hmm perhaps I am getting confused here over what a skin is and what a template is. Looking at the installed files, inside /skins/ there is only the usual admin, default, mail directories. I am a bit confused where the files are that define the 2-column and 3 column skins options.

To be honest I am not likely to want to switch between multiple skins. All I will want to do is customise the look and feel of my shop so it matches the rest of my site as simply as possible. It occured to me that the intelligent way to do this would be to duplicate the standard skin, call it MySkin and edit this. Is this how it will work or am I still on the wrong track?

Addons: obviously the addons should also fit into the look and feel of my site. You say that LC automatically integrates the addons into the skins. Does this mean you do not recommend editing the addon template files? leaving all site customisation through the new skins system?

Have a look into "schemas" directory - it contains all files for our skins.


You are right.


Yes, because if you download and install the new version of an addon it overwrites all changes in the addon template files.
Due to scalable modular architecture of LC - you can extend basic store functionality by installing and activating your module(s). Your module can contain all customized templates and replace existing templates.

yup, I understand it would be very difficult to have a simple modular system that would allow people to easily upgrade and keep changes to look and feel. However there are some things that always need changing for which creating another addon module is not realistic.

For example I have just upgraded the Gift Certificate addon. I now have to work through all the templates changing the messages so they are relevant to my site. To be honest I do not want 'Thank you for using LiteCommerce shopping system' on the bottom of my ecards!

I have been running live with 2.2 for 2 weeks now and here are some irritating things my customers have found

1 The address entry now works such that if you select UK you get a list of UK counties and if you select USA you get a list of USA states. Very nice, BUT if you have the state list before the country and if your default country is the UK your USA customers do not see their list of states and just select OTHER. It would be nice if the page brought you back up to the states list if the country has changed so that the correct state can be selected. Otherwise it is best to edit the template to put the shipping country above the state.

2 The selected state/county is not always carried accross to the shipping address. Sometimes you get the helpful 'other' in the shipping address. (incidentially if would be nice if the print invoice did not print 'other' as it clearly is not part of a real address.)

3 Bespoke payment gateways may or may not work with the new templates. Mine partially works.

Thats all for now

It is very possible that we will want to create a foreign language version of our site. Since all the error messages etc are 'hardwired' into the templates that get over written when updated what would you suggest as a solution? Are any customers using LC in a language that is not english and do they have similar problems of having to update template files when they install a new module version?

how do you install this ? do you just run the installer, I did that and got a error about a invalid code but the store is up and running? is there any db changes that have to be made?

You install 2.2 by running the install program and following its instructions. If there are any messages I suggest you look into them, we cannot help without details. The 2.2 beta is ONLY for use on a new instalation. It does not have an update script or any way to update a 2.1 installation.

Thus there are no scripts to do db changes nor any documentation to say if there is any change in the db definitions.

Checking progress
 

Hello,

I have been following this thread, but no activity has occured in quite awhile. I am just curious if we will be seeing a release candidate soon and if there are alot of errors w/ the beta versions.

There isn't alot of feedback on the beta's here, is it a big improvement?

I think it is an improvement. That said I dont think there are many beta testers out here so no-one is finding the bugs. If there are any bugs :wink:

I wonder if there is also a problem in the upgrade path. The beta release is only good for a clean install on a new site. I do not know if they have developed a upgrade option to migrate the database from 2.1 to 2.2. Nor how the templates (both client and admin) can be migrated given that they will have been changed by us.

I would be interested in an answer to this. I would like to know when 2.2 will move on. It has too many nice things that I am itching to use on my 2.1 site.

Since 2.2 uses the same modules as 2.1 it may be that the upgrade path is not as bad I think. However we are working in an information vacuum. It would be nice to see it filled.