Hi all:
There has been some technical discussion about the improvement of Mo's Cart for webERP and Joomla!
We decided yo start a subforum to get all information available so we get more ideas and perspectives.
In this first post I try to copy some of the important points we have discussed so far.
Sorry if I missed some important details on this abstract of the conversation. Add to it as you wish ;-)
--- Tim said ---
I would prefer to go down the route of a separate project forking Mo's joomla cart. It would be easy enough to use github (I have been using it a lot recently and really like it).
Trying to write and maintain a shopping cart application is very hard, especially from the security side. Using plugin connectors is the best way IMHO
Our idea is to resurrect a previously working Joomla shopping cart plugin that connected Joomla with webERP. This is much simpler than trying to write and maintain an entire shopping cart, as there are so many security implications involved in that.
--- Phil said ---
I don't wish to dilute the efforts to get Mo's Joomla web Cart going. This seemed a nice solution and I know Ricard has been using it happily for a while - although not sure what gremlins have come to the surface more recently which have created the need for additional work - I don't expect it will be insurmountable though. I think this represents the best solution currently available for webERP integrated shopping cart.
My project is more of a long term one... and more of a vision that a viable option at this stage. I am building oscommerce right into webERP - to create a completely integrated system with no reliance on Joomla or other CMS. I have made a good start and will continue to tinker on it as time permits. I cannot commit to a time frame though. I want the web-cart to be webERP style code (but will be oscommerce style sheet compatible) and this is a substantial project.
Your support is most appreciated but I would advise you to go with cartWebERP if your interest is in a short term shopping cart integrated with webERP solution!
I have adopted osCommerce because it is written in code that I can convert to webERP much more easily than Zen-Cart. The differences between Zen-Cart and osCommerce do not seem that profound on the surface - although under the hood they are very major indeed. The database structure is very similar.
--- Patrick said ---
At this point I tried install the CARTwebERP in Joomla! 1.7.
And it did not worked out quite good. I think it is bad.
The most I do worry about is the time to maintain(!) security (cart, payments (with Google, PatPal...) and webERP link).
And then there are also the 'not quite finished' status of CARTwebERP.
I think if the last few 'minor' items would have been easy, Mo would have done it already.
No I am wondering that it probably is better to connect webERP to a good Joomla! CART extension, or via OpenCart to Joomla! (for the last option there are already a few providers).
The thing I would like to do is to make a connector, not to maintain a cart and payment solution.
--- Ricard said ---
I was happy with Mo's cart when I used Joomla 1.5 and a very basic website. Once upgraded to Joomla 2.5 and tried to take all the juice from a cart (so, customer's orders) I realized it was not fit for the job.
Mo's cart works OK as a simple catalog, but some bugs made me suspicious about the payment setup, and I did not take the risk to test it alone.
Update and finish Mo's cart should not be a huge project. Just debugging and polishing here and there. After it is done, maintaining it should be quite easy if it is done as community. We all know webERP, so the marginal effort to make the cart a workable one, will be reasonable.
By the way, I forgot to mention taht he latest code for the Cart has been available by Tim at
https://github.com/timschofield/JoomlaCart
I pointed out some known issues at
https://github.com/timschofield/JoomlaCart/issues