I have been using Oscommerce for some time and have almost always just removed the banner manager completely because it was I never felt there was a need for it. That was until I started using wordpress and found the fun you can have with widget areas!! So now you can use your oscommerce banner manager as a widget and area and basically made spots on your site that are easily updated by a user with no need to get into the files – can you say YAY?

So a little background on what the banner manager is and how it works:

The Oscommerce banner manager is meant to be a way to measure the effectiveness of an ad placed on your site as well as a way for you to rotate ads and automate the start and end dates for ads. While this is a really cool feature in itself, who puts ads on their e-commerce websites? Most people actually urge against putting outside ads on an ecommerce site because it makes you look cheap, and no one wants to look cheap.

So let’s use these little nuggets of administrated content areas as widgets! With the banner manager you can paste your own HTML into the area or upload a picture. This means that you can literally use it the same as a wordpress text widget with the added feature of an image upload!

Here is how you do it.

First, go to your admin and click on “Tools” and then “Banner Manager”. The banners are organized by groups and then each individual banner is titled. So you likely see the default banner there called “Oscommerce” within the group “468×50″. We are going to ignore that one and create our own instead.

Click “new banner” and enter your banner title. This will be a name that you give to this banner and this banner only. Try and use a basic name with no capital letters so you don’t make mistakes when it comes time to use it; we will use the group name “homepage” because we are putting this area on the home page. Then the banner url is the link that you will add to your image. This is basically where people will be directed to if they click on your banner/widget area. So if you are creating a graphic that will lead people to your photo gallery, you would put the url for the photo gallery.

Next you will create a new “group”. This group is going to be the name that we will put all banners under that we would like to display in the same location. So if we have a new area where we want to rotate through 10 images, they will all need to be under the same group name.

Use the upload field to upload an image and/or link to one that already exists on your server. There are specific instructions for these fields on the banner page.

You can leave the date fields blank if you want this to be in infinite ad or you can add dates to set the dates where you want your ad to start and end. You can also make it end after a certain number of impressions, but that is more for advertising.

That is it as far as what you do on the back end.

Now we need to place the code in the files that will tell your site where to place this widget area.

You will need SOME knowledge of oscommerce coding to choose the correct place to put this but if you need help, just post here. Otherwise, if you would like to put this widget area on your home page, you can open catalog/includes/languages/english/index.php and fine the TEXT_MAIN definition.

Add this code here:


<?php
echo tep_display_banner('dynamic', 'homepage');
?>

This will display a random banner from the homepage group, which is what the goal is.

There are some other little gems inside of this banner manage though. You can display just one specific banner – so if you want to display one specific banner somewhere else on your page, you don’t need to duplicate it and put it in it’s own category. Instead you just use this code.

<?php
echo tep_display_banner('static', '1');
?>

Now unfortunately it does not allow you to allow you to use the banner’s title (maybe I will create a patch to allow this some day) but you need to use the banner ID. The ID can be found in the url to edit the banner.

When you look at the list of banners, you have the ability to click on one to highlight the banner and possibly choose to edit it. Instead of clicking edit, just click on the banner you would like to display and look at the url bar. You will see this:

http://hugmeup.com/admin/banner_manager.php?page=1&bID=2

Where you have ID=2, that is the url telling you that the banner ID is 2! Stick that in the code above and you are ready to go!

So enjoy this little nugget of wisdom.. Even play with the HTML feature instead of the banner image feature. You can add any type of HTML code you could want, which leaves you open to adding all different kinds of areas. You can leave it as a dynamic quote of the day that rotates, any “grab this code” html from other sites’ widgets, and more.

If you use this as a widget area, I would love to have a look at your site. Feel free to drop a link and show me what you have done.

So you just spent hours working on adding some plugin or addon to your website, and you save, and then go to see your handwork and your heart sinks – or maybe you feel like you are going to throw up, or throw your computer.. Well, don’t worry. Or at least, don’t start worrying until you have checked out a few things.

Generally, when you end up with a blank page, it is simply because in your host’s control panel, the function of error reporting is turned off. There is a good reason to have error reporting turned off, but it definitely should not be turned off if you are working on something. To turn on error reporting yourself, you will have to add this code to your .htaccess code
php_flag display_errors on
php_value error_reporting 6143

Error reporting is simply the ability for a browser to display errors in your website. This is invaluable as a code breaker like myself, because errors tell you a lot about what you did wrong. For instance, if you get the following error:

Fatal Error: can not redeclare …………………………….. previously declared on …..

This means that whatever function that is explained here has already been declared. Declared kind of means DEFINED, and a function is just that, a function. So if your website has a function that shows the categories box in your oscommerce store, and you copy and paste the code for that into the header so that you can have categories in your header too, you will have the same function delcared twice, hence this error. The lovely thing, it tells you where the error is, and where it was declared previously. From there, you can delete one of the two, or rename the function by putting a 2 at the end; like this: functionname2 and then go to where the function is being called from, and rename that one function2 as well.

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in ………. on line ….

This is an error that is not as easy to define. A parse error means that there is likely something wrong in your syntax. That can mean anything from a missing curly bracket, semicolor, or quotation mark. As a newbie coder, you might need help. You can try and help yourself by looking for code within your own website that is similar to the one that you were working on, and compare it. For instance, when I first started, I was trying to add a new link in my header, but I wanted to use the proper php syntax using (tep_href_link) but it is a lot more complicated that linking using HTML. So what I did was find a place where I knew there was a good example of a link (in the header where the banner is) and copied it and pasted it where I wanted. Then I just changed the text and/or the name of the image.
**you should note that the line number stated in the error is not always where the error or missing piece of code actually is. generally if the error is not on that line, it means that you missed a curly bracket somewhere within that code.

Warning: Cannot add header information – headers already sent by (output started at /…………….:9) in….

This is the absolutely most simple error to fix – usually. It is generally caused by a white space at the beginning or the end of your code. HTTP headers must be sent before any output from your code, which means that a header function must be placed before any html or even a white space. So generally, you fix this by looking for an empty space before the first  <?php tag or after the last ?>. You do this by putting the cursor at the tag, and deleting any white space before/after it. There should not be one single space or line before the first and after the last.

Warning: main(/index.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in…

This error simple means that the file mentioned does not exist in the directory that it is calling it from. It will tell you where in the code the file name is being called from, and where it should be. This is a pretty self explanatory fix. You need to either check and see if the file is there, or if the file name was typed incorrectly.

Other common errors that you see especially in oscommerce stores are from the database. The php code generally is trying to get information from a table inside of you database, but if those tables do not exist you will get errors like these:

1064 – You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘ products_id from orders_products where orders_id = ’70” at li

select orders_products_id, products_id, products_name, products_model, products_price, products_tax, products_quantity, final_price from, products_id from orders_products where orders_id = ’70′

[TEP STOP]

This means that the code in your files that literally look exactly the same as this one is wrong. Each addon or installation will have different values listed for the tables. The second paragraph tells you all of the database tables that the code is trying to access. If you want to try and troubleshoot this error for yourself, you can log in to phpmyadmin on your host’s control panel, and click on your database. Then you will look for the tables with those names. They are organized very nicely and if you are familiar at all with excel and spreadsheets, you should be able to figure this out. If the tables exist, there might be some other error. If those tables do not exist, then that is your problem and you likely missed a step somewhere. It also could be the syntax in which you are trying to call for the database that is throwing this error, so it could likely be more complicated.

There is also the error that tells you that the tables do not exist, and these look like this:

1146 – Table ‘db_dbname.orders_status_history_transactions’ doesn’t exist

INSERT INTO orders_status_history_transactions ( `orders_status_history_id`, `transaction_id`, `transaction_type`, `payment_type`, `payment_status`, `transaction_amount`, `module_code`, `transaction_avs`, `transaction_cvv2`, `transaction_msgs` ) VALUES ( 328, ’1JV740438A749591H’, ‘CHARGE’, ‘INSTANT’, ‘COMPLETED’, 36.87, ‘paypal_wpp’, ‘Yes Address and five-digit ZIP’, ‘Match CVV2′, ” )

[TEP STOP]

This is similar to the last one I mentioned in that it is tell your specifically that those tables do not exist, and you missed a step somewhere. Likely, if you were installing an oscommerce addon, you did not input the mysql “code” or you did not import the file to have the code run. If you do not know how to do that, keep and eye out. I will write a quick tutorial on how to do this.

So the moral of the story is… read. If you simply take your time and read your code, instead of instantly copying it and pasting it into a help forum screaming PLZ HELP!!!! you will teach yourself more about the inner workings of your website, and you will learn how to fix your own errors! Breaking the code is how I learned about this stuff, so dont worry if you break it – just always keep a backup!

***also remember to remove error reporting when your store is live. If you keep it on and an error shows, it can give a possible hacker some deadly information like the name and location of various information in your database. ***

Forget about searching through all of those thousands of addons over at addons.oscommerce.com. Just get this book. When I first started designing my first e-commerce store, I went to Borders and sat on the floor in the web developement section, and read through books upon books about php coding, basic mysql, and even Dreamweaver books. Then I realized that all I needed at the moment was to learn OSCommerce. Yes, if you really want to learn how to completely customize Oscommerce, you should learn php and mysql. But for people who just want to adjust their websites to make them look the way they want, and function the way they want.. then, just learn oscommerce inside and out.

While sitting there, and browsing Border’s online books, I found these two books and ordered them right away.

The first is by Monika Mathe. Its a great book written as a recipe book, and its about as easy to follow as a recipe. It gives you step by step instructions on how it impliment the most nessecary changes to you Oscommerce shop. So instead of going in and out of the addons.oscommerce.com web page, and hoping that you chose the right version without any bugs, refer to this book first.

The second book that I purchased was by David Mercer called OSCommerce: Beginners Edition. This is a great book to start out with. It will teach how things work, and why. Its the best option for those who look at their website, and go “WHAT IN THE HELL??” I’m sure thats most of you reading

This book will walk you through installation and basic customization.. But if you need more. If you want something a little bit more indepth, there is a second book called Oscommerce:Professional Edition

The professional edition with just go deeper into customizations and the inner workings. I ended up skipping the “beginners guide” because I had already spent weeks playing with oscommerce. I wish that I had found these books sooner, simply because those weeks could have simply been days. But you live and learn, and this is what I am showing you!

I hope that these help you all out. I know that most people who end up here want to just get an e-commerce store up and running, and want to do it now. Unfortunately, there is a reason why web developers charge a pretty penny for designing websites. Its because it takes a lot of skill and knowledge, and that does not come cheap. If you can give yourself 3 months to get your website up and running, you can have a really nice looking site that works.. Just use as many resources as you can, and start with these books. I promise you that you will get your money’s worth out of them.

Want to take your entire website and make it a fixed with and have it centered in the middle of everyone’s screen? Well, you should. The great thing about having a fixed width and centered site is that it will look exactly the same on everyone’s computer monitor. It’s a great thing, because fluid websites that take up the entire width of a screen can look great on your monitor, and then you go look at it on a lower resolution monitor, and all of a suddent you have to scroll sideways to see all of it.

So this is going to be one of the EASIEST things that I will teach you, and it will change the look of your website GREATLY. This works on ALL TYPES of websites. Blogs, oscommerce, basic HTML. It does not matter.

do this..
AT THE VERY BEGINING of your HTML code, after the <body> tag, add this:

<div id="centerContent">

YOUR WEBSITE CONTENT WILL ALL

BE BETWEEN THESE TWO THINGS.

EVERY SINGLE BIT OF IT – EXCEPT

OF COARSE THE STUFF IN THE HEAD

TAGS

</div>

then in somewhere between the <head></head> tags, add this:

<style>
#centerContent{
width: 900; margin: auto;
border: 1px solid #999999;
text-align:center;
}
</style>

then on the <body> tag change it to this

<body text-align="center">

Thanks to the boring lives of obnoxious internet stalkers and their friends, this post has comments closed. 1 year to stalk a post is way too much time. Please, get a life

Things you REALLY need to stay away from when designing your blog/website.
Read this page to seee the things you WANT to stay away from, and to find out if your web page sucks!

Do NOT put white text on a black background. It is IMPOSSIBLE to read and readers will run as soon as they see it. Use grey on black instead

Just cause its a cool gadget does not mean your blog/website needs it. There are so many plugins and addons and snippets of codes for any type of website. Unless it ads functionality that your visitors will appreciate, fight the urge to add it.

Do NOT add music to your website. These days, everyone already has their own music on their computers. If they way to play it they will. Also, studies have shown that most adults surf the web while at work, do you really want to get a reader in trouble by blasting your latest favorite.

Don’t kill your readers with ads. I know you would like to make some extra money off of them, but the real value in your blog is it’s readers. If there are no readers, there’s no blog. So keep them to a minimum and strategically place them to be non-invasive

Clearly label your navigation. There is such a thing called MYSTERY MEAT NAVIGATION. Does your website have it?

Animated gifs are for 1990, and they should stay there! Blinking things and animations over your cursor are NOT cool and do NOT add quality to your site content. (see example here )

Do not try to stuff too much content on your main page. Instead, link to the content from a single, well defined button. This will free up space for some more important things

Do not leave the default page titles on there. When you look at your tabs in your browser, you see a custom name that I created. You can do this too! Its very easy – it’s called the TITLE tag and it is in your head section of your web page

If you want a COMPLETE checklist of “Does My Website Suck?” GO HERE

I do not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, but you have a website to get people to look at it. Make sure those people ENJOY their experience so they come back again and again.

Want some honest feedback and critique,

POST YOUR WEBSITE HERE

I will be honest and give useful answers, but do not post if you are sensitive. I will be blunt, and I am known for being blunt in giving feedback, but never mean.

Did this little graphic catch your eye? It’s simple, to the point, but it is eye catching, RIGHT?

I do a LOT of feedback posts in forums for people’s websites. The main reason I do it is because in looking at their websites and critiquing them, I am getting new ideas for my websites. One of the main things I seem to recommend to everyone is inner website advertising.

You must be thinking, “They already made it to my website, why do I have to advertise to them on my own site?”

My response to you would be simply, just because people made it TO your website doesn’t mean that they will purchase. Google Analytics has something called “Bounce Rate.” This is something that you should pay CLOSE attention to, but you MUST have google analytics installed on your website first. So head over here and get it working. Its not too hard, but if you need help, just email me.

“Bounce Rate” is when people go on your website and then just leave. They do not click any deeper and they decide that they don’t want to be there without reading into any of your content. The average bounce rate for a blog is around 60% so don’t feel bad if yours is up there. It is ok. However, you would not want a 90% bounce rate because that means almost all of the people that visit your site just leave.

So the goal is to get people on your website and then get them to click further into your website, and Inner Website Advertising is the way to do it.

I see a LOT of people who have an e-commerce website that, when you go to the home page (or landing page) there is a paragraph or two of text explaining their mission statement and their strive for excellence. Now, this is all fine and dandy, but when you think about it, when was the last time you read anything on an e-commerce site other than a product description. And with blogs, when was the last time you read through the entire list of text links in those side bar columns? Rarely.

So your goal is to get people to CLICK. So what you should do is look at the text that you are using to get across your idea and pull just a line or a few words out of it, turn it into a headline, and make it fun and enticing.

Blogs are all about words, so having a lot of text on your home page isn’t a bad thing, but if you have pages that you really want people to read. Maybe its a mission statement, or something about yourself, or your favorite blog post. You should create a funky little graphic with some enticing text to get people to go there.

If you want to see an example of inner website advertising, go here. You can see on the side column there is an advertisement for BRIDAL REGISTRY. Its a graphic that could go on ANY website and entice people to click to ours, but it is being well used right there on the front of it’s own website.

You can see LOADS of examples by just clicking through some of the most popular websites.
If your a blogger, check out these:
Huffington Post You can see that even when you are on a post about one thing, there are pictures with text that are trying to get you to click on the next post up there at the top. AND on the right there’s a box called “10 Top Huffington Post” with pictures! Adding images makes a world of difference!
Gizmodo has little advertisements right in it’s header with little blurbs of posts and the little “bestmodo” button is a little addition as well.
It might be as simple as changing your template, or just adding an image into a widget, but it will make a WORLD of difference in not only your bouce rate, but also the overall LOOK of your site.

For E-Tailers
You can look at just about ANY big time e-tailer, but I will post a link just because.
Wal-Mart You don’t get any bigger than Wal-Mart, and right there you see a barrage of graphics and advertisements for their own website to get you to click. If Wal-mart is doing it, that means there HAS to be something to it.

E-tailers have a little more as far as content to work with. Sometimes it’s as easy as putting a product on your home page as a featured product, or offering free shipping using a graphic instead of text.

No matter WHAT type of website you have, you should realize that internet browsers are visual people. They get pulled in by fancy graphics and enticing head lines. If you can put those on your home page in order to get people to delve deeper into your blog, you will see a lower bounce rate, more subscribers, and hopefully more sales.

There is a SUPER simple way to change any image that you see on your website and make it into something complete custom, and guess what, IT DOESN’T REQUIRE ANY CODING!!!!

Its a simple 9 step process.

1. Go to your website and find the page with the image that you want to change
2. Right click (or if using a mac ctrl click) and click SAVE IMAGE to your desktop.
3. Right click (or if using a mac ctrl click) on the image and choose PROPERTIES – this will open a new pop up window. There you will see all the information you need to know about this image
4. Look at the IMAGE LOCATION and copy and paste it or write it down somewhere so you remember
5. Open the image in your favorite graphic program and build a new button (on a new layer if you can) over the old one and delete the layer with the old image.
6. Click SAVE (you HAVE to keep the exact same file name and type. All osc buttons are .gif)
7. Open your FTP program and upload the button the to folder that you copied and pasted or wrote down from the IMAGE LOCATION properties window.
8. Visit your website and now go to the page that the image was on, hold down SHIFT and click refresh and your new button will be there!!
9. Repeat steps 7-8 for every image on your website.

Thats it. Its totally easy and completely fool proof. By building the button OVER the old one and deleting the old you, you are making sure that your button is as close to the same size as possible.

So go crazy replacing buttons, and other images. You can literally do this with ANY type of website out there. All images reside in a folder somewhere on your server, and the code is calling for that particular image with that particular name in that particular spot. So when you just change the image and nothing else, you are STILL calling for that particular image, but you made the image LOOK different.

IS IT STARTING TO MAKE SENSE NOW??

So if you have wordpress and desperately want to change your header but theres no easy way to do it, USE THIS PROCESS.. If you have oscommerce and HATE those blue buttons, USE THIS PROCESS.. It works for ANYTHING

Here is probably the most important thing you should know when deciding how you want your oscommerce store to look like.

If you have used wordpress or any other blogging system before, you have been conditioned to think that templates are a great way to get a somewhat unique looking website without too much hassle and coding.

Well, in the world of OSCommerce, that could not be further from the truth! Templates can really kill your website!

1. A template will never be entirely unique. This may or may not be a big deal to some, but if your company is focused on being cutting edge and unique, you should stay away from the template.

The people who create templates can be very lazy. I mean, the only way to pump out so many “different” designs is to cut corners.

2. You do not know when that template was built. For all you know, that template can be using the oldest version of oscommerce available. This means you will have 2 major problems. You are open to all of the known security holes that have since been fixed by the developers. ALSO, a lot of the new contributions that will be what you depend on to add functionality will simply not work on the older installs. This issue can MOST of the times be fixed by going through the upgrade process, but wasn’t the reason you purchased a template to save you time?

3. People who create templates COMPLETE hack into the oscommerce code. It may look pretty, but it can be VERY messy behind the scenes. This will make it VERY frustrating when you are trying to look for that piece of code that someone told you to change in the forums to get a certain look, and adding contributions again, will be a nightmare.

4. FINALLY, templates rarely have the same layout as a stock oscommerce. The people who create templates will completely remove a file and add a new one in it’s place. They will change around the code so much that no one but the person who created the template will be able to help you. And guess what, THAT will always cost you money – if you can even get a hold of them.

I have seen templates that are completely devoid of the column_left.php or column_right.php.. Or sometimes instead of having a header.php it will have a top.php All of these things will really confuse a newbie when you are trying very hard to follow along in a tutorial or in the instructions of a contribution.

I have personally never used a template, but I have tried to help people who have them. In my experience, you actually have to be BETTER at coding than a the average person because you will REALLY need to look only at the code to be able to tell what is going on.

My suggestion to those who want a nice look but are completely lost when it comes to designing a website, CHECK OUT THIS E-BOOK. I even dedicated and entire post about it here if you want to see more. I have it, and i used it and i learned a lot from it.

That little book will give you a quick, step by step guide to creating an interesting looking layout that you an now completely customize. Also, while you create your website using that book, and occasionally read some of the posts here, you will get real world knowledge of the inner workings of oscommerce.

Most people are a LEARN BY DOING type of person, and if you are one of those, spend the few bucks and actually DO a customized website and you will learn A LOT.

So thats my little warning to you all.. PLEASE stay away from the templates. There are a few out there that are pretty good and have a solid core, but DO YOUR HOMEWORK! And if you really want a unique site that you don’t have to do any work for, HIRE A DESIGNER!

this post is dedicated to Chris

Well, when you first look at the site, your instinct would be to just stretch the entire category box to reach the footer and there you have a consistent color. This would not be wise. The reason is, once this box takes up the ENTIRE left column, you will not be able to add another box to that column in the future.

There is a MUCH better option, and that option is to give the ENTIRE column a background color to match the background color of the green categories box. The solution in the long run is better, but it might be a tad time consuming.

What you want to do is start by creating an id for the left column. You will insert this code into your catalog/stylesheet.css at the bottom after the last ‘}’ We will call the id “left” and give it a background color of PINK. You can change the color to anything you want.

Here is your style code:

#left { background-color:#E41B4B; }
You will change the color # to suit your own needs.

Now you need to tell the left column to use that id. This is where it might get a little tedious, but not in the LEAST difficult.

Go to your catalog/index.php file and search for this:

<td width="<?php echo BOX_WIDTH; ?>" valign="top"><table
border="0" width="<?php echo BOX_WIDTH; ?>" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="2">
<!-- left_navigation //-->
<?php require(DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'column_left.php'); ?>
<!-- left_navigation_eof //-->
    </table></td>

You will then change the code to include the id that we created in the that holds the entire left column as seen here:

<td id="left" width="<?php echo BOX_WIDTH; ?>"
valign="top"><table border="0" width="<?php echo BOX_WIDTH;
?>" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2">
<!-- left_navigation //-->
<?php require(DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'column_left.php'); ?>
<!-- left_navigation_eof //-->
    </table></td>

And that is IT!! You are DONE………. with the index.php page. OOPS!! Did i forget to mention that this was tedious?? Well, once you have finished this, you will be completely comfortable with it.

Now you have to go to EVERY file in your catalog folder (not those in the sub folders though) and find the EXACT same code and add the style id to those as well.

The code will look exactly the same in every folder so you don’t have to get worried about searching around for it. It will always be directly above the following:

<!-- left_navigation //-->

So this is what you would see before in a stock install of oscommerce:

and this is after we make the left column PINK!!

BONUS

If you want to add a background IMAGE to this, you would simply change the code that you add into the stylesheet.css to this:

#left { background:url('yoururlthere.com/picture.jpg'); }

HAVE FUN!!! Any questions, please post your question in a comment, or CONTACT ME!!

If you don’t already know this, your “root” is they public_html directory, or the main page of your site. This is the directory that users will land on if they type in your domain. If you have a web page in there called index, then they will automatically see that, otherwise they will not see anything. It is the very TOP directory for your website pages.

When you install oscommerce using a “Simple Scripts” install, you will be asked to name the folder in which you want your store to be. The default is usually called “catalog” This is ok if your website is more than just a store, but if you are just a store, you should really move the entire oscommerce install into your root directory. If you want to learn more about why, click here.

So let’s get started

First you need to make sure that you have an FTP program installed. For a mac I prefer FETCH and for pc i like cuteFtp, however FILEZILLA is free.

When you connect to your server, you will be able to see your “catalog” folder. You need to open that folder, and highlight all of the contents and move them to your root (or public_html folder). This will take some time because there are hundreds of files in that folder, and your FTP program can only move them so fast.

Once that is done, you will need to go to the following file:
catalog/includes/configure.php
**** Please see the below note

Open this file in a text editor (dreamweaver, textedit, notepad etc)

Configure.php is where you tell your website which folders and files to look for certain pages.
You will want to pay close attention to these lines of code: (line 6-10)

You will want to change everywhere you see ‘/catalog/’ to simply ‘/’

You then want to go to catalog/admin/includes/configure.php and do exactly the same.

Confused as to why you have two configure.php files?? Click here to read about the oscommerce file structure.

If you complete this and you get some type of error page that has your host’s name on it, that means that your host created an index.html page for you. You will want to go to your root folder and search for index.html and delete it. Your new home page will be called index.php

**** if you installed oscommerce and followed the instructions and removed the error that said “configure.php is writable” then you will not be able to change anything in your configure.php file. Read here on how to change the permission for that file.