I've built a simple flash application that takes a user's photo/image, offers various effects and filters to play with. In the end, the application can write-out the resulting image to a PDF print file (to be purchased and sent to a printer).
Currently I'm using PHP to template the web pages, with the Flash app embedded in the body of one of the pages.
I now need to integrate a shopping cart and check-out system, the idea being that the user can play with images, add various images to a shopping cart, at some point choose print sizes for each image, check-out and purchase etc. My app would attached the necessary print files, and email/submit the order to the printer.
In researching the various cart systems out there like Zen-cart, Magento, osCommerce, etc.. these all seem to be full featured CMS systems, full websites, that you deploy, customize and skin, add products to etc... a "canned store". But in my case, I'm adding/creating the product at run-time. It's not a traditional store where you browse and select items.
At first glance its not clear to me how I would use one of these systems, how to integrate with my Flash app.... it seems I only want to make use of the shopping cart, customer database portion, payment transaction features.
Is it possible to use one of these, using only the checkout and order management through a API? called from my Flash app? or processed via back-end PHP? Any suggestions, pointers?
I'm looking for some guidance, someone to point me in the right direction. I'm a noob to eCommerce.
Thank you!
I would just use PayPal Website Payments Standard, and have "Buy Now" buttons, or an "Add to Cart" button, which just adds the cost of each image to an array as your customers create the images. Then just set the appropriate PayPal Standard HTML variables and submit a form to PayPal. Then your customer would pay for the things on PayPal.
I'm building an eCommerce system with Flex and Rails right now (using Spree), and I can tell you it's a pretty decent undertaking. If you don't need to calculate shipping costs or taxes based on where the person lives, and you don't need to be able to have thousands of products, I'd just skip the whole eCommerce thing and use PayPal (it's free). That's what PeepCode does for example (they're a site I use to buy tutorial videos for Rails and such), you just say "add to cart", and it takes me to PayPal and I do my thing. Way easier, way less overhead. It sounds like you could do that.
If you really want to use a full featured eCommerce system, you can definitely connect to them through HTTP requests to get/post data, but that will be a long-term undertaking.
Hope that helps,
Lance
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I am looking for easy-to-build website development platforms that allows me to also manage and deliver dynamic web content based on prior user events such as clicks, hovers, scrolls. For example, if one engaged more with cat-themed content and assets than dog-themed, I want to dynamically load similarly themed content and assets going forward.
Did not find anything on Wix, SquareSpace, Wordpress, Hubspot CMS. Perhaps I am also searching using the wrong terminologies.
Looking for webdev services. And/or terminologies that I should be researching (if commercial recommendations are off-topic).
A group of business owners have asked me to create a responsive website just for them (public-facing page is login page). They want to be able to login and each have their own individual area which will show their business location and information about their business. They have recently tested doing a survey about their business environment, and they liked it and want each survey result presented in their private area too. Note, each owner will not see the private information of other owners. However, they also want a shared area with resources relevant for their industry (e.g. latest regulations, relevant industry PPTs) which they all can see (again, not public facing).
My question is, what is the best framework for making this website, which will also look ok on mobile? Previously I've made public facing websites with Elementor and WordPress - which meet the 'responsive website' requirements and for which I can envisage setting up the shared resource area - but what to use for login and creating individual areas?
Ideally after a business owner logs in they will have a personalized dashboard with their business information, and links to their page with survey results, location map etc. However, everyone will have the same index, e.g. Homepage (individualized dashboard), Survey Results (which will only show their results), Resources (everyone will see the same thing), Newsletter (they all see the same one).
I have used a free online form maker and made a digital version of the survey for them already, which automatically loads the data to a Google Sheet and then I split results in chart form to individual sheets with per person viewing permission. I have each owner's business location data ready in Google Maps. All these items I can easily embed into a page - once I have a framework setup for these private areas.
There are only about 18 business owners so it isn't a lot. I looked at using the WordPress inbuilt page password function to do this but it isn't working on most browsers for me, and I found many others encountered this same issue. I've looked at "WordPress client portal" plugin (uses password protected categories), WordPress Client Portal Plugin from SuiteDash (has the functionality but it is very very slow), ClientPortal (I can't find any option to try this plugin), and WP Customer Area (this seems great, but I found it too difficult to use even though it is free. I realize maybe my understanding isn't good enough - but I can't find good guides in English for it).
I also found some other "membership" type plugins, but they were relevant for providing customers with paid content at a tier level. I.e., you login and if you pay for "S" tier then you get access to that content. There is no paid content for the website that these owners want.
Appreciate any advice anyone may have on a suitable framework. I don't mind paying for something that fits these needs! Thanks for your help.
I run a blog and distribute my posts in a Telegram channel. One day, I got surprised that links started showing as "Instant View" versions, since I never managed to support this technology (and, tbh, I don't like it either). Later, I discovered that readers that I don't know submitted IV templates to Telegram, and eventually one of them was approved.
I searched for any way to stop Telegram converting my posts into IV version, without success. Is there any (a meta tag, a form, whatever) to ask Telegram to disable IV in links from my domain?
Thanks!
Instant views are implemented via a set of hardcoded XPath rules, so you can change the markup of your website (like, class/id names) or paths (/blog/a1.html → /kek/a1). It can break the rules, and IV won't be shown.
One more trick is to integrate an iframe into the body of articles (or to the end). The reason is that iframes are not supported by the IV engine (the exclusion is embedded youtube). You can set 1×1 size, to make it invisible to users.
Another trick is to integrate an image with src tag leading to some nonexistent path. Telegram server won't be able to fetch the resource, and IV generation will be failed.
No. You can't disable instant view for your blog or site. That's just how Telegram instant view works. It will cache hundreds of sites and crop the content of the articles. You can read more about it here:
https://instantview.telegram.org/
Currently, there's a contest for instant view templates. The goal is to get as many sites working with instant view as possible.
I am working with a customer to setup a paypal button to allow them to charge a customer an initial setup fee and then a monthly subscription. I am rather new to this, so I am looking for the best way to do this as I didn't see anything that seemed to stick out in the documentation on developer.paypal.com for this scenario. Do I use the restful api or classic api? The site is built in .Net, so if you also have any information to this as well, that would be appreciated. Now I am not looking for code, but just a nudge in the right direction so I can find out all the information I need to do this right. Thanks.
Wade
You can use a Payments Standard Subscription button for this. They're pretty simple to create and add to the site. They can be created through a PayPal account or from your own custom HTML form.
The PayPal button code is just a an HTML form so you shouldn't have a problem adding it to your customer's site. Here are some details on Subscription buttons:
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/paypal-payments-standard/integration-guide/subscribe_buttons/
I wouldn't recommend using an API but if you want to learn more about them you can look around on Developer.PayPal.com
I'm in the process of developing a website for a not-for-profit organization, and I thought that Wordpress would be a great tool to use as the base CMS for the site. Building the site into Wordpress has not been a problem, but I have been having a difficult time finding a plugin to use to help them organize and advertise upcoming Events. Currently, they use Google Calendar, but are trying to move to something that integrates more cleanly into their site.
Essentially, I need a Wordpress events/calendar plugin with these features:
+ Add reoccurring events with start and end time
+ Each event should have its own page (reoccurring events should be shown as a single page)
+ Display all events in a mini-calendar and a full calendar/list view
It would also be nice to have these features:
* Ability to categorize/tag events
* Ability to add a picture to go with the event
I'm indifferent on these features:
- Being able to RSVP
- Paying for events
- Import/Export calendars
There are many Events/Calendar plugins out there for Wordpress, but I can't seem to decide which one is worth me spending time to use for this website. Any suggestions?
You can create a Category called "Events" and design a layout for that cat. in particular.
then post new events to that category.
also, have you looked in to this plugins?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-events/screenshots/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/events-manager/screenshots/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/events-manager-extended/screenshots/
This may be a bit late for you, but others may find it helpful. This plug-in fits the bill for the features you were after:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/event-organiser/
(Full disclosure: I wrote this plug-in).