There are always cases you can not think of, when developing a solution, so, any feedback is valuable and any new issue a challenge.

It’s after all a pleasure to see that everything work great

Thanks again to MTS team.

Yes, that is certainly possible to do, you can have a different template per language. Any settings you see on the demo store could be adjusted to be active per language.

This will require a couple of modifications, but it’s not a problem at all

I like your MTS a lot. It looks wonderful! I have one question, though. On my current site, I assign different css to different language so that each language has an unique theme. Can this be achieved using your MTS?

Many thank!

I hope to review Georges Mini Template system in the coming days, the review will be completely unbiased and will be independent of any external influences.

It’s totally up to you to decide to buy , and pay, for mini template system or not. As said, I’m not going to try to convince you to buy it. It’s also not the purpose of this place, my blog here, to discuss commercial issues. This place here I created in order to offer free tip’s trick’s and solutions to osCommerce users, having a “wider” expression spectrum than the forum offers

Mini template system has it own website with a contact form etc, that you can use to express any concerns, additional requests, questions, whatever, you might have. However, it’s completely your decision what to buy and how much to spend on your store for any type of improvement.

Regarding offering a “light” version in the future, I’ll take this idea under consideration. Regarding offering a free version: I don’t think this is necessary. There is a demonstration site for mini template system available, where you can try it out your self. You will have the same options in your admin panel + of course the option to drop in any template easily. So you can go and try your self. If you think it’s good for you, you buy it. If not, you leave it.

Things are very simple some times :)

Have a nice day

Did you ever consier to offer a “light” version for lesser mones, or even better, some test version for free? Don’t get me wrong. your effort on this is very appreciated. And all of th above is only my humble opinion.

I’m sorry that the system appears to be too expensive for you

Regarding the option you have to purchase a templatemonster template, it’s up to you to consider their templates as “high end”, in any case be assured that the majority of the osCommerce developers does not share this opinion. Please let let me point out following

Templatemonster templates may look nice at the first sight, and I guess they will also work without any problems till the moment you will need to customize them. What type of customization this could be?

For example the design: Their templates are to a very high grade image based. Many background images and graphics make the template to look appealing. There is for example a nice flash movie on the front page displaying some products. Impressive, yes, but: Unless you are going to sell exactly the same products you will need to change that. How? Either you know to do it your self, and that mean you have the necessary photoshop and flash skills to do so, or you will find your self searching for days in forums, blogs and tutorials about how to do it. Last and most possible option: You will end up paying for every single change you want to do to the site. I would check the prices for this too and include them to the end price

An other example, functionality: Mostly every osCommerce user is adding additional software (known as “addons” or “contributions”) to the core store. Any of this addons is written for a clean and fresh osCommerce installation. Now it happens that templatemonster (like most of the template vendors) do modify like every file of the code base, in order to achieve their design. In many of the cases those modifications are considered, by the majority of the osCommerce developers in the osCommerce community, as “hacks”, bad written code, just to get the desired display. You will agree with me that a osCommerce store, any ecommerce application, is more than just “display”. However, the result is that the code base of the store will not be compatible any more with the majority of the available osCommerce addon’s. So, you will need either to have advanced php skills in order to get them into your store, or, again, you will find your self paying extra money to integrate any additional function you need

Let me also mention, that the chance to get support in the osCommerce forums for a templatemonster template is very very limited. The most common answer to templatemonster clients who are looking for support is “ask he template vendor”. You can check in the osCommerce forum your self for this.

An other effect of this massive modification is that you have to “glue” with your template till the end of time. If you decide to change it one day, this comes equal to a complete new installation. You will have to transfer parts of your database, like customers, orders, maybe products too, to the new store and, unless you know how to do this, you’ll have to pay again.

Mini template system changes the core code very very slightly. There are just very few files modified, and the modification consist in adding some code, just a few lines, to activate the template system. The core code remains clean and fresh, like just downloaded from the official osCommerce website. Mini template system’s aim is not to provide you with a template designed till it’s last detail, but to provide the necessary tools to do it your self.

I don’t want to comment on the Templatemonster prices, but I’ll say that I consider the mini template system price as fair and reasonable, taking under consideration that:
- It include free installation on fresh or modifie osCommerce stores (version 2.3.1)
- It include any updates and upgrades, and believe me, there will be many
- It include support for any issues that could appear, and this support if free of charge

I don’t want to convince you to purchase mini template system, that’s up to you, and up to anyone who is looking for a solution to design his/her store. If you are searching for a template for osCommerce, then make sure hat the vendor offers support . That’s the most important thing in the long run of operating a store.

Personally I would say that the best choice would be to contact a osCommerce developer directly. Many of them have ready templates to offer, but are also ready to create a bespoke one for you.

If you need any recommendations, please let me know

I’m sorry, but there is no free download available

Going to the mini template system demonstration site, you will see a demo tool just on top of the site where you can try out any functions of the system online.

You will have exactly the same functions and options available in your administration panel