Member Avatar for poliy12

Right guys, just found your forum and could do with some MAJOR help.

I've been given a project and I am creating an on-line shop. I plan to use Dreamweaver. I am a novice user of all packages, and Dreamweaver seems the easiest with the time remaining (6 weeks!!)

A couple of questions: How easy is it to connect Mal's E-Commerce to my dreamweaver web page?I plan to use this as the 'back end'

Secondly, I have seen people using PHP (?) and linking it to a database, will I need to do that!

Cheers people, I may be back for some more answers!

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Six weeks is tight but doable if the scope is kept small and work is focused. Reuse a mature shopping solution rather than building cart and checkout from scratch. Dreamweaver is fine for the HTML/CSS and visual layout; pair it with a cart option that matches your course requirements (hosted widget, WordPress + plugin, or a lightweight self-hosted PHP package). and pointed toward reusing existing solutions and thinking about dynamic behavior — that direction is the fastest route.

A practical 6‑week plan:
Week 1 — lock requirements (payment methods, shipping, number of SKUs), pick hosting and cart approach, prepare image assets from Fireworks.
Week 2 — build responsive templates in Dreamweaver and create one product page template you can replicate.
Week 3 — install or connect the chosen cart and map its fields to your template (product title, price, SKU, image).
Week 4 — import or enter products, configure payments and shipping rules, enable SSL on the host.
Week 5 — QA: checkout flows, mobile, cross‑browser, and accessibility checks; fix layout and CSS issues.
Week 6 — final polish, write a short README/deployment note for your tutor, and record a demo walkthrough.

How much coding? If you use a hosted cart or a well-supported plugin the work is mostly HTML/CSS and configuration (low effort). A self‑hosted, custom PHP + database solution takes significantly more time and testing (higher effort). Plan for product data entry to take more time than you think — CSV import support will save hours. Always test payments in sandbox mode and verify SSL is active before live transactions.

Quick troubleshooting tips: keep one canonical template in Dreamweaver to reduce duplication, keep CSS modular, back up product data, and save screenshots and notes of setup steps so you can reproduce the environment for grading. If time runs short, present a fully styled front end with working checkout links as your deliverable rather than a half-built custom cart.

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Member Avatar for sillyboy

a "back end" generally refers to a database. For anything dynamic, (a on-line store is dynamic), you will most certainly need a database.

Member Avatar for almostbob

Dont reinvent the wheel
the Ecommerce functions you are looking for have been made before, in your choice of programming languages,
for free, for pay,
supported, unsupported
hosted elsewhere, self hosted
paypal
credit cards
delivery
et al
Google online store script search
then its just a relatively simple thing to stylesheet & match the appearance of the rest of the site

the time consuming part is data entry for items

Member Avatar for Jen0608

goodluck on your business.

Member Avatar for poliy12

Would a Mals E-Commerce package replace any database that I need?

Member Avatar for almostbob

Would a Mals E-Commerce package replace any database that I need?

Yes,
mals is externally hosted
which may be a negative to the employer

there are similar (also free) scripts to install on your servers
that are also easy to setup
read this - do this
read that - do that
may come with live support for the first xx days that a (pimply 17 year old techno kid) help person can configure if needec

Member Avatar for poliy12

I should have added that this is for a College project.

I have got to create the web site in Dremweaver, my design work has been completed in Fireworks. How easy is it to attach a Mals E-commerce back end into a dreamweaver website?

Member Avatar for almostbob

I should have added that this is for a College project.

I have got to create the web site in Dremweaver, my design work has been completed in Fireworks. How easy is it to attach a Mals E-commerce back end into a dreamweaver website?

Mals just needs 'buy now' buttons, that link to the mals site you create when you sign up for them to host your shopping cart.

Member Avatar for poliy12

Is there much coding involved?

Anyone had any experience of Mals?

On a scale of 1-10, how difficult is it to combinde Mal's with a Dreamweaver webshop?

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