Implementation and development of classifieds websites
The implementation of osclass php script on sellyourstuff.co.za and findyournextcar.co.za
We have launched 2 new webistes, which used the osclass php open source scripts. In this article I will share some of my thoughts, problems I encountered and successes we had.
Introduction
We got the idea to launch a few classifieds ads websites to boost our income on the side. The first two we did was sellyourstuff and findyournextcar. Both these sites have been made using Osclass, the free classifieds script.
it is still a long way off before we will make money from these websites, but be believe patience and perseverence will be the key to making a financial success of these pages.
This article is to give some insights into using Osclass to build a classifieds webiste.
Why Osclass?
Overview
We did not have a lot of time or money resources to be able to build our own sites. i started looking on the web for people who had done similar things, and a simple Google search for "open source classified scripts" lead me to osclass.
The decision to use Osclass was a quick and simple one. Upon visiting their site, you will see a demo link, and we immediately loved the way it worked.
in fact we loved the default installation so much the we used it for sellyourstuff. I know that it might look like we were just plain lazy, but in fact the default theme really worked well for us. For findyournextcar we made some minor tweaks to the default installation and theme that also worked well.
So in short, we fell in love with the fact that with osclass we could be up and running in no time.
Installation
Installing osclass could not be easier. You can download the software from their webiste for from Github. Whether you are using WAMP or XAMPP on a Windows operating systems or a Linux based LAMP system, the procedure is as simple as extracting the source into your www folder and then using your browser to open the page. It prompts you to give a database name, database user and password to continue. Use phpmyAdmin or your own favourite method to create a database. After clicking the install button, your just hace to provide a name for your site, a admin email and one or two other bits of information.
Admin panel
Osclass has a very neat and functional admin panel. I was quite impressed with it, and the ease with which the website could be set up. it is also very easy to maintain listings, users and othe settings from the panel.
Making changes and customizations to the site
Tools
To edit some code here and there, I used Netbeans on a localhost machine to edit the code. Netbeans easily managed to parse the project and all the code completion tools worked very well for the project.
Editing the CSS files
It was a completely new experience for me to not edit the CSS files directly. Instead osclass uses SASS, a CSS "compiler" that makes the writing of CSS files far more easy. I must say that I was quite impressed with it, although the initial installation on a Windows machine was a bit of a problem. Once you get the hang of NodeJS and its related tools though things become very easy.
The code
I must commend the contributors of the code for Osclass. The code was written in a very clear and legible way making it very easy to understand the code and make own changes to it.
Problems
It was not all smooth sailing when we tried to customise the software. Here are a few of the most prominent problems that we encountered.
php setup
I was developing on a Windows Server machine. Php for all Windows implementations at the time of writing is 32 bit only. That means that PHP_INT_SIZE always returned a 32 bit integer. Even more of a problem was that our ISP, although providing a Linux shared host, also had 32 bit php. That was problem for us as the osclass payments extension required the use of 64 bit variables. We had to fix all the code, especially around payments, to only work with 32 bit values.
Payments
Osclass' payments module works out of the box with Paypal, but unfortunately Paypal is not very well supported in South Africa. We decided to go with payfast, a South African payment gateway very similar to Paypal, but aimed specifically at the South African market.
it was a bit of work, but with the good documentation from payfast, and using the paypal implementation as a reference, we managed to create a payfast implementation on Osclass. In the near future we will see how we can contribute the payfast code back to the project.
Current status
Both the websites are running at the moment. It will be a long time before they generate some income for us, but we believe if we stick to our guns we can make a success of it.
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