My PrestaShop Concerns

[shopcarton]

This topic is a potential flame bait, but i really got to voice it out.

The FAQs posted up by Prestashop is crap. Lack of details and little things like installing Prestashop is actually hosted by Siteunderground (a web hosting provider).

Forum is full of French. I mean what exactly is the % of global population who understands French?

I will truly advise anyone who wishes to use Prestashop in the long term to think carefully!

[Venkat Sure]

Hello


You can see the installation guide in english here

http://www.prestashop.com/wiki/Installing_and_Updating_PrestaShop_software/


Regards
Venkat

[gray]

Is there anything better. As I have tried almost all of them, in one form or another.

Any suggestions of anything better, and why ??

[Venkat Sure]

Hi

Please let me know your problem clearly, So that i can help you

is getting difficult in installing prestashop on your host?

Becasue its really easy software to install other than oscommerce, magento and even opencart

[ladivito]

the only problem i got is the limitation of attribute only......after we had the attribute wizard pro released by tomer then everything is fine.

[shopcarton]

What is wrong with Prestashop?

Let's see....

- how bout the fact that the themes which they are selling for $100 a pop are lame. Merely changes of background color and use of different pics from the default ones. they should really pull down those ugly templates selling at sky high prices.

- the integration of themes. after downloading and selecting the new theme, the whole layout seems messed up! seriously something wrong with the CSS. No integration at all!

- French. No french pls... unless it is french fries.

- FAQs - they seem more like something typed out in a hurry. Hardly helpful. I have programmer friends who have lamented that the lack of online resources for prestashop is stopping them from developing for prestashop.

[jhnstcks]

What is wrong with Prestashop?

Let's see....

- how bout the fact that the themes which they are selling for $100 a pop are lame. Merely changes of background color and use of different pics from the default ones. they should really pull down those ugly templates selling at sky high prices.

- the integration of themes. after downloading and selecting the new theme, the whole layout seems messed up! seriously something wrong with the CSS. No integration at all!

- French. No french pls... unless it is french fries.

- FAQs - they seem more like something typed out in a hurry. Hardly helpful. I have programmer friends who have lamented that the lack of online resources for prestashop is stopping them from developing for prestashop.

Don't buy theme for $100 then if you dont like the look of them. There are some good free themes around that are very different from the default template. Instead of whining about the lack of templates I would love to see your attempt.

I presume you did activate theme compatiblity which is in your preferences options.

Just because you cannot speak French, doesnt mean everyone else doesnt. This is a multi-national forum and therefore will have other languages. Your comments could be classed as racist as you have singled out just French and not any of the other nationalilities. The creatores of Prestashop are French, they work in Paris, France so obviously French is going to be included.

If you look for resources for Prestashop you will find them. Instead you are one of the many that come here and expect people to hand you modules and themes on a plate within 30 seconds of leaving a message on the forum, and when people havent replied within that 30 seconds you start moaning about that.

Instead of coming on this forum and bitching about Prestashop why not go and find some other cart to moan about.

[enigma32]

Flame bait? Yea, but there are lost of other people who agree with you. There's a load of posts for "americanizing" the cart which shouldn't really be necessary, it should have a release with all those changes already made. They can deny it all day long, but ecommerce (and brick and mortar) thrives in america over the rest of the world. I'm not just being ethnocentric, it does.

While it is absolutely easy to install, to make it work remotely like other carts do out the box takes an insane amount of work! There is lots of key functionality missing which you won't realize until after you've already invested loads of time into your shop trying to make it work correctly just to realize the entire checkout process is assinine from registration, checkout, even the password request.. no shipping functionality and what mods are out there still don't quite work how we'd expect, no authorize.net support aside from an incomplete mod you have to force to work and a $500 mod thats just insane to have to buy.

Like I said, realized AFTER investing time into customizing and modifying my own features that exist in no cart software, only to find key functionality is missing or broken.. too late to switch and learn another system.

Yes, in the future if I pickup a project I am going to take the time at that point to learn a more robust cart and use that.

[enigma32]

What is wrong with Prestashop?

Let's see....

- how bout the fact that the themes which they are selling for $100 a pop are lame. Merely changes of background color and use of different pics from the default ones. they should really pull down those ugly templates selling at sky high prices.

- the integration of themes. after downloading and selecting the new theme, the whole layout seems messed up! seriously something wrong with the CSS. No integration at all!

- French. No french pls... unless it is french fries.

- FAQs - they seem more like something typed out in a hurry. Hardly helpful. I have programmer friends who have lamented that the lack of online resources for prestashop is stopping them from developing for prestashop.

Unfortunately you're going after the wrong points here. Themes have nothing to do with the software itself buddy. Theming it yourself is really not that hard. Frankly, I don't care for cookie cutter websites anyhow. It's the functionality that pisses me off.

[WeaponsHot]

I Dont want to add to the flame bait but...
This is not meant in a bad way but I am so frustrated. I like the whole prestashop idea, look, feel etc.
But I am so frustrated for the following reasons:
Im trying to get a shop online with the latest "released" version of prestashop. I have done most if not all of the importing by hand. But I have left some important things out that I want to bulk upload, but don't even go there. I cant get it to work unless i drop the file size way down and it has other problems documented here.

I cant get more than 50 items to show in the back office catalog when I try it does not work it errors out.

I have another site Im working with using the beta version it fixes the catalog part but in csv part i still get the Hack attempt thing. I want to scream Maybe the frustrating part is 2 fold If i knew more php and the code was commented better I could jump in and help fix the problems

and if there are incremental fixes that were done it would be nice to have a central repository for them so i can try to mix and match to get somethings working. (is there one?)

I am afraid to publish with the released version because it IMHO it takes a lot to maintain it but I look forward to the coming improvements

[Celeborn]

Mayaswell add to the flame whilst it's still hot.

As WeaponsHot said, "I like the whole prestashop idea, look, feel etc".

I had been looking at this shopping cart as a upgrade to my old x-cart system which frankly was a pain in the érse to update theme wise, but its functionality was brilliant and everything just 'worked'.

'My' frustrations with Prestashop follow the lines of:

PDF invoices not working at all, despite exploring all fixes
Product images refusing to upload, and a kind forum member jumping in and attempting a hax which has only half fixed it

...and a few other minor points I was able to fix myself.

The template system is great by the way, so as some posts above indicated, you couldn't find an easier open source package to skin yourself!

I'm nearly there with my production version of PrestaShop, but holding off in anticipation of v1.3 being released sooner than later and see if it fixes my above points!

[Patric]

Hi,

First I'll answer to the topic's creator.

The FAQs posted up by Prestashop is crap.

FAQs – they seem more like something typed out in a hurry. Hardly helpful.

We are aware of this documentation lack and we are doing our best to remedy this problem.

Forum is full of French. I mean what exactly is the % of global population who understands French?

I know that some French (and other non English languages) people sometimes post by mistake in the English forums. When it happens, you can alert the moderators by using the [report] link located in the top-right of each post.

how bout the fact that the themes which they are selling for $100 a pop are lame. Merely changes of background color and use of different pics from the default ones. they should really pull down those ugly templates selling at sky high prices.

This is YOUR advice, if you don't like, don't buy, or do better. This is a gratuitous criticism.

the integration of themes. after downloading and selecting the new theme, the whole layout seems messed up! seriously something wrong with the CSS. No integration at all!

If someone meets problems with modules or themes bought from PrestaStore (if this is what you are talking about) he has to use the PrestaStore.com website contact form to ask for help. We always answer.

I will truly advise anyone who wishes to use Prestashop in the long term to think carefully!

Once again this is your advice. A lot of people use PrestaShop and are very pleased.

[Patric]

In addition, I would like to encourage everyone who meets a problem with the solution to post them into the Bug Tracker (which must exclusively be filled in English ;-) ).

We are actually working very hard to fix most of the bugs and to release the 1.3 version as soon as possible.
If you don't post your bugs into the bug tracker but only in the forum, they won't be taken into account by our development team.

[archproject]

i would like to add alittle bit on this thread. I am do not understand french, german or italian I use an ADD-ON in firefox called Google Translator for firefox. it's a great software..... I can just select the text I want to translate and translate it to english .. great.... or if you don'twant to install anything just go to translate.google.com and you will be able to understand almost all languages ... on the internet ..... GREAT SOFTWARE..... I love it ...

That's for the languages. For the FAQ or the prestashop wiki... I think The moderators should open it up to the community and let the community add in stuff and help out. by the way prestashop is open source and community supported as well right ... correct me if I am wrong.


Regards
Archproject

[ladivito]

i would like to add alittle bit on this thread. I am do not understand french, german or italian I use an ADD-ON in firefox called Google Translator for firefox. it's a great software..... I can just select the text I want to translate and translate it to english .. great.... or if you don'twant to install anything just go to translate.google.com and you will be able to understand almost all languages ... on the internet ..... GREAT SOFTWARE..... I love it ...

That's for the languages. For the FAQ or the prestashop wiki... I think The moderators should open it up to the community and let the community add in stuff and help out. by the way prestashop is open source and community supported as well right ... correct me if I am wrong.


Regards
Archproject

I use that translation too....when i cant found the topic i want in english forum, i'll go french forum and surprisingly i found the answer

[wildchief]

That's for the languages. For the FAQ or the prestashop wiki... I think The moderators should open it up to the community and let the community add in stuff and help out. by the way prestashop is open source and community supported as well right ... correct me if I am wrong.


Regards
Archproject

I agree with Archproject, the documentation is a bit weak. If we the users could contribute to the wiki then that would make a difference. I have added my own docs here as I discover "how to do things" to try and help this effort. I personally would like to see prestashop flourish so I don't have to find another cart in 2 years time!

I have evaluted the following carts

Ubercart, Magento, opencart and prestashop, I felt prestashop was the best all rounder and the best alternative for people looking to give up on osCommerce. Once we get a few more free modules and better documentation this will be a great little cart.

[Sri Wulandari]

Prestashop is not a crap, it's a masterpiece with a very thin manual.. but you'll love it

[Reviewer]

Hey Sri Wulandari,
Is that your real picture?
You look beautiful!!

[Sri Wulandari]

Nope. She's indonesian actress, yes she is beautiful.

[shacker]

What is wrong with Prestashop?

Let's see....

- how bout the fact that the themes which they are selling for $100 a pop are lame. Merely changes of background color and use of different pics from the default ones. they should really pull down those ugly templates selling at sky high prices.

- the integration of themes. after downloading and selecting the new theme, the whole layout seems messed up! seriously something wrong with the CSS. No integration at all!

- French. No french pls... unless it is french fries.

- FAQs - they seem more like something typed out in a hurry. Hardly helpful. I have programmer friends who have lamented that the lack of online resources for prestashop is stopping them from developing for prestashop.

mmm.. the priuce of the themes.....in tempaltemosnter see the prices for a theme to magento or zendcart...
This is not fault by prestashop. The forum have a lot of lenguages, including english. All info its here, only need to search correctly.

Themes integration: yes maybe a lot of themes its dificult to integrate because are a lot of modified. Nothing is wrong with the css, the programers and tempalte developers are wrong in the integration. We sell templates and with a correct instruction i dont have problems with this.

[MrBaseball34]

Ok, I am going to throw my 2¢ in here...

As a long time software developer, I've been programming over 25 years, HTML since 1992, PHP since 1998, I have seen things come and go. This cart software is a *good* option for people that don't really know a lot about programming. It is easy to setup and manage if you leave every thing in the default configuration.

That is where I think this package fails miserably, however.

Today's world of e-commerce requires a means of flexibility unrivaled in the past. If your software is not configurable to your market, you are left in the dust. Take a very close look at osCommerce. It was king of the hill for a number of years until they got complacent, resting on their laurels and now their package is a bloated, hard to configure mess that people are trying to get away from.

osCommerce users are usually experienced e-commerce professionals that, at first look, think Prestashop may be an answer. But when getting deeper into installation/configuration and usage, find that it isn't even on the same level as that 7 year old package.

In the e-commerce world, "keeping up with the Joneses" doesn't cut it any more. You have to innovate and do better than the other guy to stay ahead of the curve. Now, I would venture to say that Magneto is the top dog, even if it is geared more towards large enterprises. Although it is more difficult to install, configure and use than osCommerce AND Prestashop, many people are flocking to it because they have been very innovative in their architecture.

Now, if I were CEO of PrestaTeam...

If Prestashop wants to stay in the same league, they need to scrap the current code base and re-architect this thing to be more and easily configurable for ALL users from novice to expert programmers. An excellent plug-in system that handled module creation and installation would be something I would like to see. Another thing I'd like to see is incremental upgrade compatibility using an installation script similar to what PHPBB uses, see AutoMOD as it also handles module installation.

Also, an open source, well-known templating system, such as PHPTemplate, used by Drupal, would be an excellent choice to use for themeing. The current themeing model is one of the crappiest I've ever seen. The CSS is a jumble, not very well commented and there is not enough granularity in the CSS, either, Making many items have the same attributes makes it more difficult to theme, dudes. Each item should have it's own style along with comments. You should separate the stylesheets into sections to make it easier to find anything. You could also include a PSD for those waning to make easy changes to the colors of the default theme.

One other thing that I think is imperative, they should hire development teams in countries other than France to develop versions of their software for other countries. While they may be great programmers, they don't know all the ins-outs of e-commerce in other countries and that puts them at a disadvantage. Although e-commerce is a global thing, there are more shops that cater to a specific country than there are global shops that need different languages.
Developing the package towards a specific language also makes it easier to document. This would also make it easier to obtain venture funding for the monetary support of the package as well.

Now on to documentation. Yes, I believe that even though this is an open source project, there are open source projects out there that have superb documentation, see Drupal, Joomla!, PHPBB for example. Opening up the Wiki for users to improve would be helpful as it is about the lamest excuse for documentation I've ever seen in my 25+ yrs of programming. If you want people to use your product, you need to document to them how to use your product. The current documentation lacks so much that I cannot begin to get into and makes it very difficult for novice users to use your product.

One other thing that PrestaShop lacks is the third-party addition structure. PrestaStore is fine and well, but I'm not going to donate a module to PrestaStore if I think they are going to sell it. Many of the modules and themes in the store say "From: Community" but they are charging for it, WHAT? If you want monetary support, see my suggestion about venture funding above. PHPBB has an excellent marketplace for their add-ons, and themes. Also, partnership programs help your visibility, I see that you are not preferred partners for PayPal and Google as I mentioned in an earlier post. You want to be seen, get in bed with the big guys.

I mention PHPBB and Drupal a lot. Why, because their model of handling an open source project works. Pattern yourselves after successful organizations and you, too, will be successful.

One last thing before I go. From Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Support - 1 : an act of assistance
I have been very adamant about the need for Prestashop developers to assist on these forums. While I am not a French speaker, so I cannot speak to the level of support given on the French forums. However, the support by PrestaTeam members in the English forum has been very limited at best.

If I were in charge, it would be a requirement for all PrestaTeam developers to assist on the forums on a rotational basis not just when they feel like it. Who better to answer the questions of users than the people actually developing the product. As a developer, I have been required at several jobs to man the phone lines as well as go through the support forums and support customers. I am an avid contributor to many different help forums as well as this one, even with the little knowledge I have about Prestashop. Now, if I can help out here on a regular basis, why can't the Prestashop developers?

[shacker]

Im really not sure with some things. But:
prestastore sell modules that have been published by the user. This mean that the modules that say COMMUNITY has developed by a user and sell in the prestastore. The prestastore modules have selled by presta team. This is not problem. If you contribute with a free module or theme, prestastore dont sell in the store.

Second. I think prestastore its much better than oscommerce, zen or other solutions, that are very difficult to implement, modify or what you want.

The documentation its very poor, but if you are programer, search a little and you can get your module or theme in a very short time.

Only need to know smarty and OOB.

Documentation??; very poor at the moment.

Easy to use? yes, very easy.
Easy to create themes and modules?? : Yes , easy to programers an designers that know smarty and how presta works.
This is not a cart to a people that dont know anithing. You can install, and configure it, but if need to change something, need a programer. Like if you want a site in flash, but dont know flash.
you cant use a tool if you dont know .

This is my case. i dont know presta a few months ago, and now i only install prestashop to my customers and they love it.

[SK01]

This topic is a potential flame bait, but i really got to voice it out.

The FAQs posted up by Prestashop is crap. Lack of details and little things like installing Prestashop is actually hosted by Siteunderground (a web hosting provider).

Forum is full of French. I mean what exactly is the % of global population who understands French?

I will truly advise anyone who wishes to use Prestashop in the long term to think carefully!

If you don't like it, then don't use it..

Can't even understand that you picked such a bad topic..

[MrBaseball34]

This topic is a potential flame bait, but i really got to voice it out.

The FAQs posted up by Prestashop is crap. Lack of details and little things like installing Prestashop is actually hosted by Siteunderground (a web hosting provider).

Forum is full of French. I mean what exactly is the % of global population who understands French?

I will truly advise anyone who wishes to use Prestashop in the long term to think carefully!

If you don't like it, then don't use it..

Can't even understand that you picked such a bad topic..

And, if you didn't have anything more beneficial to add to the topic, why did you reply?

[RedShark]

As a brand new user of Prestashop, my opinion so far is that aside from a little bit of a learning curve I can say this thing pretty much rocks. It took some navigating around but the tools seem to be there. I can't let my lack of experience on a program dictate whether or not it sucks. It's a poor mechanic that blames his tools.

I might find some issues with the program as I get deeper into it, but I can say that I have been able to get it installed, config'd, formatted to my liking, and upload product without any problem (knocking wood).

I haven't tried the uploading of large amounts of items at a time as my business model is a little different.

One thing that I do have to say is that I think it is only going to be a temporary solution however as I don't like having to go to a separate page than my site. I don't have too much of a problem with that now as I am just presenting my site and business plan to investors. Unless there is a solution that I haven't come across yet, I think I am going to include funding for having a shopping cart built specifically for my site.

Got a couple other questions about the program I will address in the appropriate forum, but so far I like Prestashop and have no problem with it at all. However, some of the posts above pose great questions and concerns that hopefully will be addressed soon.

IMHO - nice program and so far I am quite happy with it.

[pwn*]

i would like to point you to this highly customised prestashop:
http://experience.caterham.co.uk

its beautiful, conforms to the design of the rest of their website, and has many unique custom features. all of this with apparently not enough documentation. the prestashop code itself is so well organised that documentation and finding support on the forums is rarely necessary.

there are some more examples here:
http://www.templatemonster.com/prestashop-themes.php

i agree with you that good documentation is of paramount importance, and prestashop is sorely lacking in this area - just look at JQuery's documentation for an excellent example - but comparing prestashop to other open source e-commerce projects in general only points out how awesome it is. the customers' user interface is one of the best, if not THE best, and the back-office has way more features than anyone will ever use. creating templates is very easy thanks to smarty, so if you want a unique and good-looking web shop, you're going to have to pay for it.

oh and prestashop was made by french developers, so thats why there are a lot of french users in the forums

[RedShark]

PWN* thanks for the info...I have no doubt there is plenty I can do with Prestashop. I have only just started exploring it.

Frankly I don't care what language someone speaks - I am in an English forum so I am just fine! My questions and answers all seem to be English so I don't know what the OP's problem is other than that like so many others they seem to want something without effort on their part...

[RedShark]

i would like to point you to this highly customised prestashop:
http://experience.caterham.co.uk

its beautiful, conforms to the design of the rest of their website, and has many unique custom features. all of this with apparently not enough documentation. the prestashop code itself is so well organised that documentation and finding support on the forums is rarely necessary.

there are some more examples here:
http://www.templatemonster.com/prestashop-themes.php

i agree with you that good documentation is of paramount importance, and prestashop is sorely lacking in this area - just look at JQuery's documentation for an excellent example - but comparing prestashop to other open source e-commerce projects in general only points out how awesome it is. the customers' user interface is one of the best, if not THE best, and the back-office has way more features than anyone will ever use. creating templates is very easy thanks to smarty, so if you want a unique and good-looking web shop, you're going to have to pay for it.

oh and prestashop was made by french developers, so thats why there are a lot of french users in the forums

The first site looks like a site built around a shopping cart...I don't plan on being held hostage by my shopping cart

[MrBaseball34]

the prestashop code itself is so well organised that documentation and finding support on the forums is rarely necessary.

I don't know what you've been smoking but you must not be a programmer. The code is a jumbled mess and Smarty makes it even more of a cluster f@#k.

[shacker]

the prestashop code itself is so well organised that documentation and finding support on the forums is rarely necessary.

I don't know what you've been smoking but you must not be a programmer. The code is a jumbled mess and Smarty makes it even more of a cluster f@#k.

Its really easy if you know oob and smarty, The code its ddivided into clases, and nothing else. Simply read and search and you get at you want.

[DutchCoding]

I have been programing for just 3 years and I understand PS pretty well. Yeah not allot of documentation but if you know OOP You can get through it. Comming from a java background thats easy. to make modules use the ones that are given to you and learn from them. Dont say something is crappy just becuase you cant understand or know how to use it. You have to be able to adapt to all restriction and find a solution to your problem..... thats what a real programmer would do instead of b###ing on the forum...but thats just me.

[pwn*]

The first site looks like a site built around a shopping cart...I don't plan on being held hostage by my shopping cart

the shopping cart was built around the site design which has been around for years and is not likely to change (ever), so the cart was held hostage by the site!

[ihackuz]

PRESTA SHOP ROCKS MAN YES A LOT OF FRENCH BUT ALOT OF ENGLISH HELP TOO,I SUGGEST THAT YOU HAVE A SPOON OF CONCRETE AND HARDEN THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALSO IF YOU DONT LIKE IT DONT USE IT NOT OUR LOSE YOUR LOSE
HAVE GREAT DAY FOLKS :coolsmile:

[sokpet]

Prestashop is very good engine. BUT forum comunity is real weak as there are a lot of questions without reply. This is that should be improved, then Prestashop can be N1. Probably because all Profys are very busy, then say that the forum is moderated by itself (because moderators ARE supposed to be PROFYS)

If I need to make customized module who can I write to?

[CKDavid]

Hi there, if you do have issues with your current cart i have a recommendation in here i hope you're open for this one: Shopping Cart Elite. I've personally used this one that's why I'm recommending it to you.

[BWT]

I have tried a lot of different e-commerce platforms and prestashop is one of the best i have used. I think it has a long way to go and version 1.4 has a lot of great updates to the system but the potential is def there! Prestashop Rocks!