Taking over opencart site?

dahayeser

I have been asked to take over an ecommerce website done in opencart. It's up and running, functioning fine and the request to be available for any troubleshooting and for future updates.

I am primarily a frontend developer but would be strong in the area of PHP/MySQL too. I have never had any interaction with opencart or any shopping cart systems. I would like you get your take on how big a learning curve is involved.

Is there frequent upgrades involved to maintain security ala Wordpress?
Are there multiple plugings sate could break when opencart is updated?
Is is easy to setup locally to play around with on WAMP or something like that?

What are the major considerations here? Would it be naive to jump in to this cold?

Advice much appreciated.

daymobrew

dahayeser wrote: »

Are there multiple plugings sate could break when opencart is updated?

I tried to update an OpenCart site and found that OC changed a number of APIs that broke them theme I was using so I have not updated.

dahayeser wrote: »

Is is easy to setup locally to play around with on WAMP or something like that?

Yes. In the OpenCart site that I maintain there are no path or url references in the database so you can just copy it to a local server without modification.

To make changes that involve editing core files, use vQmod. It may be part of core OpenCart at this stage but wasn't when I was working on OC. It is an excellent way to virtually modify files (core and theme) on the fly. It is the coolest thing ever!

dahayeser

Thanks daymobrew,

I presume not updating OC could leave you vulnerable to being hacked. Similar to wordpress, when vulnerabilities become known in a version bots would trawl for that version and attempt to expose them. That is what would keep me awake at night! I would be doing this as a side project outside the day job and I'd worry there could be a crisis that could require full time attention.

With regard to pulling the site down to experiment on a local environment can you still run through the full checkout process?

PS had a look at vQmod, looks class!

zig

Its probably worth asking them do they know if there has been much work done on it already. Its quite possible alot of the core files have been changed so much that there is little to no point in trying to update it. Ive seen vqmod ignored many times.

In my experience OC is treated a little differently to Wordpress. Firstly Wordpress is huge, according to this its used for a quarter of all websites on the internet and is updated VERY regularly, if you don't keep WordPress up to date it is definitely very vulnerable and I've seen that first hand.

I cant say the same for OC, I've worked on very old versions of it with absolutely no issues.

Plugin developers for OC tend to have the same line of thinking. Generally when buying a plugin they have many different versions of it available to download based on the version of OC you have. You wouldn't really expect the same treatment with WordPress because with WordPress if you aren't keeping it up to date in the first place you have problems.

Regarding working on it locally, if a site is built in PHP/MySQL in Linux/Apache environment then it can be replicated on your local server.

I would recommend Vagrant for working locally. It may have an initial learning curve that might eat up some of your time but the reward is that you will be working on a reliable server locally that truly replicates the live environment.

I say you should go for it. I would nearly say OC is easier than Wordpress, probably for the wrong reasons but its definitely a decent and enjoyable ecommerce platform to work off.

willows

Opencart is very stable. I have seen quite old versions ticking along nicely. The only thing that can go wrong is if its passwords and usernames are weak.

Updates and addons are pretty reasonable too. I think you can sleep in your bed. I have about 80 opencart installations we maintain and apart from addons there is little to do. I hope I have not out the hex on it ;-)