ColdFusion Shopping Cart Plug-in, Project Help needed!

This post is in response to alot of emails I am getting regarding FusionSell. I cannot believe just how much need there is for an ecommerce plug-in for Mura. However, I cannot do this alone!

A total of 4 hours and no planning does not always lend it's self to a long stainable project. However, sometimes, something very small can be the start of something beautiful.

FusionSell is by no means beautiful, but after being inspired by episode 81 of CFHour I can see FusionSell becoming much more with the help of others.

In .NET I have lots of options, in ColdFusion not so many. But nothing in CF seems to combine a good CMS with a ecommerce store. Mura CMS has given us the perfect platform to create this package. It's easy, open and most importantly extendable.

FusionSell is my attempt at a plug-in I am hoping can be turned into something more, but I need your help!

My mission is to create an open source shopping cart plug-in for Mura CMS that's easy to use, follows best practice and most importantly free. Free to anyone, for any propose.

As so many people have emailed me regarding this plug-in lets start making it into something to be proud of. I think I have started it in the right direction, but these are the areas I need help with....

Admin Area

I built the admin in under one hour, I have no intention of keeping the admin the same. I would like the admin to look and feel like it's part of Mura. This includes getting rid of the CFGRID functions. I like the idea of a FW/1 backend.

Payment Gateways

First, my vision is create a extendable way to so this. I don't want to hard code PayPal or WorldPay etc into the system. I want a system in place that allows anyone to follow a few guides and drop a gateway like these into FusionSell. This methodology allows for more contribution in the future. Unfortunately we need this framework in place. I have no idea how this would work. At a guess I would say that at the point of checkout a setting is called to check which gateways are installed, it then goes off and when complete comes back and FusionSell records the order as normal. At the moment I am looking for idea on how to do this, I am also open to any other suggestion on the best way to implement this within FusionSell

Railo and mysql

FusionSell was built using Adobe ColdFusion and MS SQL. There is no reason why Railo and mysql should not be supported, apart from the use of cfgrid in the admin for Railo, which I want to remove. I need bug fixers and testers for both Railo and mysql. I already know I need the 'create' statements for mysql in my plug-in config.

Delivery

There is no delivery is FusionSell at the moment. I could do with some ideas on this but feel the admin needs working on first.

How you could help

Could anyone interested in this project first submit idea's and fixes. If you really want to help and I feel you have contributed well, then I will add you to the project.

Let's get this project to version 1.0 as a community. Drop me an email with ideas, anything even if you think it's crap so far!

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Dec11

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  1. Mark Fuqua's Gravatar # Posted By Mark Fuqua
    11/12/10 16:46

    This might not be quite what you were looking for when you wrote this blog article, but it might be the right answer:

    http://www.grantshepert.com/post.cfm/totally-geeke...

    Mark

  1. Glyn Jackson's Gravatar # Posted By Glyn Jackson
    11/12/10 17:13

    That is really cool, I know about Meld ecommerce but not mini Meld, good to see this.

    FusionSell does that same thing in terms of pages, but FusionSell its not as refinded, being that it was wrote in one weekend.

    I do however want to go in a very different direction with FusionSell. I would like FusionSell to be a FULL ecommerce system that's free for all with no commercial license restrictions. I would like to build on FusionSell to make this happen and thats what I am askign for here.

    FusionSell is a nice little cart plugin so far but has a long way to go I feel

  1. Steve Bryant's Gravatar # Posted By Steve Bryant
    11/12/10 19:31

    For payment gateway support, the best thing I have found in CF is cfpayment. It supports several payment gateays and it is pretty easy to add more. I wanted something like it for a long time, so I was really happy when it came along (FOSS, as well).
    http://cfpayment.riaforge.org/

    I used it recently on a soon-to-be-released shopping cart and it was everything I hoped it would be.

    For database support, you might check into my own (FOSS) project, DataMgr. It allows support (including easy table/column creation) for several databases and you can add support for more as well.
    http://datamgr.riaforge.org/

  1. Glyn Jackson's Gravatar # Posted By Glyn Jackson
    11/12/10 19:53

    Hi Steve,

    Very useful information, thanks. I don't know anything about cfpayment, but it seems from the little I have just read, perfect! I def look into it.

    For the admin area DataMgr also looks ideal.

    Thanks for the advice Steve.

  1. Lola LB's Gravatar # Posted By Lola LB
    12/12/10 12:06

    Do you intend for FusionSell to be entirely dependent on Mura CMS? I'm working on a site where we plan to offer products for sale. This would be a really good ecommerce solution for us. But I don't plan to use Mura CMS.

  1. Glyn Jackson's Gravatar # Posted By Glyn Jackson
    12/12/10 15:09

    Sorry Lola, but it's a plugin for Mura CMS. FusionSell has been dveloped out of a need for a good CMS and ecommerce in CF.

  1. Grant Shepert's Gravatar # Posted By Grant Shepert
    13/12/10 20:32

    Hey Glyn, just wanted you to know about Meld MiniCommerce ... Matt from BRI thinks we aren't paying attention to one another ;)

    It's very similar to your plugin but includes things like product attributes and is Ecommerce enabled (currently PayPal only, but it's modular so adding a new Merchant is pretty straight forward).

    MiniCommerce is also open source licensed (GPL) so it is 100% free to use. It too will eventually be a full Ecommerce system, first with the addition of the MiniStore plugin, then Meld Ecommerce will build upon all the concepts/foundations to be a full, 'enterprise' shopping cart solution. These will be open source as well.

    If you ever want to touch base and chat drop me a line. I'll also be at SOTR this year too.

  1. Glyn Jackson's Gravatar # Posted By Glyn Jackson
    13/12/10 21:33

    Hi Grant,

    I will be at SOTR, will be good to meet up. are you showing off Meld there?

    I have seen Meld postings, the Mini version I had not until someone emailed me about it, looks really cool.

  1. mike's Gravatar # Posted By mike
    21/12/10 09:42

    Thanks for sharing this .. It's very similar to your plugin but includes things like product attributes and is Ecommerce enabled (currently PayPal only, but it's modular so adding a new Merchant is pretty straight forward).

    Thanks

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