Many of you will want to change the style of the buttons that are provided with osCommerce by default. If you do want to create your own set of buttons, then there is a good way and a bad way to go about it. The most important thing to do is simply create a button template, and once you have it, keep it safe and make sure it is never modified. If you need to create a new button, make a copy of this template, and write on it the new word that describes the button’s function.

For example, some of you might like a plain old rectangle button, which looks nice and neat. If that’s the case, then simply create a rectangle of the desired dimension, give it a border, and buttonize it. Whatever other effects you decide to add later on, you can. For example, the following button template was created and then included in the includeslanguagesenglish imagesuttons folder:

Now, the only thing that you need to do is create a copy for each type of button you need, add the appropriate text in using whatever font, style, or color you like, and save it with the correct name so that osCommerce picks it up. The following example shows the button template being used for the Continue button on the login page, button_continue.gif, like so:

Remember too that you need to ensure that your buttons’ file sizes are small—anything over 2kb, and it’s probably too big. I’m sure you can come up with a better template yourself, and it’s definitely worthwhile doing so in order to realize your site’s own look and feel—it’s also really fun! One thing to keep in mind is that you should keep your template in .bmp format or whatever is best for you, so that you can work with, and resize, the image properly. If you save the template as a GIF file, your options are limited, especially if you need to resize or create special effects.

If you want to be fancy, you might consider animating the buttons using Flash, but this isn’t necessary, and sometimes ends up making the site look gaudy—it’s really up to you!