Hi,
I started knowing nothing, in two days I know almost nothing, but have made some progress.  I still haven't found the answer to this very basic question: how do you publish/enable the shopping cart you've created.  I've installed all four to compare (osCommerce, Agora, Cube, and Zen), but don't know how to make one live on my website.

Do I need to replace the Page Mason site that is live right now, or can I embed the shopping cart?

Thanks for the help!

When installing the shopping carts I entered the named of the software when prompted for a directory to install.  So for osCommerce I entered osCommerce' and using the file manager there is a folder 'osCommerce' that appears within the 'public_html'.  Does placing them in a certain folder automatically enable a page/software to display live on the website?

Thanks again for the help.

I'm started to slowly make the connections where files are, how they are used, how to edit.  Thank you for the help!

Now I'm looking to get Paypal (IPN) working with the os cart. I hope it is as easy as directing the Paypal IPN to an existing URL after I've installed the Os cart - but it can't be that easy.  I've read through both LP forums and OS Commerce forums about activating the IPN for OS Commerce.  Looks like the 'Installing the Paypal IPN 1.x Contribution in Oscommerce with OpenSSL' in the How to... for LP is dated 2005 so I'm wondering if it is outdated. So I think I need to install a module from Paypal and overwrite the files currently in my os Commerce folder.  Stop me at anytime if I'm wrong.   

So it looks like I can download the files from:
osCommerce Module for Website Payments Pro - Store Account Optional
https://www.paypal.com/en_US/html/SolutionsDirectory/sd_plugins-oscommerce.html

Excerpt from the Installation Instructions:
To install this module, back up your existing installation to a safe place and then just copy the included catalog/ directory over your existing osCommerce files. This will replace the modified files and add the new files.

Once you have copied the files, you need to run two small SQL scripts, paypal_wpp.sql and pwa.sql, both in this directory. The command to run them may vary depending on your database name and user, but will look something like:

mysql -u oscommerce -p oscommerce < paypal_wpp.sql
mysql -u oscommerce -p oscommerce < pwa.sql

*This assumes that your database user is named "oscommerce", and the name of the database is "oscommerce". You will be prompted for the database user's password.

Is this what I need to be doing, and how/where exactly do I run the two small SQL scripts?

-Ryan