Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Custom fields in ecommerce

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Posted by Richard Hamilton on
Thanks Bart, I'll get templating!

Oh, there's another little gem for us with the ecommerce system - how to integrate the templating system with ACS Templating!

Regards Richard

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Posted by Bart Teeuwisse on
Richard,

integration of the eCommerce Templating System (ETS) with the ACS Templating System (ATS) would require a rewrite of (part of) the ecommerce package. I agree with you that it is desirable to replace the ETS with the ATS. Yet, there are many other things in the eCommerce package that could/should be refactured. The product categories for one, or the user classes, or the eCommerce mailing list.

My preference would be to phase the current eCommerce package out in favor of several smaller modular packages held together by service contracts. A core of eCatalog, eCart, eCharge and eShip would replace 80% of today's eCommerce package. I think that replacing the eCommerce package would procude a better more flexible solution.

In addition, other packages could use some of the packages too. Like the events packages, which currently requires the entire eCommerce packages, just to accept payments for events that come at a cost. The events package doesn't need or uses the on-line catalog or allows customer reviews. A combination of eCart and eCharge would suffice.

Anyhow, the ETS uses the standard ADP for it's templates. A template gets parsed and is inserted into the ATS template as a chunk of HTML.

/Bart

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Posted by Richard Hamilton on
Seperate modules definitely sounds very sensible. It would be more flexible, more concise from an operational point of view and more reusable.

This would of course mean a substantial re-write with much of the code having to be re-engineered to 'modularise' it, support the interactions between the modules, eliminate deprecated functions (of which there are many), support the new acs templating model and accommodate new SQL for the new data model.

A very big project but I am sure worthwhile.

Regards
Richard