Difference between revisions of "VbzCart"

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==About==
 
==About==
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[[VbzCart]] is [[free/open-source]] software for running an [[online retail]] operation. The author is in the process of documenting it and publishing the source code.
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[[VbzCart]] is [[free/open-source]] software for running an [[online retail]] operation.
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* '''[[/install]]''' has deployment instructions
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* '''[[/status]]''' critical pieces still need to be (re)written, though most of it is working well (2017-06-25)
 
==Purpose==
 
==Purpose==
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VbzCart [[/history|started life]] as a nameless shopping-cart application written specifically for [[vbz.net]], mostly coded in [[Visual Basic for Applications|VBA]] on [[MS Access 97]]. By 2003 at the latest, I had already decided that it would be better for vbz.net's administration functions to be web-based, but I didn't see any way forward with this that didn't require a massive amount of up-front time investment before being able to gain any actual functionality.
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The immediate purpose is to handle the more data-intensive aspects of managing a small online retail operation that offers a wide variety of products in a wide variety of choices. This [[/pieces|includes]] tracking orders, tracking packages sent to fill those orders, stock and inventory, which items need to be reordered from suppliers, what is currently expected from suppliers, what suppliers have sent in the past, etc.
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I evaluated [[osCommerce]] and [[ZenCart]] as alternatives and found that although they both had many features I would like to have on vbz.net, they also lacked some key features I would need (some of which VbzCart already had, and some of which would be needed to migrate VbzCart's data from Access).
 
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Eventually (after a false start in [[Perl]]), around 2007 I came up with the idea of writing VbzCart's admin functions as a [[MediaWiki]] extension, saving the trouble of writing a user management/login system and gaining some additional interface functionality into the bargain.
 
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Development and migration has continued since then in fits and starts, with interruptions due largely to family obligations (especially [[htwiki:Josh|this]]), but as of August 2011 I consider the migration essentially complete; there are no order-processing functions that still need to be done in VB (the last "piece" of this, completed in July, was working out a system to produce "[[database/report|report]]s" so I could print packing slips formatted as nicely as the ones in Access), and there are no admin functions that aren't at the stage of being at least written if not yet debugged.
 
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* '''Status''' (2014-12-18) What seemed like a relatively small feature -- the need to let users access their pre-existing address records -- resulted in rewriting the entire admin interface to work without MediaWiki, which in turn resulted in creating an application framework to manage everything. The app framework is working adequately, and now I'm just tidying up the checkout process and doing other cleanup prior to moving the whole thing from Rizzo to a commercial web server.
 
  
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==Documents==
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Once that is up and running, I'll begin work on additional functionality:
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* "marketplace" ability -- 3rd parties can sell their items through the same site, and VbzCart will provide most of the same functionality to them
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* distributed catalog search and other {{l/ig|federated retail}} functionality
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==Pages==
 
{|
 
{|
 
|-
 
|-
 
|
 
|
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* [[/features]]
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* [[/ui]]: help pages
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* [[/coding]]
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* [[/pieces]]: features and concepts
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* '''Data design''':
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* [[/coding]]: technical documentation
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** [[/tables]]: all tables used by VbzCart
 
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** [[/procs]]: stored procedures
 
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** [[/queries]]
 
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* '''Data concepts''':
 
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** [[/cart]]
 
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** [[/order]]
 
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** [[/session]]
 
 
|
 
|
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* '''Subsystems''':
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* [[/history]]: how we got here
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** [[/catalog/building]]: how the catalog is built from stock and supplier catalogs
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* [[/archive]]: obsolete pages
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** [[/checkout]]: notes on the checkout subsystem
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* [[/meta]]: how to document
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** [[/packages]]: how package records work
 
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** [[/security/customer]]: keeping customer data secure
 
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* '''Other''':
 
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** [[/archive]]: obsolete documentation
 
 
|}
 
|}

Latest revision as of 22:43, 17 August 2019

About

VbzCart is free/open-source software for running an online retail operation.

  • /install has deployment instructions
  • /status critical pieces still need to be (re)written, though most of it is working well (2017-06-25)

Purpose

The immediate purpose is to handle the more data-intensive aspects of managing a small online retail operation that offers a wide variety of products in a wide variety of choices. This includes tracking orders, tracking packages sent to fill those orders, stock and inventory, which items need to be reordered from suppliers, what is currently expected from suppliers, what suppliers have sent in the past, etc.

Once that is up and running, I'll begin work on additional functionality:

  • "marketplace" ability -- 3rd parties can sell their items through the same site, and VbzCart will provide most of the same functionality to them
  • distributed catalog search and other federated retail functionality

Pages

Retrieved from "https://htyp.org/mw/index.php?title=VbzCart&oldid=25090"