VbzCart

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computing: software: web: shopping carts: VbzCart

Introduction

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).

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.

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 open source license.

--Woozle 21:42, 1 July 2007 (EDT)

Status / History

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 some clumsily-written Perl in approximately 1996 and added order management functions using MS Access 97 in approximately 1999. The data was moved over to MySQL over a couple of years, starting with the stock data and finishing sometime in 2010. The management functions were recoded in a PHP-based web interface from approximately 2009-2010 (still in progress as of November, 2010).

Documents

• Data design:
  • /tables: all tables used by VbzCart
  • /procs: stored procedures
  • /queries
• Code:
  • /code
• Data concepts:
  • Carts
  • Orders
  • Sessions
• 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
    • /obsolete/stored procedures: ended up not using these because they can't report back in detail
  • 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

• International Address Formats: reference for how addresses should be formatted for different countries