For a few weeks now I have been working with the new eCommerce solution Magento. In the past I have had brief encounters with other eCommerce solutions like Cubecart, as well as eCommerce plugins for e107. None of them really come close to been as well structured and feature rich as Magento does.
At the time of writing this Magento is at version 1.0, with a bug fix release just around the corner. Many of the features built into the core of Magento are features that aren’t built into other solutions without the use of plugins/modules.
Some of the nicest features that are built into Magento are…
Individual items within an order can be shipped to mutliple addresses.
People can create wishlists to send to there friends.
Reports (Sales, Tax, Searches, Stock, Most Viewed, Coupon Useage etc…).
Ability to allow users to configure products (Size, Colour etc…).
Import / Export Products
Export information about customers, (Collect email addresses for mailshots).
I am not creating a shop for personal use, but for a client of 383 Project. So my main focus on the system is the template system. The first time you look at the template/skinning/theming system in Magento it can be pretty daunting.
The files for the skin are separated between several folders (app/design & skin). Within the app/design folder you will find all the HTML for the templates, within the skin folder you will find the images, stylesheets and javascript files.
Once you get used to navigating through these folders it’s pretty much plain sailing. A neat feature in Magento allows you to turn on labels telling you where a particular template file is located, this can be found in the Admin Area > System > Configuration then navigate down to Developer and turn on ‘Template Path Hints’.
I will be posting more about the system in the near future as I work with it more and more. Personally, if I was creating an eCommerce site for my own use then i’d use Magento. Go try it out. If you want to know more head over to the Magento website and look around, they also have screencasts showing you the process of many parts of the system.
A few months back I brought a package from Adam Roberts that included a domain and designs for a web development site. I am now actively working on getting this site up and running. I am hoping to officially launch several sites at once.
The site essentially is based around readers and writers creating articles, tutorials and news posts for cash. If you wish to earn some extra money and create a few posts ready for when the site launches get in touch with me by using the contact page or twitter.
All posts will need to be related to Web Development, I am still working out rates to pay writers but i’m sure we can come to an agreement that suites everyone. If you have experience blogging or writing then that will be a bonus.
Getting into the book was relatively easy, but if you wish to start working on the sample application (Shovell – A Digg Clone) that you build while reading the book straight away you have a good 3-4 chapters to read first.
While I haven’t got into the bulk of the application coding I have to say I am very impressed and by the sounds of it, Ruby on Rails will look great on anyones CV and portfolio.
I would have gotten further into the book by now if I hadn’t gotten stuck on getting MySQL all set up and running on Leopard, I kept getting errors and after about 6 attempts it worked. Now I can start building the Shovell application, then once i’m happy with that I can start building my other projects that are in the works.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about Ruby on Rails, its a great introduction to Rails. I will no doubt be posting more posts about this book in the coming weeks when a few other of my projects start coming together.
This is just a short update, as I am still finding it hard to get time to create posts. Some are in the works as I have said before, just need to finish them off.
Now, today I have added inBlogs to twitter. So most posts will be posted to twitter getting your blog more exposure and hits. While this feature is rather simple it still needs to be tweaked so all posts are posted. Right now because of timezones some posts are missed by the system. This will hopefully be resolved by the weekend.
This is the first post I am creating using Wordpress 2.5, I was a bit skeptical at first about the design and the overall new layout of the admin area, but its growing on me and I have to say I much prefer the layout of this editor now. So get upgrading!!
Projects on Rails
I have started to learn Ruby on Rails for an upcoming project. I am quite impressed with the idea I have came up with, it has to be the best idea I have had ever for a site that is. Just need to make this idea a reality, and with the help of Rails it shouldn’t be that long.
Working at 383
Working at 383 Project is great still, really enjoying it still. Even with the amount of HTML Newsletters I have to code, and the amount of database find and replaces I have to do manually. It also has its challenging aspects, which allow me to push all my skills to the limit, while learning on the way.
Also I am on the look out for PHP/Ruby on Rails/Javascript courses if anyone knows of any give me a shout.
Not a very short update like I said above but still, not as interesting as a review or tutorial. More of them posts coming very soon, including information about my new Rails projects.