Looking for a good catalog software

[HB13DISH]

I am looking for a good catalog software with price range up to $250 to replace a DIY website which works great but is not exciting enough.
Shopping cart software can be a solution and I have even tried one which has excellent features, but I am still not happy with it.
Need Access database support, unlimited products and categories.
No monthly hosting payments, just out of the box solution.
Need full feature evaluation software and not just a demo website to browse.
Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[mhku]

I don't have recomendation but do you mean something that runs on your PC and you create/ upload the pages at the press of a button, or a web based solution?

If web based you need to tell us the languages that your web server supports: .asp .aspx .php

And rather than MS Access, have you looked at _http://www.microsoft.com/sql/editions/express/default.mspx

 

[HB13DISH]

I don't have recomendation but do you mean something that runs on your PC and you create/ upload the pages at the press of a button, or a web based solution?

If web based you need to tell us the languages that your web server supports: .asp .aspx .php

And rather than MS Access, have you looked at _http://www.microsoft.com/sql/editions/express/default.mspx

It can be either way. I use FrontPage 2003 to synch between local and web.

I have tried one with .asp and it is fine. Webserver supports the aspx and php.
I don't want to spend any time learning about PHP

MS Access is good, but I know that most shopping carts use SQL.
I don't really want to spend time on the learning curve.

The website is basically free info and I haven't made a penny out of it after many years, I just want to make it better without spending much time on it.
I will use a shopping cart without prices, just a catalog mode.

Just looked at OsCommerce which is free, but it uses php and SQL.
Thanks for your help.

 

[compufunk]

Hi HB13DISH,
Sorry but I have no experience with off the shelf products. We only use open web developement software like PHP, MySQL, JS, some Java etc.

My only input would be that, while I can understand why you don't want to spend time learning php. I would be of the thinking that, in the long run you'd be better off doing so. The more you go down the route of using standards / software like ASP or access the more you are tied into paying for server / database technology from people like Micro Soft.

There's a lot of interesting development going on on the net with the likes of AJAX at the minute, It can all be achieved using free open software. Plus there is plenty of support out there. PHP is a powerful language, its structured like C, so any experience in programming with C or C++ would ease the learning curve.

I dont know if this is any use to you, but Joomla might be worth a look, I've only had a play with it for an hour or two once, but I believe there are plugins/extensions available for catalogs and more.

C

 

[HB13DISH]

Hi compufunk,

Thank you very much for your valuable input.
But I am only looking for an off the shelf software without the need to spend any time for learning new tricks.
I already have a good solution with which I have spent sometime on the develpoment stage, but I am looking for other possibilities before I take the plunge and pay for it or at the worst case leave it for another occasion.
Any other suggestions would be very much appreciated.

 

[jimbo]

I was involved with a package but it was a long time ago and I think it would be too cumbersome these days.

You could try searching on "Order processing software". There's a lot from that.

 

[HB13DISH]

I was involved with a package but it was a long time ago and I think it would be too cumbersome these days.

You could try searching on "Order processing software". There's a lot from that.

Thanks jimbo, this has opened up more search possibilities.
The main reason for the migration is that the catalog website will have a lot of pictures attached (blondes, brunettes, ok just kidding ) and this is why shopping cart s/w seems to be better suited for what I am looking for.

 

[mhku]

Hard to know without seeing but would a Content Management System suit your needs better?

 

[HB13DISH]

Hard to know without seeing but would a Content Management System suit your needs better?

Sorry, but no idea as this is the first time I hear of CMS.

Please let me give you an example of what I am after based on our sat hobby:

1 - There are the makers of the satellite parts (Dreambox, Nokia, Inverto, Moteck, TD)
2 - There are satellite parts (Satellite Receivers, CI Modules, Dishes, Coaxial cable)
3 - There are the distributors for such parts (Maplin, Pulsat, B&Q)

What I need is to build a catalog which gives the names of the makers, the names of the distributors and the parts list with interactivity between them so that searching for example for a satellite receiver will show all the satellite makers and where to buy it from.
Or clicking on the distributors, the result will show which parts they have in stock and by whom or clicking on one of the makers will show all the parts that they make and where to buy them through their distributors.

Each will have a photo, contact details, website, etc.

I thought a catalog system s/w would give me the solution, but if you can think of another way, then I would be happy to hear it.

 

[HB13DISH]

I need help from a SQL guru to define SQL statements that I need for my project.
Going back to the example given in the above post, I have attached Access mdb file in order to explain where I am stuck and also two pdf files, the first one as a result of the working SQL query and the second the results that I hope to achieve hopefully with the refined SQL statement.

This SQL statement will give me the results as shown in query1.pdf

SELECT SatParts.Distributor, SatParts.SatPart, SatParts.Make
FROM SatParts
ORDER BY SatParts.Distributor;

What I need is to refine the SQL statement so that I will only get the distributor Maplin shown once, that is delete the word Maplin from the
following rows, as shown in query2.pdf
Thanks for any suggestions.