As Liuk rightly pointed out, upgrading from an older version of osCommerce to the latest version is not straightforward. There is at least 5 steps that need to be done:
multiple version upgrades, database upgrades. database transfers etc.
The existing shop that I am upgrading is based on the osCommerce 2.2-MS2 architecture (which is now at least a few years old), but has been highly modified by myself with all manner of code changes to make it more functional. As this particular shop as only 17 live products I am NOT going to do a manual upgrade…
What I am going to do is simply use a new RC2a, with some contributions – and then add in the 17 products manually. I only have to make sure that the old product ID matches the new product ID and that any category ID’s in the old shop match the ones in the new shop. This is so that all product URLs remain the same from old to new.
So…first up is to use a “pre loaded” (by myself) version of RC2a – you can find more details about this pre loaded version in this previous blog post. What I will do is load this up on localhost (aka my home computer) to get the products and category structures correct.
For posterity sake here is a screenshot of how the existing site looks at this point in time:
And if you wish to visit the site to have a look around, it is here. It’s actually based on a theme I purchased a few years ago, which does look good, but I think is a bit tired now.
Task to complete…
Install pre-loaded version onto localhost and duplicate the category, product, and page names – in order to preserve the URLs of the site exactly as they already are.
Watch out for the next installment of the Makeover!
But… if you have a really strong modified website… you cannot simply restart completely…
Liuk – sure you can 🙂 Just like starting out with a fresh canvas to do exactly what you want.
OK, so as of right now, I have the category structure sorted out on the localhost install, and I have started adding the products – 3 down, 14 to go. I’m doing them 1 by 1 as I also want to change the product descriptions a bit.
Will spend a bit more time today adding in the rest of the products, as well as changing the actual name of some of the files to match the existing site.