Before setting up your OpenCart website, make sure you are fully prepared. Please complete the following preparation steps:
Software required
To feel comfortable working with the OpenCart template, we recommend downloading all the applications required. You can see the list of required software at the template Live Demo page. Requirements can vary significantly depending upon the template, the common ones will be defined only:
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- To edit template source code files you need some code editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Notepad++ or Sublime Text, etc.
- To upload files to the hosting server, you may need an FTP Manager like Total Commander, FileZilla, CuteFTP, etc.
- Proceed with the following guide to unzip the archives, using WinZip(PC) and StuffitExpander(MAC)
Hosting
As OpenCart engine is a PHP/MySQL based application, you need to prepare a hosting environment.
If you have live hosting, please make sure it matches OpenCart system requirements and is ready to be used for OpenCart websites.
You can run OpenCart locally (on your computer) using the local server. To create a local hosting server, please use localhost applications, such as WAMP, AppServ, MAMP, etc. Any of those can be easily installed as any other software and be used to run OpenCart.
System Requirements
OpenCart needs certain technical requirements to be met for the store to operate properly. First, a web server must be created to make the OpenCart store publicly available on the web. Domain names and hosting services can easily be purchased for an affordable price.
These extensions must be enabled for OpenCart to install properly on the web server.
- Web Server (Apache suggested)
- PHP 5.4+(1.5.x at least 5.2+)
- Database (MySQLi suggested)
Required PHP libraries/modules
- Curl
- ZIP
- Zlib
- GD Library
- Mcrypt
- Mbstrings
- Xml
The above PHP extensions should be available by almost all the hosting providers, during the installation process it will check if you have them all enabled. You should contact your hosting provider if some are missing.