beginner to WEB DESIGN & oscommerce ..... HELP

hi i am an absolute beginner to web design but i am gonna give it ago i have a website called http://www.consolemodz.com but someone designed it for me.

now i have and know the following

. i need to buy domain

. need to host on server gonna use linux

. want to create oscommerce website

. i have downloaded zencart as this is what i want to use

. i have adobe cs4 dreamweaver

now i really dont know hwat to do tried putting zen cart in dreamweaver and then tried to use live view but it all comes up code i dont know what to do i tried to tutorials on zen cart home page but found the no good

do i need a template or something?

if someone has the tie could they please give me a step by step begineer processes i am sure once i can see it coming in to shape a small bit i might be able to improve.

thanks for help in advance

 

you need a tool to simulate a websever it'S called something like xampp then you can run zencard without webspace.

what cms is the current site running on?

 

You can't just open up a coded zencart template in dreamweaver, edit the HTML then expect it to work. It's based on a PHP backend which is a server-side language that outputs everything as HTML.

 

Hmmmm...seems to me like you need to slow down a little. Imagine building a model airplane. You open the box, you see all the parts, You DO NOT just start putting them all together randomly, and assume it will work.

You seem to have your list of what you need, now you need to figure out how to do it, and in order. You want a ecommerce site, you have adobe, you have shopping cart software, but you need a couple of things.

If it were me, I would:

1. do a market analysis
2. write a business plan
3. register the domain name
4. Then get a server
5. Design the template/site on the server using your adobe
6. Add the ecommerce software to server using the ecommerce software instructions
7. Coordinate the software to match your template on its pages
8. Test the heck out of it
9. Then tell the world about it.

 

Nice list!
OSCommerce is an shopping cart script and Zencart is as well. You would use one or the other. If you just got to use Dreamweaver, probably should go with zencart since it uses a template system.

 

ok i see so i have to have server first andcant just do it on dreamweaver first to see what it looks like

 

#4 and #5 could be switched. It's just the order I do it in.

 

I'd avoid both oscommerce and zencart.

Check out the more modern carts/cms' like Magento.