpenCart for Language, Currency
OpenCart 1.5 comes with the capability to support multiple languages, currencies and other localization features. However, the standard installation only includes one language: English. Furthermore, the British heritage of OpenCart's developer, Da...
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms, Part 8: Spree
Spree is a Ruby-on-Rails-powered open source ecommerce platform known for providing excellent backend structure and exceptional frontend flexibility. This review of Spree is the eighth installment in a series of articles that provide a brief anal...
27 OpenCart Tools and Tutorials
It’s easy to understand why OpenCart is a popular ecommerce platform. Feature-rich "out of the box,” OpenCart helps developers get merchants up and running at a minimal cost. Here is a list of tools and tutorials for OpenCart. There are tools to ...