looking at OSCMAX

[stressed]

sorry unsure where to post this

i have a site i have been working on for a long time now using oscommerce 2.2, but i feel oscmax could be just what im looking for with most of the popular contribs already installed

however i have a few question regarding Oscmax

is it just as unsecure as oscommerce (as the site keeps getting hacked)?
are templates just as easy to install?

can someone list a few pros and cons?


thanks in advance

[pgmarshall]

is it just as unsecure as oscommerce (as the site keeps getting hacked)?

All osCommerce based sites require the same security setup. There is nothing unsecure in osCmax (nor osCommerce) other than the client server setup. Read this wiki article to show the steps that must be completed by all store owners irrespective of platform.

are templates just as easy to install?

Easier - but you may find there are fewer of them than for vanilla osCommerce. Put files on server, select template from drop down in admin, done! v2.1 comes with a nice new fallback template which might be worth a look.

can someone list a few pros and cons?

Pros: Based on osCommerce but with loads of useful mods pre-installed and tested for you. Core code still close to osCommerce so other contributions can be easily added. Small but active forums. Very active development path - see v2.1 (soon to be released).

Cons: Does not have masses of templates. (but easy to customise). May not have all the functionality you need.

Regards,

[michael_s]

Actaully, there are a couple of long standing security problems with standard osCommerce 2.2rc2a and previous versions that were still present the last time I checked. They are patched in osCmax and have been for a long time.

[niallb]

Ive got 3 Oscommerce sites and am building my 1st OSCMax site and I think OSCMax is miles better. Its taking me a while to get into, I keep trying things the Oscommerce way before realising its different here, but the number of features already built in here is great- SEO urls, easypopulate, cross-selling products, voucher production etc. The end result is that its much easier to build a more professional site with lots of features that people expect to find.
I wont be going back to OSCommerce again

[Hostboard]

My very first site was an OSC. Spent huge amounts of time installing modifications and trying to figure out how to ge things to work as there are times the code over laps. The more I looked I came across derivatives of OSC and found OSCMax really to be the best OSC derivative out there. OSCMax might not have everything but it is leaps and bounds above the others and as noted the code base is still OSC so adding more contributions is not any more difficult then OSC itself. Plus I think support is a bit better

[Luxoria]

A few months ago I started building a store using osc 2.2. After learning PHP and such it took me about a month to install most the addons I wanted. I think installed about 18 addons and had several major ones to go (coupons, googlecheckout, SEO stuff, etc) but I was stopped because I had to many complications and conflicts.

So I found osCmax and only needed to install 3 simple addons which saved me tons of time. Also it's nice being able to watch the development stages by looking at the bugtracker and if you need to a specific fix it's all right there when they get to it.

It's free, but well worth the donation.