FREE OsCommerce Templates

Posted on October 22, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio, Products |

Free standard osCommerce Templates easy to modify

Cleaning out my old project directory I discovered that I did in fact have about a half dozen good quality foundation templates for osCommerce MS2 and what I’ve done is install the latest MS2 version over on the LiveDemoSite.com to test them and I’m going to release them FREE.

These templates are NOT super beautiful, a bit heavy, and quite honestly won’t work if you have modified your osCommerce Core. This is one of the biggest reasons I admire the STS and BTS template features in some versions of osCommerce like oscMax, CRE Loaded and so on. Modification to templates in osCommerce requires so much time and energy that it frustrates nearly every designer I’ve ever worked with or been hired to product templates for. People usually if not always modify or extend the capabilities of their osCommerce sites with contributions that modify individual files many of which are template related. This poses a problem.

So, since I rarely suggest osCommerce templates to existing sites anymore I’m going to publish these as FREE providing you register and select “I Agree” that you understand that these are not intended to be added to existing live production sites as they will most certainly break any site with contributions having been added. These templates are for brand spanking new sites using osCommerce MS2+ and beyond that I can promise nothing.

osCommerce vs osCMax vs CRE Loaded vs Shopping Carts - FREE!

I’m a big fan of osCommerce and suggest it to people almost weekly but my latest passion has been in the area of integration as more and more people are realizing the absolute necessary requirement of SEF and SEO friendly commerce solutions. I absolutely love the iJoomla cart although some things about its functionality with OpenSEF is a bit of a mystery it along with CRE Loaded are likely my two favorites to date. A close second is the cart I use on this very site with WordPress along with XCart and of course osCMax. I’ve never been a big fan of ZenCart only because they seek to achieve way to much in the application.

CRE Loaded Templates vs osCommerce Templates

For speed and ease of templating I always suggest people spend the $10 and get a copy of CRE Loaded. The ease in which a template can be applied makes it worth the investment. Options like those for integration I tend to favor are certainly top on my list, but of the osCommerce flavors available, CRE Loaded and osCMax are by far the easiest to create and maintain various template features for. Integration is achievable as in osCommerce but require a bit more work.

osCommerce templates require substantial modifications to individual files to change the look and or feel of a site on a per page basis. Using some PHP in a BTS template for instance makes this relatively simple providing the site owner also invests in the CRE SEF plugin because some template changes are based on the URL.

All CRE Loaded and osCommerce Templates look alike - Beautiful Designs Not Possible?

Have you ever wondered why these templates all look and behave the same? Take any 50 osCommerce, CRE Loaded and Zen Cart templates, stack them on top of one another, and transparently look through them all. You will discover they are all essentially the same. Same features, same general structure, same general look and certainly the same bulky fat and heavy code. I’ve yet to see one of these actually available in XHTML and CSS compliant formats. The silly thing is that XHTML and CSS compliant is actually possible with some core modifications that neither CRE Loaded or others seem at all interested in. Why then are they so expensive?

The number one motive for me not releasing commercial grade CRE Loaded designs has been as I’ve elated to so many times in forums across the web. Simply “proprietary code” which sets all my commercial designs for clients above and beyond standard turnkey designs. I’ve been very tempted to make available commercial grade CRE Loaded templates with the kinds of features professional online stores deserve but have been unable to really package in a meaningful way a turnkey template solution that would be easy to install for novice users. The simple fact is that most of my CRE Loaded templates require some degree of time consuming modification to work per domain and has kept me from a turnkey release option.

Luckily times change, and I’ve been able to have some new code written that should make configuration relatively easy. I’m not going to promise anything, but will simply say keep your eyes on this blog in the next few weeks as I’m cleaning up and repackaging my CRE Loaded inventory for distribution. What you can expect is anything but carbon copy designs for the hundreds of dollars you normally expect.

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