What are you using for your ecommerce backend?

#11

I don't know if this is a route we can go yet so I would like to learn
more do you know of a good resource to learn how to write something
like this?

#12

you could have a quick and dirty one or you could have a flexible one
your data probably looks ok
it's easy to write xml from databasic

#13

i won't discuss anymore on this thread
if you require further discussion email me

#14

this is interesting

http://uche.ogbuji.net/tech/pubs/xmledi.html

maybe you don't need xml yet anyway
i don't know how many people are doing edi using xml

you will probably be ok using just edi
what I was looking for was an xml edi format
what's the point of using edi at all?
xml is essentially the same

find out what you can use
you may find out that your service provider expects only a flat file

#15

Ben,

XML is just an HTML-like document with user defined tags instead of W3C
defined tags for a web browser. If you can visualize the data relationships,
then you can easily convert the data tree into an XML file with programmer
specified nested elements. The question yet to be asked/answered is, what
are you planning on doing with the XML? I wrote a cXML interface for Ariba
Network back in 2000. Most of it is in dataBASIC, but it took a couple C
based tools to make sure the DOM was formed properly and that the DTD
matched the document before it was parsed into MV variables. You can build
something as basic as a user-defined raw XML export tool, or something as
complex and time consuming as our cXML-v1.1 based shopping system and order
handling services. There are some XML parsing tools available on PickSource,
based on the barbaric tag parser I wrote for that integration. I see
questions like this all the time and I keep reminding myself that I need to
finish the XML module for the MVWWW project. Until then, I guess you'll have
to roll your own solution or pay someone to do it for you.

Glen
http://mvdevcentral.com
http://picksource.com

"Ben" <stoddardb (AT) byui (DOT) edu> wrote

Quote:

I don't know if this is a route we can go yet so I would like to learn
more do you know of a good resource to learn how to write something
like this?

#16

Ben,

I assume that Mark Baumann-Erb is still at Ratex ? Give hime a call (or
send an email), and tell him you would like some information on the
Visage E-Commerce solution - that should get you started

#17

Ben, there are a number of ecommerce solutions these days. Which one
you get and how you connect with it is really a matter of how it's
designed. To keep things brief I'll point you to these:

removethisAdvancedware.com/iproducts.htm
removethisKoretech.com/kore_kommerceserver.asp
You'll find some offerings in common there.

In this world you either have the skills to do something on your own
or you need to pay someone else to do it for you (in cash or barter).
If you want to connect your eCommerce software to Universe then you
might want to at least ask someone to give you an estimate.

If you aren't happy with your eCommerce online store, and want to
start completely from scratch, then you can get something like
osCommerce (oscommerce.com), which is free and very popular (or one of
many others like it) and then just spend the money on interfacing it
to Universe with one of the common MV connectivity tools like UO,
sockets, etc. Or in the case of software like this that runs on
MySQL, it's not tough to export data from Universe into MySQL so that
the site runs independently of your app server.

There are lots of ways to do this but if you don't have the inhouse
skills to make this happen then it's time to look at your budget.

I'll be happy to consult with you on these things but the clock will
need to be turned on when we get into serious details about any of
this.

Good luck
Tony Gravagno, Nebula R&D
TG@ removethisNebula-RnD
..com

"Ben" <stoddardb (AT) byui (DOT) edu> wrote:

Quote:

Does anyone know of a good ecommerce backend for Universe/Ratex? Our
current solution creates double the work since we must input our
merchandise into Ratex first, then we have to manually enter each item
into our website. It would be helpful if there was an ecommerce package
that offered importing your items instead of hand keying them. It would
be nice if we could find this solution in an ecommerce package since we
do not want to spend the time and money to write our own. Any insight
on this subject would be appreciated.

#18

Well, thank you all for your input. I am in the process of researching
the items you all mentioned.

#19

Ben wrote:

Quote:

Well, thank you all for your input. I am in the process of researching
the items you all mentioned.

Take a look at www.ezcat.com and see if that helps you at all.

#20

Quote:

Ben wrote:
Well, thank you all for your input. I am in the process of
researching the items you all mentioned.

nsales (AT) adconn (DOT) com wrote:
Take a look at www.ezcat.com and see if that helps you at all.

I'm sorry to say that I just looked at that site. Very painful.

"insert the necessary 3 lines of HTML and your [sic] up and running!"
Nice. Hope your code is better than your copy.

"Items can have up to 3 unlimited options for selecting size, color,
or whatever you wish"
Up to three? Or unlimited?

"Define special discount or promotional codes that are provide
discounts to certain customers"
Are all your base belong to us, by any chance?

I'm hoping these pages were translated from another language.
If they were written by someone whose native tongue is English,
then all I can say is "Ouch, very ouch."

--
frosty