osCommerce Watch

Google's new Google Sitemaps service lets you submit information about the pages in your website directly to Google, ensuring Google knows about the content in your website. As well as being able to submit site data, you also have access to your site's search statistics.

We recommend Google Sitemaps for anyone wanting to improve their site's search engine results.

For osCommerce store owners, the Google XML Sitemap Feed contribution lets you feed information about your store's products and categories to the Google Sitemap system. It is very easy to install.

Download from osCommerce Contributions Site

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

VaultLine Payment Module available for download at osCommerce Contributions Site

Attitude has released a payment module for the VaultLine payment gateway. The VaultLine payment gateway has been developed by VaultLine, Inc. as an enterprise level payment processing platform.

The VaultLine payment module allows merchants using osCommerce to accept credit card payments using the VaultLine transaction gateway. The module uses NuSOAP, an open-source PHP class library, rather than the PEAR library. This allows for ease of installation as it doesn't rely on your webhost's cooperation.

Comprehensive debug functionality is included to assist in installation and testing with your shopping cart. The module also features optional email logging of all interactions with the VaultLine server.

This payment module has been paid for by VaultLine, Inc. and is the approved osCommerce payment module for their gateway.

Links:
VaultLine Website
VaultLine Gateway Information
Download the VaultLine Payment Module from the Attitude site

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

Netregistry Payment Module available for download at osCommerce Contributions Site

Attitude today released a payment module for popular Australian Payment Gateway, NetRegistry. NetRegistry offers an ecommerce gateway allowing Merchants to process credit card transactions in realtime.

This payment module allows merchants using osCommerce to accept credit card payments using NetRegistry's Gateway. This module uses the NetRegistry External processing script and as such can be used by clients hosting internally or externally to NetRegistry.

Comprehensive debug functionality is included to assist in installation and testing with your shopping cart. The module also features optional email logging of all interactions with the NetRegistry server.

This payment module has been paid for by NetRegistry and is their approved osCommerce payment module for their gateway.

Links:
NetRegistry Website
NetRegistry Gateway Information
Download NetRegistry Payment Module from the Attitude site

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

Download at osCommerce Contributions Site

The redirect.php file supplied with osCommerce is designed to provide redirection to offsite links. It also allows someone to redirect via an osCommerce install to another website or file on the web. While this might not seem too problematic, this could be used by a malicious user to obscure the source of a file when a link is clicked.

This modification was written in response to the actions of a spammer using our osCommerce installation's "redirect.php" to allow his emails to avoid commom spam blacklists. Our domain was flagged by Spamcop as a result of the spammer's actions.

The modified redirect.php checks that the url that has been passed to the script is one you have entered as a product url.

If a user attempts to redirect to a url that is not in the products_description table, the user will be redirected to the catalog homepage.

Since finding the issue I have found a couple of sites on the web publicising the issue.

Download Safer redirect.php from the Attitude site

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

I also recommend checking out this contribution:

Contact Us Spam Issue Fixes

This patches some known ways that spammers can abuse the contact form code.

Update: it seems the redirect issue has been identified in the osCommerce bug tracking system.

Many thanks to attitudenz for his work
There was already a patch which was provided by hpdl(Harold)
Link: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/bugs,2970

Hamed also posts a version of redirect.php with Harold's patch.

DPS PxPost Payment Module available for download at osCommerce Contributions Site

Attitude today released a new version of the DPS PxPost Payment Module for osCommerce.

It includes a workaround to solve incompatabilities with various order total modules and integration with another developers mod to add the DPS logo.

It is recommended all existing users upgrade.

Further Information:
More information on the DPS Payment Module
DPS Website
DPS PxPost Information
Download DPS PxPost module from the Attitude site

Require someone to install this payment module or upgrade your existing module? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

There are a few contributions in the works at Attitude that are at various stages of readiness for release as contributions. For information on when these become available please register for an update.

For information on how you can assist us in offering these to the wider osCommerce community sooner please contact Attitude.

Please be clear when you enquire or provide feedback about the contribution you are interested in. Your feedback will help us decide where we put our effort first.

Attitude Simple Auction Integration

Allow the people who win Auctions on eBay or Trademe or other online Auction sites to pay via your osCommerce Shopping Cart.

Upgrade to Attitude's Simple Manual Order Entry

Enhancements for usability and easier entry of phone, mail and other offline orders.

Attitude Simple Populate

A simpler and easier to use alternative to Easy Populate for CSV upload and download of product data into osCommerce.

Attitude Simple Data Collector

An add-on that allows data to be collected from forms inside or outside of your osCommerce Shopping Cart. The data is stored in your database and can be forwarded on to a specific email address. Autoreply's are also possible.

This is relevant for use in specific enquiry forms or for use in creating mailing lists (that don't require the person to signup for an account).

A new newsletter module is developed along with this that allows you to email the people who have contacted you or signed up for mailing lists with an option to unsubscribe from future mailings.

Submit Feedback

What are the osCommerce contributions that have improved your ability to sell or administer your online store?

We are looking for practical feedback from store owners operating carts. If you can, quantify it e.g. "this contribution saved me half an hour a day in processing orders" or "after installing this contribution our sales increased by 5%". We will share your insights with the readers of this site.

DPS PxPost Payment Module available for download at osCommerce Contributions Site

An osCommerce payment module for New Zealand stores

Current Version: 1.12

Direct Payment Solutions (DPS) offers the PxPost method for processing credit card transactions in realtime. DPS are the only major provider to be certified and have connections for settlement to every bank in New Zealand, the 4 majors in Australia and Citibank Singapore.

Attitude is pleased to release a payment module that allows acceptance of credit card payments via DPS's PxPost method. You can choose between immediate payment and
pre-authorisation of the card.

The module features optional email logging of all interactions with the DPS server.

The module requires a PxPost enabled account with DPS, an SSL certificate for your site, and CURL support for PHP. Your host should be able to confirm whether CURL is supported.

Updated 13 July 2004

Corrected issue with passing of cardholder name. Latest version available to download below or from the osCommerce site.

Updated 23 August 2005

The latest FULL release: workaround to solve incompatabilities with various order total modules and integration with another developers mod to add the DPS logo.

It is recommended all existing users upgrade.

Links:
DPS Website
DPS PxPost Information
Download DPS PxPost module from the Attitude site

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

Here are some useful links related to coding standards and considerations for osCommerce Contribution Development that are relevant for developers working with osCommerce.

CVS for Standard Coding Practice Documentation (Click "text" or "markup" on latest version)
How To Make Contributions - forum post from Harold Ponce De Leon. A couple of the follow-up posts have some good information.
2.2 Milestone 3 And Contributions - forum post from Harold Ponce De Leon looking towards the changes MS3 will bring that are relevant for those writing contributions.

Attitude Simple Manual Order Entry for osCommerce

Version 0.3 - 28 February 28, 2004

Added additional notes on securing the system and additional instructions on use. Added options for larger product catalogs. Added shared configuration and authentication file. Fixed bug with restoring carts. Added PDF version of documentation.

Overview

Attitude Simple Manual Order Entry for osCommerce allows the manual entry of telephone or mail order entries into your OSCommerce store. It provides for both the searching of existing customers (by surname, phone number, or email) and also a link to facilitate adding a new customer. Once the desired customer has been located you can enter the products into that customers shopping cart and go through the checkout process for them effectively entering an order for them. The system allows orders to be marked as manual orders when they are placed.

The system effectively logs you in as the person placing the order. Shops may find it useful as a customer support tool as they can access the customer’s account.

Update: - March 8
I have submitted this as an official osCommerce contribution. Details are here:
http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1927

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

Currently we are testing some code which integrates PHPEsp survey software into osCommerce. This will allow storeowners to conduct surveys on their sites.

Test this here:
osCommerce Survey

The results of the survey should be of interest to the osCommerce community and those evaluating osCommerce for their online store.

Check back later for instructions on adding surveys to your site and for the results of this survey.

Download Easy Populate

Overview

With a large inventory of products, using the osCommerce admin section to update products can be a chore. Any time you need to update multiple products at once, Easy Populate is designed to overcome the problems of dealing with large product catalogs and save you a heap of time and frustration. In short, Easy Populate allows you to download your product database, make changes to product information in a spreadsheet, and upload to replace the existing information.

Installation

Installation is reasonably simple. A couple of files are added to the admin directory, minor changes are made to link the contribution into your admin menu, and a writeable directory must be created.

There are a large number of configuration variables and the author recommends going through this carefully to get the most out of the contribution. For instance, there is the ability to turn on or off downloading and updating of product attributes.

I would recommend testing thoroughly prior to implementation on a live site with alot of other mods or contributions, particularly if your database structure has changed.

As always read the documentation thoroughly. Backup your files prior to installation. Test thoroughly! It would pay to backup your database prior to testing.

Documentation

Definitely a winner in comparison to most contributions. There is a manual with information on installation and use. This is provided in multiple versions (including PDF).

The documentation is very comprehensive including troubleshooting specific problems.

A section "SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS
FOR LARGE STORES" covers issues related to updating large product catalogs.

Functionality

The system is simple to use. Download your product data. Open this in Excel or another spreadsheet/database. Edit away.

There are huge advantages in being able to update your data using a spreadsheet. This also allows you to link data into your offline product database and computer systems - particularly important if the web is only one of your sales channels.

Additional Functionality the manual highlights are:

• Supports Froogle export format


• Supports multiple languages


• Creates Categories and Manufacturers on the fly


• Unlimited levels of categories/subcategories are supported.


• Products without pictures can be defaulted to a standard "no picture available" image.


• Upload a file via browser or grab a file from the temp directory.

Conclusion

If your cart has a large number of products and/or requires frequent updates of product information (e.g. prices or availability) you should consider Easy Populate. The excellent documentation makes installing and using Easy Populate straightforward. This is an important supplement to the base osCommerce system.

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

The Simple Manual Order Entry code is updated to improve installation instructions and better use osCommerce core functions.

Here is a brief overview of the functionality:

Attitude Simple Manual Order Entry allows the manual entry of telephone or mail order entries into your osCommerce store.

It provides for both the searching of existing customers (by surname, phone number, or email) and also a link to facilitate adding a new customer. Once the desired customer has been located or added you can enter the products into that customers shopping cart and go through the checkout process for them - effectively entering an order
for them.

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

I have seen a few people struggling with the Manual Order Entry Contribution in the forums. We are developing a simpler version that allows entry of phone/mail order purchases into the osCommerce cart.

Please contact us if you are interested in testing this.

It is only tested for version 2.2MS2.