RE: [Collective-commerce] custom features

[Johan B. <jb...@ju...>]

Quick thoughts:

A: Things like ftp/dav integration should be doable, but make sure that this
is what your customer wants and will use. You might be better off with a csv
import script, at least for the information part (Not the photos). Reasons:

* The source info is likely to be easily available in spreadsheet format. To
ftp that, you need to convert the spreadsheet to files.

* Creating a spreadsheet with all different variations of a product or with
new variations is WAY easier than doing the same thing with files.

* By inserting the photo file name in the spreadsheet, you can probably
automate that too. With ftp you will upload, and then have to link the
product to the photo somehow.

* I think Ploneshop had ONLY csv import, so you might get some info there on
how to do this. Search for it.

A further thought: As I am not well versed in Python yet, for less than a
hundred products I would probably set up a spreadsheet and then use a
keystroke simulator/automator (http://www.hiddensoft.com/AutoIt/ in my case)
to semi-automatically upload everything. I might even be able to give you
some code snippets.

Of course, YMMV. If you regularly update ( as opposed to add new) products,
this may be the wrong approach.

B: PloneMall has support for PayPal, WorldPay and 2CheckOut. I haven't
implemented it (My one and only current PloneMall customer doesn't require
it at the moment), but from the code it looked straightforward enough to
adapt to other processors, even to pretty much anything you need. Note that
this is in keeping with the PloneMall philosophy: It's a framework. They
want you to develop the custom code necessary to integrate with a specific
processor, and then publish your results in the form of a howto, code
snippets or even a fully-fledged product.

C: I think that the thinking here is the same as in B. I find the standard
simpleitems and advanceditems to be very flexible in what they can do, but
probably not the very best choice for all uses.

On implementing the multiple pictures: Up to about three pictures max, I
would just create a new item type based on the existing types and have three
photo fields, not all of which need to be filled. More than that, you're
looking at folderish items and lots of code to make it look good. KISS is
always a good philosophy.

A three-photo content type and the corresponding item and catalog view
templates can be whipped up in 5 minutes - 4 hours by me, 5-15 minutes by an
experienced programmer.

My client's PloneMall site: http://www.mybike.co.za/retailcatalogue/

Some info on styling PloneMall that worked for me and might be adapted to
the multiple photo thing: http://www.juizi.com/resources/plonemalldynpage

HTH,

--
Johan Beyers
Juizi Web Hosting
http://www.juizi.com


-----Original Message-----
From: col...@li...
[mailto:col...@li...]On Behalf Of
Kevin Vogt
Sent: 01 February 2005 10:37 AM
To: col...@li...
Subject: [Collective-commerce] custom features


I'm working on getting a contract to build a store using PloneMall. I
*might* end up developing one or more of the following features:
A. FTP integration
B. Credit card integration
C. Multiple pictures per item

I have two questions:

1. How interested is PloneMall team in integrating custom features (like the
ones above) into PloneMall? If the features were to be integrated into
PloneMall that would provide another selling point to my client.

2. If someone has already developed one or more of the above feature for
PloneMall, could you generously share your insights? E.g. How long did it
take; any stumbling blocks to avoid; etc.

Regards,
Kevin Vogt
http://digitack.com/