Zen Cart versus osCommerce

[jhande1]

Years ago I used osCommerce, wow bit of a nightmare. Every time I turned around I always had to "update" the core code. With each new version release some of my favorite add-ons would break. I am not a programmer so it took me the better part of a year just updating code. Change the theme... another joke. I see they have a responsive version available but from what I have been reading I'll probably be hacking for a year again.

My wife needs a site to sell some home made products and I need a place to sell hand crafted items. Places like eBay, Etsy, etc... are no goes for our needs (very small profit margin). We are both retired and I'd rather not spend all my time hacking.

How hard would it be to implement Zen Cart for responsive, utilize PayPal, USPS, and change the theme?

[mc12345678]

Out of the box the first 2 are immediately present. USPS, upload a plugin and provide USPS credentials.

Item four "change" the theme (template) that really depends on how drastic of a change you want to personally make. There are tools that have been made available to make it easier to well basically recover from a mistake. Between copying a template, a rework of the ZC 1.5.5 responsive template to make some changes more independent from the rest of the css, to tools standard in browsers (F12) and a search utility within the ZC admin to hunt down where portions displayed can be found.

So technically? Could have a site up in a few hours, though there are a few bells and whistles to be modified to make it ones own store. Once up and doing business can then also work on a new theme. Of course backup, backup, backup...

As far as updating things, well, a majority of updates are or have been php driven. Php is the language upon which the software is written. Over time there have been features or options that were allowed but no longer are. Therefore, many of the updates have been to bring the code up-to-date with the latest version of php (currently 7.2 which was released at the end of last month). ZC 1.5.6 is expected to be php 7.2 compliant where ZC 1.5.5e is basically current with php 7.1. See the server requirements page found at the home page of this forum.

As a community based project, if you do find a plugin no longer works, if you post to the applicable thread as much as you can about the situation and your setup, then it is more likely to be addressed than if just try to tough it out and definitely makes it known that there is an issue. Can't fix what isn't identified as broken. :)

[Design75]

I am not here to say which of the two is better, but in my opinion Zen Cart is the better for you at the moment.
Zen Cart's code has been maintained more actively, although the osc code has been updated by the community. No official osc release has seen the light for years.

Templating is easier in zen cart, and requires no, or a minimum of core changes. This is a bit depending on which template you chose. There is a default responsive theme available in Zen Cart.
PayPal is included, and only needs activating and your credentials.
I can not comment on USPS, as I do not use it, and have no experience with it.

[jhande1]

Thank you guys!

The thought of starting fresh with osC kind of scared me, LOL.

Off to find a version of XAMPP that works with Windows10 then I'll start playing with Zen Cart.

Thanks again!