A few key points about osCommerce they DON'T tell you on the support site:

• oscommerce is an "open source" application that requires direct editing of some PHP code. The easiest way to do this even if you've never edited any code in your life is to use the WordPad program that comes with Windows. (more on this later)
• oscommerce takes up about 3MB of your webspace once installed. This includes about 100 sample products, descriptions, reviews etc., as well as the complete Admin section.

The following tutorial applies to Unix based plans with My SQL and PHP enabled.

Basic Setup in H-Sphere:

You must make sure osCommerce is activated in your plans creation wizard or plan settings.

Important! Also, make sure PHP and My SQL are enabled for the plan.

Next, Log into the admin panel for the account you'd like to add osCommerce to.

Creating a MY SQL database in H-Sphere:

1. For left menu H-Sphere setup click on "Databases" then "MySQL DB Wizard".
2. Name the database and give it a description such as "shopping cart", hit "next"
3. Create a username and password for the My SQL db user. For "User role" use "dba", which grants this user full administrative control.
4. Click "Add user"
5. Click "finish"

Activating osCommerce and connecting it to your MY SQL Database:

1. In the left nav menu click on "Account" then "Quick access"
2. Click on the osCommerce icon in the quick access menu
3. In the "Edit osCommerce" menu turn the to by clicking on it.
4. Under the "MySQL databases" drop-down, choose the database you've just created.
5. Under the "MySQL User" drop-down, choose the user you've just created. Click "NEXT"
   

If successful, you should see this message:
osCommerce has been added successfully
Don`t forget to set permissions on the "admin" directory using Web protect (Quick Access INFO) to restrict access to osCommerce configuration.

This message is simply a reminder to password protect your "Admin" directory. The Admin directory holds the backend of the osCommerce cart and enables you to manage your cart settings etc., at anytime via the web at: http://yourdomain.com/admin

To Web Protect your Admin directory follow these steps:

1. In the Quick access menu click on "Web Protect"
2. Click on the "Admin" directory
3. In the "Name" field type in anything, for example "cart admin"
4. Click on "Add user"
5. Follow the pop-up prompts to create a username/password for this directory.
6. Click "Save", "ok" and close the window.

Setting up osCommerce:

Click the oscommerce icon in the "quick access" menu. You should see this menu:

: This operation restores corrupted osCommerce templates and updates the osCommerce config file to use the current hosting settings.
: Upgrades osCommerce to the latest version.
: A direct link to your online store.
: A direct link to your password-protected Admin section to setup and configure your cart.

Click on . The first thing you'll notice is the warning message at the top of the screen:

"Warning: Installation directory exists at: /hsphere/local/home/user/yourdomain.com/catalog/install. Please remove this directory for security reasons."

To get rid of this warning message you must delete the entire "install" folder inside your "catalog" directory. You can delete this using any FTP client or the file manager in either H-Sphere or the osCommerce admin section.

Basic Configuration of your Store:

Click on or go to http://yourdomain.com/admin Login with the user name and password you created using Web Protect earlier. If logged in you should see:

A good place to get started here is in "My Store". This setup is pretty much like most other carts. Basically highlight a title, click on it and either hit the "Edit" button on the right to change its value or type it in the text box and hit "Update". The entire backend of osCommerce follows this basic procedure and is fairly easy for anyone with basic knowledge of a PC, website administration or the internet in general.

PHP

If you already are familiar with the PHP scripting language skip the rest of this tutorial. The following is for beginners or those who have never edited code before.

Basic Configuration of your main Storefront page: www.yourdomain.com/catalog/default.php

Assuming your cart is in english:
There are basically 2 PHP documents you must edit in order to customize your storefront.

Login via FTP to your site and Download these 2 documents..

Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/includes/languages/english.php
Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/includes/languages/english/default.php

Were not going to get into a PHP lesson here, just the basics:
2 important things to remember if you've never edited PHP before:

1. Any line that starts with "define" can be edited, for example:
   define('HEADING_TITLE', 'What\'s New Here?') could be changed to:
   define('HEADING_TITLE', 'Welcome to Our Store!')
2. Don't touch anything else in blue unless you know what you are doing!

Open default.php using WordPad:

--------------------------------------------------

define('TEXT_MAIN', 'This is a demonstration online-shop, <b>any products purchased will not be delivered nor billed</b>. Any information seen on these products are to be treated fictional.<br><br>If you wish to download this sample shop, or to contribute to this project, please visit the <a href="http://oscommerce.com"><u>support site</u></a>. This shop is based on <font color="#f0000"><b>' . PROJECT_VERSION . '</b></font>.');
define('TABLE_HEADING_NEW_PRODUCTS', 'New Products For %s');
define('TABLE_HEADING_UPCOMING_PRODUCTS', 'Upcoming Products');
define('TABLE_HEADING_DATE_EXPECTED', 'Date Expected');

if ($category_depth == 'products' || $HTTP_GET_VARS['manufacturers_id']) {
define('HEADING_TITLE', 'Let\'s See What We Have Here');
define('TABLE_HEADING_IMAGE', '');
define('TABLE_HEADING_MODEL', 'Model');
define('TABLE_HEADING_PRODUCTS', 'Product Name');
define('TABLE_HEADING_MANUFACTURER', 'Manufacturer');
define('TABLE_HEADING_QUANTITY', 'Quantity');
define('TABLE_HEADING_PRICE', 'Price');
define('TABLE_HEADING_WEIGHT', 'Weight');
define('TABLE_HEADING_BUY_NOW', 'Buy Now');
define('TEXT_NO_PRODUCTS', 'There are no products to list in this category.');
define('TEXT_NO_PRODUCTS2', 'There is no product available from this manufacturer.');
define('TEXT_NUMBER_OF_PRODUCTS', 'Number of Products: ');
define('TEXT_SHOW', '<b>Show:</b>');
define('TEXT_BUY', 'Buy 1 \'');
define('TEXT_NOW', '\' now');
define('TEXT_ALL', 'All');
} elseif ($category_depth == 'top') {
define('HEADING_TITLE', 'What\'s New Here?');
} elseif ($category_depth == 'nested') {
define('HEADING_TITLE', 'Categories');
}
?>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What\'s New Here? Which is the page "heading title" can be easily modified. As can anything I've highlighted in RED.

Tips:

• Make copies of english.php and default.php in a separate folder before editing the source code. This way, if you inadvertently mess up the syntax you can always start over with the untouched file. Failure to do so could destroy your cart.
• You can insert some HTML tags like <b> or <font> in between the ' ' where the text resides. For example: define('TEXT_SHOW', '<b>Show:</b>');
• When you are done editing any php file, upload it back where you got it from and refresh your storefront page to see the changes.

Custom Colors and Graphics:

All colors for your storefront are controlled by one single document:
stylesheet.css

Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/stylesheet.css

You can easily change the colors, font sizes, font colors, margins, etc. for the entire cart using this document.

All Changeable attributes are marked in RED, but for .css you can edit just about everything.

Excerpt from stylesheet.css:

--------------------------------
BODY {
background: #ffffff;
color: #000000;
margin: 0px;
}

A {
color: #000000;
text-decoration: none;
}

A:hover {
color: #11366D;
text-decoration: underline;
}

FORM {
display: inline;
}

TR.header {
background: #ffffff;
}
--------------------------------

The first thing you may want to do is replace the osCommerce logo with one of your own:

Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/images/oscommerce.gif

The fastest and easiest way to do this is to make a logo using a graphics editor, save the file as oscommerce.gif and upload it, thus replacing the osCommerce logo with your own. Note: Your logo DOES NOT have to be the same size as oscommerce.gif

Other images to note:

Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/images/infobox/corner_left.gif
This is the little left half-circle at the top left side of your categories table:

Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/images/infobox/corner_right.gif
Same thing, but on the right side:

Path: /yourdomain.com/catalog/images/infobox/corner_right_left.gif
The square one in every table:

If you decide to change the table colors in stylesheet.css, you will want to replace these with matching colored graphics of your own. For best results make sure the new replacement graphics you make are the same width and height as the above samples.