hmm, i’m kind of torn. i like the idea of shopx, but the development seems to have stagnated.
as far as doc pages vs db, i’m working on something else that will use both - doc pages to hopefully ease features like searching, displaying listings, etc, and also a db to store data more efficiently than simply as tvs. admins can enter details via eform, which then constructs the content of a document in a standard way, but stores the data in a custom table for simplicity and flexibility. this isn’t for e-commerce though...
i haven’t much experience of shopx, but while i can see it would be good for smaller sites, i want something that will scale well and that is more fully featured. one of the most important features for me would be an admin gui. as has already been said, i’d also like chunks/snippets to display the different components. thinking about the gui, none of the e-commerce packages i’ve looked at so far use ajax. there’s so much scope for making a really user friendly gui (pommo does this well) unlike the hideous mess of zencart (which has so many options and features i’ve no idea what they do, and am loathed to give to a client for fear they’ll break it).
something i think is critical that was mentioned in the shopx forum is setting up taxation zones. i think a core class could achieve this nicely as was touched upon in the shopx forum - a central class with methods for calculating the price at different stages (pre-shipping, post-shipping, etc), but done in such a way (perhaps through the use of events ala eform) to allow data to be manipulated, or to define custom code for those functions.
@pixelchutes - it seems a shame not to use xPDO for the db stuff, especially if the new core is using it..?
i agree that a feature list should be drawn up to plan this properly. how about we start now with ideas? my wishlist is as follows
* ajax gui available either as a module, or able to be inserted into a page as a snippet
* being able to define different taxation zones, and multiple zones within a country that could be applied to the same product based on the value of a select box (e.g. in the uk, no vat is applied to children’s clothes, but it is to adult clothes, but no vat would be payable for international orders. for instance, this would make it possible to allow one listing for some generic footwear and have different levels of tax applied to uk customers based on the size that they select),
* ability to add
multiple payment options/gateways
* allow users to
register in different ways
* stock control (only display in-stock items, or a message if an item is out of stock, or not show it at all if out of stock)
* be able to sell digital products securely (so download restrictions could be enforced like number of downloads, expiry date for each user, etc)
* ability to define multiple shipping methods
(i think this is cube cart pretty much matched)
* a default install to get users up and running quickly optionally populated with some sample data
* support for attaching media to products, optionally using maxigallery to display images,
* auto-thumbnailing and/or image reduction for uploaded images (this could be done most easily by using an existing snippet and eform-style events i think)
* order tracking
* comprehensive statistics logging
* promo code manager for admins to set up promo codes and gift vouchers
* allow items to be put on sale easily
* configurable options for different products, either by category or individually (e.g. size, colour, etc)
* list a product in multiple categories
* use FURLs
* encrypt user’s data (might be getting carried away now...
)
* quantity discounts
* multi language/currency/time-/number-formats, etc
* affiliate manager
that’s about all i can think of for now. not all of these would be necessary at first, but i think having an ultimate wishilist would encourage coding an extensible system. anyone else have any ideas?
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