Sandbox

Hello everyone,

I am running SMF unwrapped with the registration bridge.  I would love any feedback... as this is very much a work in progress and I am still learning.  Also, can anyone offer me advice on a good shopping cart?

My website

Thank you,
Corinne

Nice start for beeing your first Mambo site! You are on the right track indeed!

A few comments... You might consider limiting the amout of text in the lead (entry-text) of the articles on the frontpage. The front-page is a bit text-overloaded to my taste. And what about limiting the number of items in your right hand main menu, and rather make an additional menu, grouping related links another place in the design? Even better, turn some of the more important menu-link-catergories into small graphical banners? This will make your website that much easier to "scan" for visitors. Use of colors are very subjective to taste, but there is something with the greyish green against the more fresh green that doesn't work well for me...

Hope this was useful.

Thank you keh!

I agree with you about the content items lead-in text.  It has been on my list to do (and is now done!)  The nature of this site being bereavement, much of the content is geared toward stories and articles about grief and healthy healing - and as such this is going to be a text-heavy site.  It has been interesting finding the right balance.  I took your advice and shortened the left menu as well.  I think at the start of my bringing content online, I was tinkering with the template as it was, and there in fact were a lot of items there that were easily melded into others.  I do like your idea about the banner links - which could also help with bringing other colors in... I will have to work on that and see what happens!

Thank you for your input about the colors.  I did a focus group of sorts with several folks during the design phase, and we all kept coming back to these green hues!  I think part of this is due to the nature of the site again, with us wanting a calm and peaceful feeling.  I think the main background is too dark - but have not had the time to play with brighter alternatives.  I will take some time for that and see where it leads.

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my site and share your thoughts!
Much appreciated!
Corinne

Some shopping components

Shopping Cart
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VirtueMart (formerly mambo-phpShop)
A complete shopping cart solution for Joomla. It's popular, widely used, and can also be used as a catalogue. With its powerful administration tool, you can handle an unlimited number of categories, products, orders, and customers.
Home-VirtueMart  Features  SourceForge  Download  Documentation  phpShopUserManual  mambo-phpShop_Tutorial_1.6_MB_PDF  FAQ  SupportForum  Tutorial  Screenshots   
Demos:  Demo-Admin-and-Shopper  Demo-169_Live_Shops 

osCommerce Bridge
osCommerce Bridge hooks Joomla to osCommerce 2. 2ms2 where osC can run in a wrapper and share a unified login with Joomla. osCommerce Bridge uses the osC registration process and hooks to the Joomla users files to support the accoutn creation. Once an account is created the user logs in through the standard Joomla login (mod_login) and is authenticated for the osC store.
Home-SeismicOpenSource  JoomlaForge  Download  Documentation  FAQ  SupportForum  Tutorial  Screenshots 
Demos:  Demo-SeismicOpenSource 
Joomla Forum:  Joomla and osCommerce Bridge v1.0.4 

ADD
josCommerce once they have released files
josCommerce is a port of mosCommerce which was orignially designed to port osCommerce to Mambo 4.5.2 (osCommerce for Mambo). The goal of this project is to create a port of the popular osCommerce for Joomla!
http://developer.joomla.org/sf/projects/joscommerce

CafePress
A CafePress shop integration component which displays products from multiple CafePress Basic stores inside Mambo. Includes random product module.
Home=Loves_Answer  JoomlaForge  Download  Documentation  FAQ  SupportForum  Tutorial  Screenshots 
Demos:  Demo-GladCow  Demo-AVIEWS  Demo-cdreviews  Demo-JasonSozaPhotography 

EZ Store
A simple ecommerce solution for online sellers.
Home-JustJoomla  JoomlaForge  Download  Documentation  FAQ  SupportForum  Tutorial  Screenshots 
Demos:  Demo-JustJoomla  Demo-JeffHuntMusic  Demo-OutlandRecords  Demo-cinebar  Demo-CTFishingReports 


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More CMMs here:
Resources: Joomla Components, Modules, and Mambots
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,16398.0.html

Ken

Thank you so much for listing these for me.  I have successfully loaded Virtuemart, and aside from an error that only the site admin side sees regarding invalid IPN with paypal... I've handled several transactions just fine. 

Much obliged,
Corinne

oMama wrote:Ken

Thank you so much for listing these for me.  I have successfully loaded Virtuemart, and aside from an error that only the site admin side sees regarding invalid IPN with paypal... I've handled several transactions just fine. 

Much obliged,
Corinne

Cool.
The site is looking very nice.
Took me a minute to find the shop way down there.
Marketingwise - a shop link should be "above the fold."
Suggest you put up top on the right.

KM

Wow

That site is really pretty!!

Yep another nice site.
I only have a small gripe and its the solarflare top_menu, banner and search and news item placement... all in the banner area.  .. however you make it look good.

I have not made myself a member but the only thing I dont like is the uneven bottom.  (lots of my sites feature this design flaw too)

how bout a narrow footer?  mind you the green BG makes it obvious too.

And its your first site...  EXCELLENT.