Running AbleCommerce as a nested web application

[nogatek]

Hi all,

Assuming I can successfully configure AbleCommerce as a nested web application, how can / should I use the various AbleCommerce web pages and user controls in the root web application?

Is this sort of integration scenario possible?

Any tips would be much appreciated!

I have already seen that I might need to use the 'location' property in the web.config of the roor web application.

See the article 'Stopping ASP.NET web.config inheritance' at:

http://www.kowitz.net/archive/2007/05/16/stopping-asp.net-web.config-inheritance.aspx

Cheers, Mark

[AbleMods]

Not sure what you mean by a "nested" application.

If you're looking to run AC7 as a sub-app to an existing .Net application, then yes it is possible however you will not have access to the user controls from the root app. A sub-app is a separate .Net application and all the data classes would only be available within the sub-app (AC7). There are a few "tricks" to give the appearance of a single application, however all require some programming skill. The last alternative is simply writing some SQL code in the root app to pull the data you want from the sub-app tables. Not ideal but it works.

If you're wanting to directly reference AC7 user controls in your existing .Net app, you'll have to merge both web.configs and run the whole enchilada as a single application. User Controls are self-contained, however only within the app space for which they are running.

I currently do the reverse. I have a completely separate sub-app running beneath an AC7 site. You do have to block the web.config inheritence but it gives the URL representation I want for improved SEO.

[ALD]

Hi , do you mean you have a .net application which uses the object and classes of AC7 ?? If so, I'm doing the same but I still have problems with the web.config settings.
How do you config that file (in your sub-app) ?

Another question is, how do you do the payments? I think you configure the Gateways and then your application use them, then how do you update your tables when the payment is finished?

Regards
Aldo

[AbleMods]

As I said, there is no way to access the other applications data classes without merging the two applications into a single application using a single web.config.

I'm doing the reverse. I'm running a different .Net application beneath the AC7 application. There are no shared controls or classes - that isn't possible when the folders are configured as separate apps. I access the sub-app data from the AC7 application with direct SQL queries. I am writing small data load routines that have just enough functionality to retrieve data from the sub-app tables and display them in the AC7 app.

[nogatek]

Thanks for sharing your experiences here Joe.

Yes, merging the web.config files (and indeed both web applications) has so far been my only approach.

I seem to be getting very close, but when I try to configure various membership provider combinations (web.config) I get the following error:

Parser Error Message: AbleCommerceHttpModule does not appear to be configured.

Line 180: <providers>
Line 181: <clear />
Line 182: <add name="AbleCommerceMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="AbleCommerce" applicationName="/" type="CommerceBuilder.Users.AbleCommerceMembershipProvider"/>
...

I've checked the AbleCommerce connection string and a host of other settings. I've configured the IIS Application Protection to High too.

Any ideas on what else I could try checking?

Thanks for your help Joe.

Cheers, Mark

[AbleMods]

No idea. Without knowing more about the "other app", there's no way I could be of any help.

I have seen different apps conflict in how certain classes and variables were named. This can prevent them from ever running together in the same web.config. Some of Xigla.com's stuff has that problem with AC7.

[nogatek]

Sorry, the application is SiteFinity 3.2 (CMS system. http://www.sitefinity.com). I'll let you know if I can get it to work. I'm sure there will be others out there who have / want to do the same thing.

[AbleMods]

Hmm that's a pretty slick .Net application, lots of nice stuff. Price is sorta steep though, almost the entire cost of AC7.

Looks like it'd be pretty involved getting them fully integrated into a single app, that's gotta be a large code base to have all those features. What features are you planning on implementing?

I have successfully integrated Xigla.com News Manager for my content management. Now I'm working on getting the free blogging engine BlogEngine.Net to work directly in AC7. That'll be done in about a week. Both have support for RSS so it should help my site-to-visitor communication alot.

[SteveG]

Hi nogatek,

Did you have any luck getting this to work? We're in a similar situation with another CMS, currently I've got them running as seperate websites with a webservice ferrying information between them but it's proving to be a poor solution. Ideally we'd like to treat AbleCommerce as just a shopping cart API but if we simply reference the CommerceBuilder library and start using AC objects it gives us the same "AbleCommerceHttpModule does not appear to be configured." error message. Any help would be awesome.

[mazhar]

Thanks for sharing your experiences here Joe.

Yes, merging the web.config files (and indeed both web applications) has so far been my only approach.

I seem to be getting very close, but when I try to configure various membership provider combinations (web.config) I get the following error:

Parser Error Message: AbleCommerceHttpModule does not appear to be configured.

Line 180: <providers>
Line 181: <clear />
Line 182: <add name="AbleCommerceMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="AbleCommerce" applicationName="/" type="CommerceBuilder.Users.AbleCommerceMembershipProvider"/>
...

I've checked the AbleCommerce connection string and a host of other settings. I've configured the IIS Application Protection to High too.

Any ideas on what else I could try checking?

Thanks for your help Joe.

Cheers, Mark

Following posts may help you
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=7789&hilit=%3Cadd+ ... ces+%2F%3E

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=7679&hilit=%3Cadd+ ... ces+%2F%3E

[hbcondo]

Maybe you all figured this out already since the last post was in October but I'm in the same boat and this is how I got to use the CommerceBuilder API using the "nested website" approach:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=9545