RE: Shop on-line/off-line button...

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Allow me to outline the issue of offline/online in my case:
1. Not all have broad-band access to the Internet, many have to pay the acess based on time-spent online. This implies that using the Admin part of osCommerce is "costly".
2. Many have an issue on live updates in the online store. "What if I do it wrong, I forget something, I change my mind later on, ...?". Have a way to update the categories and products without "commit" the changes to the live store automatically would be an "ease-of-mind".
3. Using full database backup/restore methods can lead to inconsistences in ordering, stocks and even customer data, unless the store is "frozen" during the update timeframe.

Therefore, I see two ways out of this:
a) as some of you have stated, "close" the online store during the update period and "open" it again after you're at ease committing the changes.
b) have some sort of "freeze" mechanism that keeps the store running as it was before starting to update, do the changes, and "unfreeze" the store.

In any case, either some sort of backup and restore is required, to allow for cheaper offline updates. Still, the procedure of gathering vital data (orders, customers, stocks, ...), updating it offline, and restoring it is not well-defined. For this reason I do think that an offline/online feature is necessary. It must be user-friendly (as nearly everything else is in osCommerce), as much as possible automagically and above all practical.

I do apoligize for this long post, and maybe with nearly no new info.