Testing the whole web site

After spending hours on testing, I was able to correct all the errors, i found in the following sections,
* Shopping cart
* Data transfer from web site to paypal
* Member account creating
* Forum

I spent more than 8 hours on error handling and corrcting.
This is the worst part of web design, as I think.

When the errors come up, there's no one to help me, I have to find my answers by myself.
The forums such as yahoo, oscommerce, siteground, and other private forums and affeliated forums gave a HUGE help through out the error handling process to make the shopping cart a success.

Now, the shopping cart is working perfectly and tested few purchases through paypal.

It seems like the web site is ready to go online.
www.preciousgems.com.au

Integrating Shopping cart with Paypal

Well, this is a huge jump. Its time to start the 24/7 online shop, its time to connect paypal to the web site.
This package is called Paypal Website Payment Standard. Some key features are:
1. Accept Bank Transfers
2. Accept Credit Card Payments
3. Accept Paypal Payments

So, I think this is the best solution for this online shopping web site.

Installation is simple.
Create the paypal account, then just add the Paypal Website Payment Module to the shopping cart, logging in as admin, thats it.

Added Products to the Database

Its time to add products to the database. The client wants us to add few products at first to grab the attention of the customerss to the few products he got, then upload more products depending on the feedback of the customers.

Adding products has to be done through the administration section of the shopping cart,
Check figure 1.

Integrate shopping cart pages to the template structure.

Its time to customize the original shopping cart and integrate the layout to the new template designed. This take a lot of time, since I have to open up all the php files (Figure 1) and play around with the coding one by one(Figure2).
This approximate took me around 4 hours.

Then I have to test all the pages and the links thoroughly.

While transfering the php code to the temple, it was a big hassle to get the css layout right, spent more than 2 hours to verify the layout is working fine.

Web site text content completed

Met up with the client to finalise and finish the text content for "about us" heading, and images for "info" heading.

It was a bit of a hassle to make an appointment with the client since he's busy with his business. So I have to call him up a lot of time to make an appointment and have to be there on time. This experience is priceless, since it helps me to understand and adopt to the real business world.

Even for the next project for studio 2, my plan is to do a real project, probably something else than a web site, but it should bring some money to my pocket.