Another Zope E-Commerce Site Online
Just announcing this new e-commerce zope based site. http://www.adirondackcraft.com Come buy something, but don't whack it too hard, this site is still a work in progress (aren't they all?) -- This site was "thrown together" in about 5 days for a disorganized customer, came online just 30 minutes before it's first sale. They had a big ad in the New York Times which pushed the deadline. - Zope 2.2.4 with Interbase, gvibDA and Wampum Generator running behind Apache with mod_proxy and mod_ssl, on RH Linux 7. I'm thinking of writing a white paper on this entire experience, from a consulting point of view and a programmer's viewpoint. Not sure how useful that would be to anyone. There were 2 graphics/layout designers and myself working directly with the customer to go from concept to completion in an extremely short timeframe. Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
I found the shopping cart interesting. Did you start with an existing package or write it from scratch? Are you willing to share it? Bill.
On 6 Dec 2000, at 21:57, Bill Welch wrote:
I found the shopping cart interesting. Did you start with an existing package or write it from scratch? Are you willing to share it?
There are four major parts to this system. 1. product inventory and descriptions - kept in Interbase, images in Zope 2. Shopping cart - track qty of each item put in basket, this is just a dict stored in an SQLSession object 3. The checkout sequence - Interbase tables with Python code to populate them as each checkout step is completed 4. Charging the card - Wampum generator calling Cybercash. Item 1 is very specific to this site, so there's nothing really worth sharing there. Item 2 is trivial easy Item 3 A lot of this is from my "toolbox" built on SQLDict. I'm hoping someday I can give it away, but my current customers have paid for it and aren't willing to give it up. Maybe next quarter when the current contracts are complete. Item 4 Not mine, but I have some fixes to give back when I get my brain working again to do a decent job. Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
Hi, Looks good. 5 days eh?. I think one graphics artist could have done it in less than two days using Etailer (e-tailer.adroit.net)...except for the Wampum bit...I am hoping someone will add this in soon. terry Brad Clements wrote:
Just announcing this new e-commerce zope based site.
http://www.adirondackcraft.com
Come buy something, but don't whack it too hard, this site is still a work in progress (aren't they all?)
--
This site was "thrown together" in about 5 days for a disorganized customer, came online just 30 minutes before it's first sale.
They had a big ad in the New York Times which pushed the deadline.
-
Zope 2.2.4 with Interbase, gvibDA and Wampum Generator running behind Apache with mod_proxy and mod_ssl, on RH Linux 7.
I'm thinking of writing a white paper on this entire experience, from a consulting point of view and a programmer's viewpoint. Not sure how useful that would be to anyone.
There were 2 graphics/layout designers and myself working directly with the customer to go from concept to completion in an extremely short timeframe.
Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
-- Terry Kerr (terry@adroit.net) Adroit Internet Solutions (www.adroit.net) Phone: +61 3 9563 4461 Fax: +61 3 9563 3856 ICQ: 79303381
Maybe you just looked at the catalog and didn't notice what's in the checkout. Having spent the past month setting up a site with Etailer, I would have to completely disagree with you. If Brad started with Etailer (I suspect he did, the checkout sequence has an Etailer look), it would have taken a lot of hard core programming, not graphical work, to get to where he is in 5 days. 1) Etailer doesn't support separate billing and shipping addresses 2) ETailer doesn't support a shipping fee, much less shipping alternatives 3) Etailer doesn't do taxes. Adding even one of the above features means touching a lot of python, management dtml, and user dtml. 4) Etailer sorts options alphabetically. 5) Etailer uses the variable name as the label on forms, i.e. Firstname in CheckOut. Makes for ugly shipping address vs billing address forms unless you extend the required_properties code to support labels. More python, management dtml, and user dtml. Nothing wrong with Etailer, but there's a lot to Brad's site that Etailer doesn't handle. Bill. On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, Terry Kerr wrote:
Hi,
Looks good. 5 days eh?. I think one graphics artist could have done it in less than two days using Etailer (e-tailer.adroit.net)...except for the Wampum bit...I am hoping someone will add this in soon.
terry
Brad Clements wrote:
Just announcing this new e-commerce zope based site.
Bill, No I didn't look at the checkout. It just seemed that the catalog was a perfect fit. terry Bill Welch wrote:
Maybe you just looked at the catalog and didn't notice what's in the checkout. Having spent the past month setting up a site with Etailer, I would have to completely disagree with you. If Brad started with Etailer (I suspect he did, the checkout sequence has an Etailer look), it would have taken a lot of hard core programming, not graphical work, to get to where he is in 5 days.
1) Etailer doesn't support separate billing and shipping addresses
2) ETailer doesn't support a shipping fee, much less shipping alternatives
3) Etailer doesn't do taxes.
Adding even one of the above features means touching a lot of python, management dtml, and user dtml.
4) Etailer sorts options alphabetically.
5) Etailer uses the variable name as the label on forms, i.e. Firstname in CheckOut. Makes for ugly shipping address vs billing address forms unless you extend the required_properties code to support labels. More python, management dtml, and user dtml.
Nothing wrong with Etailer, but there's a lot to Brad's site that Etailer doesn't handle.
Bill.
On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, Terry Kerr wrote:
Hi,
Looks good. 5 days eh?. I think one graphics artist could have done it in less than two days using Etailer (e-tailer.adroit.net)...except for the Wampum bit...I am hoping someone will add this in soon.
terry
Brad Clements wrote:
Just announcing this new e-commerce zope based site.
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
-- Terry Kerr (terry@adroit.net) Adroit Internet Solutions (www.adroit.net) Phone: +61 3 9563 4461 Fax: +61 3 9563 3856 ICQ: 79303381
On 6 Dec 2000, at 23:54, Bill Welch wrote:
Maybe you just looked at the catalog and didn't notice what's in the checkout. Having spent the past month setting up a site with Etailer, I would have to completely disagree with you. If Brad started with Etailer (I suspect he did, the checkout sequence has an Etailer look), it would have taken a lot of hard core programming, not graphical work, to get to where he is in 5 days.
I haven't looked at Etailer. I did download zCommerce for a look, but was concerned about using ZPatterns. I've used LoginManager and it works well, but the terminology used in ZPatterns always gives me a headache. Clearly a shortcoming on my part - if I could understand what it does I'd probably use it. In the end, I already had the product database and the "shopping cart", so all I needed was the checkout sequence and cybercash charging. The checkout sequence is based on pages that the web designer gave me, and she copied the design from someone else's site. The nice thing about the checkout sequence is that you can move backwards at any time without losing the entered data. Also you can jump out to shop more, jump to the privacy, shipping and returns policy and your entered data isn't lost. We of course don't keep the CC number info if you leave page 3 by any means other than "Purchase". But everything else is kept.
1) Etailer doesn't support separate billing and shipping addresses
2) ETailer doesn't support a shipping fee, much less shipping alternatives
Oih, shipping is a total headache with this site. The current shipping charge is based on a table by total purchase price. We really need to support actual charging by carrier/service/destination. That's simple to do but I ran out of time. The big headache is that each product is likely shipped from a different "artisan", so the site owner encounters multiple shipping charges, but the customer really can only be charged once for shipping.
3) Etailer doesn't do taxes.
We have to charge tax for ship-to Zips in New York State. We use a tax table by Zip to get the tax rate. Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
Brad Clements wrote:
On 6 Dec 2000, at 23:54, Bill Welch wrote: works well, but the terminology used in ZPatterns always gives me a headache. Clearly a shortcoming on my part
...I disagree, ZPatterns only major flaw is that its totally immersed in its own jargon which very few people understand :-( That said, my impression is that if you can wade through the b/s, it's more than worth the effort... cheers, Chris
Chris Withers <chrisw@nipltd.com> said:
...I disagree, ZPatterns only major flaw is that its totally immersed in its own jargon which very few people understand :-(
That said, my impression is that if you can wade through the b/s, it's more than worth the effort...
Hmm, maybe it's the time for a translate-zPatterns-to-english effort? -- Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg@cdegroot.com> GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD 1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
From: "Cees de Groot" <cg@cdegroot.com> To: <zope@zope.org> Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 8:16 AM
Chris Withers <chrisw@nipltd.com> said:
...I disagree, ZPatterns only major flaw is that its totally immersed in its own jargon which very few people understand :-(
That said, my impression is that if you can wade through the b/s, it's more than worth the effort...
Hmm, maybe it's the time for a translate-zPatterns-to-english effort?
Yes, I totally agree. It seems that Zpatterns is the thing I need to make tru my vison of self-contained plugin-components for the site(s) I am developing. However I since I am still strugglig with the concept of aquisition, the Zpattersn terminology makes my head spin. :-) /dario still digging... - -------------------------------------------------------------------- Dario Lopez-Kästen Systems Developer Chalmers Univ. of Technology dario@ita.chalmers.se ICQ will yield no hits IT Systems & Services
Have you seen: http://www.zope.org/Members/sspickle/DumbZPatternsExample there is an upgrade in the works. ;-) I'm working out the kinks with a way to do documentation/modeling with ZPatterns. Hopefully within a week or two... -steve
"Dario" == Dario Lopez-Kästen <dario@ita.chalmers.se> writes:
>> From: "Cees de Groot" <cg@cdegroot.com> To: <zope@zope.org> >> Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 8:16 AM >> >> Chris Withers <chrisw@nipltd.com> said: >...I disagree, >> ZPatterns only major flaw is that its totally immersed in >its >> own jargon which very few people understand :-( >> > >> >That said, my impression is that if you can wade through the >> b/s, it's >more than worth the effort... >> > >> Hmm, maybe it's the time for a translate-zPatterns-to-english >> effort? Dario> Yes, I totally agree. It seems that Zpatterns is the thing Dario> I need to make tru my vison of self-contained Dario> plugin-components for the site(s) I am developing. However Dario> I since I am still strugglig with the concept of Dario> aquisition, the Zpattersn terminology makes my head Dario> spin. :-) Dario> /dario still digging... Dario> - Dario> -------------------------------------------------------------------- Dario> Dario Lopez-Kästen Systems Developer Chalmers Univ. of Dario> Technology dario@ita.chalmers.se ICQ will yield no hits IT Dario> Systems & Services Dario> _______________________________________________ Zope Dario> maillist - Zope@zope.org Dario> http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross Dario> posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - Dario> http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce Dario> http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
Cees de Groot wrote:
Chris Withers <chrisw@nipltd.com> said:
...I disagree, ZPatterns only major flaw is that its totally immersed in its own jargon which very few people understand :-(
That said, my impression is that if you can wade through the b/s, it's more than worth the effort...
Hmm, maybe it's the time for a translate-zPatterns-to-english effort?
--
In fact, IMHO the problem is not so much a translation (of concepts) to English, because there are a few of those. See pje's own DropZone Example http://www.zope.org//Members/pje/Wikis/ZPatterns/DropZoneExample and Shane's more basic explanation of what is what http://www.zope.org//Members/pje/Wikis/ZPatterns/RacksAndSpecialistsSimplifi... The basic problem as I experience it is not so much the jargon, because you get used to it. I'll add some more specific questions where my understanding gets muddled to illustrate this Where _I_ get stuck is: 1) How do Racks (and their associates) relate to normal propertysheets and how to attributes. What is the relation to objects? 2) What do I add to a Rack and what to a Specialist to get a) a property b) a propertysheet c) an object 3) How do I switch from one implementation to another (for example from persistent storage to non-persistent storage) and what parts do I have to update 4) if I add a SkinScript, what does it really do? How does it relate to my Rack, and how to the Specialist? How can I use it and where do I use it - in the Rack or in the Specialist, or do they both have their own domain? 5) How do I talk to a Specialists? What will it say back? For example, if I have a 'virtual object' (let's say a person that gets its properties from ad RDB and is accessed by its name), should I be able to access it by direct URL traversal <blabla>/WhateverSpecialist/Name or do I add a querystring <blabla>/WhateverSpecialist?name=Name There should just be some annotated step by step guides. I'd like to add some, but i first have to find out how ;-( my 2 cents Rik
rik.hoekstra@inghist.nl said:
The basic problem as I experience it is not so much the jargon, because you get used to it.
That's what they told me about Perl, too. And because I couldn't get used to that mess, I switched to Python (maybe zPatterns was written for the wrong language? ;-}) -- Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg@cdegroot.com> GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD 1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
Brad Clements <bkc@murkworks.com> said:
I haven't looked at Etailer. I did download zCommerce for a look, but was concerned about using ZPatterns. I've used LoginManager and it works well, but the terminology used in ZPatterns always gives me a headache. Clearly a shortcoming on my part - if I could understand what it does I'd probably use it.
Nope, it's a shortcoming on the authors' part. At least that's my current opinion, because everytime I've come across a technology I had trouble understanding, it turned out to be a worthless technology or a good one where the authors had trouble explaining their stuff. For the time being, I've placed zPatterns in the latter category ;), and I dearly wish they'd taken more conventional terms.
The nice thing about the checkout sequence is that you can move backwards at any time without losing the entered data. Also you can jump out to shop more, jump to the privacy, shipping and returns policy and your entered data isn't lost.
As my ebusiness site has trouble with exactly that point, would you care to elaborate on how you accomplished that? It'd be nice to peek at someone else's solution before running off and reinventing wheels :-) -- Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg@cdegroot.com> GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD 1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
On 8 Dec 2000, at 8:14, Cees de Groot wrote:
The nice thing about the checkout sequence is that you can move backwards at any time without losing the entered data. Also you can jump out to shop more, jump to the privacy, shipping and returns policy and your entered data isn't lost.
As my ebusiness site has trouble with exactly that point, would you care to elaborate on how you accomplished that? It'd be nice to peek at someone else's solution before running off and reinventing wheels :-)
When users proceed from Shopping Cart to Checkout, we create an SQL record for the order. This record holds their billing and shipping information, charge card result code (not the credit card number of course). If you examine the checkout sequence, you'll see that the only way you can leave it (other than by the nav bar, which will soon be fixed too) is by clicking on an image. All of these images are part of the form. Clicking on any image causes the contents of the form to populate the database record. If you clicked on 'next', we also validate your inputs. If your input passes validation, we increment a "nextPageAllowed" SQLSession integer. This controls which page you can move to.. So naturally you can move backwards to any page you've completed, we retrieve the data from the SQL record to populate the form. When you hit page 3, we populate a LINEITEMS table by dumping the contents of your shopping cart (which is an SQLSession dict). During the population of LINEITEMS, we calculate sales tax, shipping costs, etc and record all the costs in the ORDER record. We then display on step 3 the LINEITEMS records and the costs from the ORDER record, since this is what the actual cc charge will be based on. Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
bkc@murkworks.com said:
[ an awful lot on the workings of his ecommerce site ]
Thanks, Brad. A lot of very useful information, and it'll surely help me in building version 2 of our stuff (v1 was a quick 1.5wk hack because of deadlines, I can now take things "easy", like in 1.75wks :-)). -- Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg@cdegroot.com> GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD 1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
Nice site A small suggestion for the shopping basket. It is really great the way you describe the 4 steps involved in making a purchase. But it would be really nice if you added som information allready in step one in regard to payment methods. I would get rather crossed if I got to step 4 and found out that my prefered method of payment wasn't included. I would also be more inclined to buy if I could see upfront that I could use my Visa. Furthermore Icons with credit cards, verisign etc. on the payment page make customers trust the site several times more than sites without it. (It's been tested) Regards Max M Max M. W. Rasmussen, Denmark. New Media Director private: maxmcorp@worldonline.dk work: maxm@normik.dk ----------------------------------------------------- Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein -----Original Message----- From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Brad Clements Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 7:17 PM To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] Another Zope E-Commerce Site Online Just announcing this new e-commerce zope based site. http://www.adirondackcraft.com Come buy something, but don't whack it too hard, this site is still a work in progress (aren't they all?) -- This site was "thrown together" in about 5 days for a disorganized customer, came online just 30 minutes before it's first sale. They had a big ad in the New York Times which pushed the deadline. - Zope 2.2.4 with Interbase, gvibDA and Wampum Generator running behind Apache with mod_proxy and mod_ssl, on RH Linux 7. I'm thinking of writing a white paper on this entire experience, from a consulting point of view and a programmer's viewpoint. Not sure how useful that would be to anyone. There were 2 graphics/layout designers and myself working directly with the customer to go from concept to completion in an extremely short timeframe. Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
hi, How long did it take? And what level of Zope(xpertese) where you at whe you started? Did you have to do that shopping cart from scratch? j. ...................... ..... Jason C. Leach ... University College of the Cariboo. .. On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Brad Clements wrote:
Just announcing this new e-commerce zope based site.
http://www.adirondackcraft.com
Come buy something, but don't whack it too hard, this site is still a work in progress (aren't they all?)
--
This site was "thrown together" in about 5 days for a disorganized customer, came online just 30 minutes before it's first sale.
They had a big ad in the New York Times which pushed the deadline.
-
Zope 2.2.4 with Interbase, gvibDA and Wampum Generator running behind Apache with mod_proxy and mod_ssl, on RH Linux 7.
I'm thinking of writing a white paper on this entire experience, from a consulting point of view and a programmer's viewpoint. Not sure how useful that would be to anyone.
There were 2 graphics/layout designers and myself working directly with the customer to go from concept to completion in an extremely short timeframe.
Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
On 6 Dec 2000, at 22:48, Jason C. Leach wrote:
hi,
How long did it take? And what level of Zope(xpertese) where you at whe you started? Did you have to do that shopping cart from scratch?
This site was "thrown together" in about 5 days for a disorganized customer, came online just 30 minutes before it's first sale.
Zope expertise? Based on the crass errors I've made putting this site together I'd say I'm a new-bee. See my other post about what makes "the cart". Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
hi, You shoud add it to the Zope site's list of Zope sites. j. ...................... ..... Jason C. Leach ... University College of the Cariboo. ..
Brad Clements wrote:
Just announcing this new e-commerce zope based site.
Hmm. I get: Zope has encountered an error while publishing this resource. Error Type: TransactionError Error Value: A serious error, which was probably a system error, occurred in a previous database transaction. This application may be in an invalid state and must be restarted before database updates can be allowed. Beware though that if the error was due to a serious system problem, such as a disk full condition, then the application may not come up until you deal with the system problem. See your application log for information on the error that lead to this problem. -- http://www.mk.w.pl / Marcin.Kasperski | Sztuczki i kruczki w C++: @softax.com.pl | http://www.mk.w.pl/porady/porady_cplusplus @bigfoot.com \
participants (11)
-
Bill Welch -
Brad Clements -
cg＠cdegroot.com -
Chris Withers -
Dario Lopez-K�sten -
Jason C. Leach -
Marcin Kasperski -
Max M -
Rik Hoekstra -
Steve Spicklemire -
Terry Kerr