The Holy Grail: a WordPress / osCommerce site

Firstly, apologies if this has been answered definitively elsewhere, but I’ve searched and searched for documentation on this subject, without success, and I thought I’d round up what I’ve learned and see if anyone can put me straight…

The site I’m building is a ‘lifestyle’ shop, and the news articles, events listings, reviews, and blog entries (all handled by wp) will appear on the front page in ‘magazine digest’ format alongside the latest products. I don’t want there to be a schism between ‘shop’ and ‘blog’. as you navigate, I want the customer/reader to be able to easily alternate between the two parts of the site without really realising.

What I’d like to achieve is a seamless integration between the two platforms. I don’t want the blog and the shop to feel like separate websites.

First off; I’m mainly familiar with WordPress development, and after a lot of researching and forum lurking, have decided that I want to work with osCommerce as the platform for the e-commerce element of the site, and allow the rest of it (there’ll be a lot of articles, news, basically ‘blog’ type elements) that I’d like wordpress to handle as my CMS of choice. It’s also what my client’s more familiar with.

This will be my first time working with WordPress 3.0 – I’m more familiar with 2.9.2. I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve read the osC documentation.pdf (Update 051112) that comes with the download on this page: http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/oscommerce, and nearly switched to Magento a few times, as I’ve found it difficult to find the information I felt I needed – but come back as a result of comments regarding the ‘heaviness’ of Magento and its comparatively slow loading time. I have to say, their documentation, features and presentation looked seductive… but I’m more comfortable with the open source ethos.

Because I felt the home page was more suited to a blog type structure, my first thought was to find a WordPress plugin that would allow smooth operation with osCommerce.

Now, my findings are that neither of the plugins are supported any longer, and considering that WordPress has just launched version 3 that there may not be a current solution that’s deemed to work. Does anyone have experience of these plugins?

<ahref=”http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/oscommerce/”>osCommerce
WP-osCommerce

This appears to be discredited here due to lack of support
osC Thread – osCommerce and WordPress

And here:
osC Thread – WordPress – osCommerce combined site

Pageview is mentioned in this topic as a possible solution for inclusion of osC pages within WP:
WP Plugin – PageView

This is a simple piece of code to place a single wp entry as a teaser on the front page of the shop:

osC Contribution – WordPress Integration

Site Structure
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My first decision is how to organise the site build.

1)
OsC => http://www.mysite.com/shop
WP => http://www.mysite.com/blog

This suggests a separate CMS is used for the home page

ie => http://www.mysite.com/home

2)
OsC => http://www.mysite.com
WP => http://www.mysite.com/blog

3)
OsC => http://www.mysite.com/shop
WP => http://www.mysite.com

4) alternatively, WP is embedded within osC:
http://www.mysite.com/shop/blog/

5) …or osC is embedded within WP:
http://www.mysite.com/blog/shop/

Currently, I’m leaning towards (3), as this means the homepage is controlled by the WP CMS, which my client, and I are more familiar with, although (5) is, I believe, possible.

But I’d like a dynamic shop category listing pulled from osC, maybe some ‘featured products’ and, say, the ten newest products all to appear on the front page along with the ‘blog’ elements.

My thinking is that this would be done by using php includes. Unless I’m missing anything, is there any reason why I can’t create a sidebar from existing code in osC as a php file, and pull this into WP? And vice versa, including shop elements within the blog and blog elements within the shop where needed.

This is the sort of thing I’m thinking of – but the topic seemed to die without resolution.

osC Thread – Pulling Content Outside of the osC Installation

and this:

Oscommerce shopping cart in header of wordpress blog

REPLACE osC boxes with CSS
============================

The first thing I’m planning to do is replace html tables with CSS layout:
osC to CSS osC to CSS

The intention here being that I can share CSS styles between the two parts of the site more effectively.

Embedding vs Integrating
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– is there a preference?

Easiest Way to Integrate a Blog
osC Thread – Easiest Way to Integrate a Blog

This is a solution whereby osC is installed *within* the osC directory

osC Contribution – Integrate WordPress Blog Rev 2

It’s based on work documented here:

Embedding WordPress into osCommerce – tutorial
Embedding WordPress into osCommerce – tutorial

and:

Embedding WordPress into osCommerce – tutorial part ii 
Embedding WordPress into osCommerce – tutorial part ii 

This solution mentions the PixoPoint Theme Integrator

But I wonder whether this is more a solution for allowing the theme to remain consistent, rather than allow for a cross-pollination of content.

It seems to me that whatever solution is used for integration WP and osC have to be installed in separate folders, but can they share a database, for example?

Integrated User Login / Database Sharing
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It seems ideal to me that the user could login on the index page, thereby logging in to both WP and osC – is this at all possible? Is it wise? I’d like the user to appear logged in throughout the site, rather than logging in twice, with separate details. That way, they could buy, write reviews and comment on the blog in one simple visit.

WP Support Topic – Integrating WordPress users to OScommerce

WP Support Topic – osCommerce and WordPress

Similarly, if the user wanted to search the site, would it be possible for results to be returned from the shop (with product thumbnails) and the blog (with article thumbs) on the one page, albeit split into 2 parts?

Would I have to create a search button that will only deliver results within the relevant ‘zone’?

Alternatively I could present a search field with radio buttons saying ‘shop’ and ‘blog’ so that if you’re conducting the search within the ‘wrong’ zone, it would redirect and deliver results with just the one click of the button.

WordPress and ‘Dropped Sessions’
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I don’t want anything I do to lose sales! Whether I embed WordPress within osCommerce, operate OsCommerce as a WordPress plugin or operate separate ‘sites’ on the same server with strong graphic styles and light global php includes, I’m anxious that I don’t cause sessions to be lost. Is there anything here you would advise, and equally importantly warn against? How do I ensure any visitor to my site retains their cart contents, etc throughout the duration of their stay, regardless of whether they’re ‘leaving’ the shop to read the blog or not?

Thanks in advance for your help – this is my first posting in this forum, so I’ve tried to round up links that I think help build up the picture for others in my position.
I have also posted in the osCommerce forum here: The Holy Grail: a WordPress / osCommerce site, as I know that osC and WP forums will have different perspectives. My aim it to tie these together in some way, as I know that interest in building a site using these two systems is proving increasingly popular.

I’ll try to document my progress, and if I come across a great solution, I’ll contribute whatever I can.

What would you recommend – am I on the right track? Can all of this be done? Am I barking up the wrong tree?

I’m hoping you can correct, advise, inspire and encourage me with what feels like a daunting task!