Difference between revisions of "VbzCart"

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(→‎Status / History: clarification, I hope)
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[[category:software/incomplete]]<section begin=navbar />[[computing]]: [[software]]: [[web software|web]]: [[shopping cart software|shopping carts]]: [[VbzCart]]<section end=navbar />
 
[[category:software/incomplete]]<section begin=navbar />[[computing]]: [[software]]: [[web software|web]]: [[shopping cart software|shopping carts]]: [[VbzCart]]<section end=navbar />
  
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==Introduction==
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==Why?==
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Having evaluated [[osCommerce]] (and, later, [[ZenCart]]) and found that, although it had many features I would like to have on vbz.net, it also lacked some crucial features currently needed (many of which are provided by the existing shopping cart system, and some of which would be needed in order to effectively manage porting the data from the existing system).
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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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So I'm writing a new system, in [[PHP]] (originally started in Perl, but needed PHP for interfacing with [[MediaWiki]]) and [[MySQL]], based on the data design of the existing VBZ cart system and adding new pieces as needed.
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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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I will be taking notes on this page and gradually refining them into something resembling documentation, with the ultimate goal of producing a system which could be released under an [[FOSS|open source]] license.
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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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--[[User:Woozle|Woozle]] 21:42, 1 July 2007 (EDT)
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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 / History==
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* '''Status''' (2011-08-03): working, with lots of developer-level rough edges to work out. We're a long way from having an install script, and I need to post the code on a more appropriate venue such as [[GitHub]].
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VbzCart is very much in a pre-alpha state of development, although it is nonetheless being used in a production environment (i.e. vbz.net). The original, working version began with a simple shopping-cart system in clumsily-written [[Perl]] in approximately 1996 and added order management functions using [[MS Access 97]] in approximately 1999. It was essentially "complete" by the early 2000s -- though the codebase grew more or less continually from 1996 onward as new areas of functionality were designed and added, so there is no clear point at which it was "finished". The MS Access platform (at least as of [[MS Access 97]]) does not really lend itself to distribution of applications, however, so in another sense that version was "unfinishable".
 
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The database was [[MS Access and MySQL/migrating|migrated]] to [[MySQL]] over a couple of years, starting with the stock data and finishing sometime in 2010 with some auxiliary tables. The management functions, which were at first still using [[MS Access and MySQL/connecting|MS Access as a front end for the MySQL data]], were recoded as a [[PHP]]-based web interface from approximately 2009-2010 (still in progress as of November, 2010).
 
  
 
==Documents==
 
==Documents==

Revision as of 02:25, 4 August 2011

Navigation

computing: software: web: shopping carts: VbzCart

Why?

VbzCart started life as a nameless shopping-cart application written specifically for vbz.net, mostly coded in 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.

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).

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.

Development and migration has continued since then in fits and starts, with interruptions due largely to family obligations (especially 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 "reports" 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.

  • Status (2011-08-03): working, with lots of developer-level rough edges to work out. We're a long way from having an install script, and I need to post the code on a more appropriate venue such as GitHub.

Documents

  • Data design:
  • Code:
  • Data concepts:
  • Subsystems:
    • /catalog/building: how the catalog is built from stock and supplier catalogs
    • /checkout: notes on the checkout subsystem
    • ordering: how ordering works (carts, orders, etc.)
  • Archival notes:
    • /obsolete: large chunks of documentation which have become obsolete
    • VbzCart tables in MS Access: the data schema in the MS Access version (2006)
    • VbzCart wikified topics: using MediaWiki to manage store topics
    • VbzCart shelved ideas: concepts and code which might be useful later but aren't worth it right now
    • VbzCart uses HyperAdmin for administration of privileged users The admin code uses MediaWiki for user access control, but could be ported to other environments. The standalone store does have its own security system, which is partly documented here.
    • VbzCart SQL: for building schema; automatically generated from above pages needs to be rewritten
    • Pages still on VbzWiki will eventually be ported here, except for vbz.net-specific items.

Links

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