Intergration with current website

[taofeng]

I am evaluating your product AbleCommernce. We have a website already with our own master
page. We want to integrate ableCommerce for product, category and payment gateway etc.
So my questions are:
1) Can we create our own pages using our own Master Page instead yours?
2) If we want to display a list of products, do I use UserControl to drop on our page? or user
scriptlet?
3) When I look at your pages, some pages contains nVelocity code, some pages contains Web
Parts. Do we have to use them? It's back to the first question, we prefer to use our own code and
drop your components on the page to display products, category, checkout etc. Is this possible?

I am to AbleCommerce, so please forgive me if my questions look stupid.

Thanks for your help.

tao

[mazhar]

1) Can we create our own pages using our own Master Page instead yours?

Yes you can, but you need to write many things.

2) If we want to display a list of products, do I use UserControl to drop on our page? or user
scriptlet?

Scriptlets are there for CMS functionality. They allow you to change different user controls on runtime. Each page contains three major things 1- ASPX Page it self as container 2- scriptlet to put HTML content and put ConLib control 3- ConLib control for dynamic processing.

3) When I look at your pages, some pages contains nVelocity code, some pages contains Web
Parts. Do we have to use them? It's back to the first question, we prefer to use our own code and
drop your components on the page to display products, category, checkout etc. Is this possible?

I think if you don't use any feature that makes use of them then you would be able to skip them.

Now here is my recommendation. There are two potential ways to make it work for your website
1)- As you stated above, put your own code to make use of certain features of product in your application
2)- Re skin AbleCommerce in way to match your existing application and let it handle every thing

I would suggest you to go with second one, you will able to get it done very easily. These sort of questions are already discussed in forums. Please read following thread
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=9592

[taofeng]

Thanks Mazhar for your reply.

If I try to re-skin the AbleCommerce to match our site style, then which MasterPage I have to use? There are many master pages available in the project. Can I use any one? In order to match the style of our current site, I will have to modify the header and footer section of the master page. Also I believe I have to use the asp.net theme to do the UI customization?

Before I feel comfortable to purchase the product, I'd like to create a simple test project to make sure it can customize to my need. This will contains the followings:
1) Create a test category page, and pick a master page to use. (which master page I can use?)
2) Customize the master page, remove used content, add my own content.
3) On the newly created content page, I want to put a category list. (should I use a UserControl? How do I tell the user control which store I want to list category for?
4) Will the modification to the master page will affect the backend store admin site? ( I can use the Admin UI for backend. I just want to change the frontend, not the backend)
5) Then I will create a Product list page. How do I specify which Category for the product list?

I saw some pages in the project like Category.aspx, CategoryList.aspx, Product.aspx, Product2.aspx etc.
Are those the files I should start from? Or they are used by backend Admin site and I cannot touch? Will modification to those pages will affect backend admin?

Thanks for your help again.

Tao

[mazhar]

1) Create a test category page, and pick a master page to use. (which master page I can use?)

You don't need create new category page, there are many category pages provided out of the box. First of all have a look at these features for category display.

2) Customize the master page, remove used content, add my own content.

You don't need to make change to master pages. Please first spend some time and learn how to configure and use AbleCommerce CMS functions. For example if there are different type of layouts are available via master pages. You if your page needs to have sidebars then all you need is to tell CMS to make use of respective master page for this page instead of making changes to master pages.

3) On the newly created content page, I want to put a category list. (should I use a UserControl? How do I tell the user control which store I want to list category for?

As I stated above there are category display controls available. For example for a list layout you can make use of CategoryList control available in ConLib. I am not clear about second part what do you mean by which store? Obviously it will show listing for your current installation.

4) Will the modification to the master page will affect the backend store admin site? ( I can use the Admin UI for backend. I just want to change the frontend, not the backend)

No, changes to master pages for store side won't effect admin pages. But once again I think you can accommodate any type of webdesing using AbleCommerce CMS system without any change to master pages.

5) Then I will create a Product list page. How do I specify which Category for the product list?

Once again this is available out of box.

Now I would suggest please take some time, setup product demo and try to under stand the how things are working. Also please read following topics
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9324
http://wiki.ablecommerce.com/index.php/Store_Design
http://help.ablecommerce.com/mergedProj ... notice.htm

[taofeng]

Thanks Mazhar,

Your reply is very very helpful. I think I know where I should start now. I will read through the links you supplied and other documentations.

Thanks a lot for your help!!

Tao