New to OFBiz. How to modify the eCommerce app?

[Robert Wynkoop]

Hello all,

I'm about to ramble a bit.

I have just started looking at OFBiz.  I'm a Java developer with Struts 1 /
2 and Spring MVC experience.

I'm interested in developing some personal eCom sites based on OFBiz.

I understand OFBiz has backend admin functions.
I understand OFBiz has a eCom front end.

I want to modify showcart, so I know this so far:
controller.xml = Used by framework to map requests.
CartScreens.xml = Defines cart related screens.
ShowCart.groovy = Working on how this is used.  (Do not have groovy debug
working yet in my IDE. )
ShowCart.ftl = Used to render cart list.

My question is:

- How is everyone handling making modifications to existing ecommerce app
screens?  For example I want to modify the ShowCart screen. What is the
recommended method for doing this and still be able to update from SVN
without crazy merge issues.  Do I modify the existing ShowCart.ftl or do I
copy it and replace it.

It would nice to be able to package my app changes separate from the public
project.

Robert Wynkoop

[Nick Rosser-2]

Robert,

You may be interested in BigFish -- it's an "add-on" to OFBiz
specifically for eCommerce. Check out http://bigfish.solveda.com

Nick


On 5/22/2013 2:39 PM, Robert Wynkoop wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm about to ramble a bit.
>
> I have just started looking at OFBiz.  I'm a Java developer with Struts 1 /
> 2 and Spring MVC experience.
>
> I'm interested in developing some personal eCom sites based on OFBiz.
>
> I understand OFBiz has backend admin functions.
> I understand OFBiz has a eCom front end.
>
> I want to modify showcart, so I know this so far:
> controller.xml = Used by framework to map requests.
> CartScreens.xml = Defines cart related screens.
> ShowCart.groovy = Working on how this is used.  (Do not have groovy debug
> working yet in my IDE. )
> ShowCart.ftl = Used to render cart list.
>
> My question is:
>
> - How is everyone handling making modifications to existing ecommerce app
> screens?  For example I want to modify the ShowCart screen. What is the
> recommended method for doing this and still be able to update from SVN
> without crazy merge issues.  Do I modify the existing ShowCart.ftl or do I
> copy it and replace it.
>
> It would nice to be able to package my app changes separate from the public
> project.
>
> Robert Wynkoop
>

[Paul Piper]

Hi Robert,

that really depends on what you are set out to do. In general, I recommend to copy the eCommerce app over to hot-deploy and get the module to run from there. Then check it into your local repository to keep it consistent. With SVN you can use svn:external for instance to include your own module while keeping the rest of ofbiz consistent with the svn trunk. Then you can do your own changes and commit to your local repository at any time.

Does that help or were you looking for something else?

Regards,
Paul

P.S.: I don't think that Nick understood your question - BigFish certainly isn't the answer

[Ruth Hoffman-2]

Hi Robert:

Having worked on many OFBiz based ecommerce applications (both large and
small), I agree with Paul. Copy over and use the OOTB webapp as a guide
to move forward with your own customizations.

Best of luck.
Ruth Hoffman

On 5/22/13 4:08 PM, Paul Piper wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
> that really depends on what you are set out to do. In general, I recommend
> to copy the eCommerce app over to hot-deploy and get the module to run from
> there. Then check it into your local repository to keep it consistent. With
> SVN you can use svn:external for instance to include your own module while
> keeping the rest of ofbiz consistent with the svn trunk. Then you can do
> your own changes and commit to your local repository at any time.
>
> Does that help or were you looking for something else?
>
> Regards,
> Paul
>
> P.S.: I don't think that Nick understood your question - BigFish certainly
> isn't the answer
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/New-to-OFBiz-How-to-modify-the-eCommerce-app-tp4641469p4641473.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

[Paul Foxworthy]

Hi Robert,

I agree with the others that your UI is your UI and it's fine to copy it and make the changes you need for your own situation.

It's harder with OFBiz services. You might make a change that with a bit of refinement may one day become a submission. But for now you decide to keep to yourself, perhaps to test it. You might have customizations that you know would not be relevant to the OFBiz community in general. You might base your work on a release of OFBiz, and cherry-pick fixes that are going into trunk. One day you might move to a later release, and the cherry-picked changes won't be needed any more.

In short, you might branch with some prospect of merging at some stage in the future.

In these situations, you want a clear separation between core OFBiz and your own changes, so you can move to a different core in future and integrate your changes. I suspect you understand all of that perfectly well, thus your caution about changing OFBiz code.

We use Mercurial patch queues (MQ) to handle this. We start with core OFBiz, and we make our own changes in hot-deploy when we need and want to. Anything that is our own mod of core OFBiz is done as a patch in a patch queue. We have several "guards" so we can apply different sequences of patches. We have guards for submitted patches, for pending submissions, and others for customizations that are for a specific customer.

MQ is working well for us and if you want to manage these issues I suggest you give it a try. See http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/MqExtension for more.

Cheers

Paul Foxworthy

Ruth Hoffman-2 wrote

Hi Robert:

Having worked on many OFBiz based ecommerce applications (both large and
small), I agree with Paul. Copy over and use the OOTB webapp as a guide
to move forward with your own customizations.

Best of luck.
Ruth Hoffman

On 5/22/13 4:08 PM, Paul Piper wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>
> that really depends on what you are set out to do. In general, I recommend
> to copy the eCommerce app over to hot-deploy and get the module to run from
> there. Then check it into your local repository to keep it consistent. With
> SVN you can use svn:external for instance to include your own module while
> keeping the rest of ofbiz consistent with the svn trunk. Then you can do
> your own changes and commit to your local repository at any time.
>
> Does that help or were you looking for something else?
>
> Regards,
> Paul
>
> P.S.: I don't think that Nick understood your question - BigFish certainly
> isn't the answer
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/New-to-OFBiz-How-to-modify-the-eCommerce-app-tp4641469p4641473.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

[Nick Rosser-2]

If a level of customization is absolutely required then of course that's
the way to go.

I did understand the question, if wasn't that complex. The original
objective was "I'm interested in developing some personal eCom sites
based on OFBiz". The beauty of OFBiz is the comprehensive data model and
service layer, all great stuff. The problem is that it is not
out-of-the-box-ready for building systems. BigFish solves that (for
eComm) and allows the building and configuration of eCommerce sites in
very short order.

Robert: either way, welcome to OFBiz!

Nick


On 5/22/2013 5:46 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:

> Hi Robert:
>
> Having worked on many OFBiz based ecommerce applications (both large
> and small), I agree with Paul. Copy over and use the OOTB webapp as a
> guide to move forward with your own customizations.
>
> Best of luck.
> Ruth Hoffman
>
> On 5/22/13 4:08 PM, Paul Piper wrote:
>> Hi Robert,
>>
>> that really depends on what you are set out to do. In general, I
>> recommend
>> to copy the eCommerce app over to hot-deploy and get the module to
>> run from
>> there. Then check it into your local repository to keep it
>> consistent. With
>> SVN you can use svn:external for instance to include your own module
>> while
>> keeping the rest of ofbiz consistent with the svn trunk. Then you can do
>> your own changes and commit to your local repository at any time.
>>
>> Does that help or were you looking for something else?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Paul
>>
>> P.S.: I don't think that Nick understood your question - BigFish
>> certainly
>> isn't the answer
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context:
>> http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/New-to-OFBiz-How-to-modify-the-eCommerce-app-tp4641469p4641473.html
>> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>

[Varun Bhansaly]

Hi Robert,

It depends on how much changes you are making. Instead of copying entire
eCommerce component over to hot-deploy, you can as well 'extend' the
eCommerce component, make and maintain your changes separately (See
https://cwiki.apache.org/OFBIZ/faq-tips-tricks-cookbook-howto.html#FAQ-Tips-Tricks-Cookbook-HowTo-HowtoExtendanexistingcomponentincustomizedapplication?
).

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Paul Foxworthy <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
> I agree with the others that your UI is your UI and it's fine to copy it
> and
> make the changes you need for your own situation.
>
> It's harder with OFBiz services. You might make a change that with a bit of
> refinement may one day become a submission. But for now you decide to keep
> to yourself, perhaps to test it. You might have customizations that you
> know
> would not be relevant to the OFBiz community in general. You might base
> your
> work on a release of OFBiz, and cherry-pick fixes that are going into
> trunk.
> One day you might move to a later release, and the cherry-picked changes
> won't be needed any more.
>
> In short, you might branch with some prospect of merging at some stage in
> the future.
>
> In these situations, you want a clear separation between core OFBiz and
> your
> own changes, so you can move to a different core in future and integrate
> your changes. I suspect you understand all of that perfectly well, thus
> your
> caution about changing OFBiz code.
>
> We use Mercurial patch queues (MQ) to handle this. We start with core
> OFBiz,
> and we make our own changes in hot-deploy when we need and want to.
> Anything
> that is our own mod of core OFBiz is done as a patch in a patch queue. We
> have several "guards" so we can apply different sequences of patches. We
> have guards for submitted patches, for pending submissions, and others for
> customizations that are for a specific customer.
>
> MQ is working well for us and if you want to manage these issues I suggest
> you give it a try. See http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/MqExtension for
> more.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul Foxworthy
>
>
> Ruth Hoffman-2 wrote
> > Hi Robert:
> >
> > Having worked on many OFBiz based ecommerce applications (both large and
> > small), I agree with Paul. Copy over and use the OOTB webapp as a guide
> > to move forward with your own customizations.
> >
> > Best of luck.
> > Ruth Hoffman
> >
> > On 5/22/13 4:08 PM, Paul Piper wrote:
> >> Hi Robert,
> >>
> >> that really depends on what you are set out to do. In general, I
> >> recommend
> >> to copy the eCommerce app over to hot-deploy and get the module to run
> >> from
> >> there. Then check it into your local repository to keep it consistent.
> >> With
> >> SVN you can use svn:external for instance to include your own module
> >> while
> >> keeping the rest of ofbiz consistent with the svn trunk. Then you can do
> >> your own changes and commit to your local repository at any time.
> >>
> >> Does that help or were you looking for something else?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Paul
> >>
> >> P.S.: I don't think that Nick understood your question - BigFish
> >> certainly
> >> isn't the answer
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> View this message in context:
> >>
> http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/New-to-OFBiz-How-to-modify-the-eCommerce-app-tp4641469p4641473.html
> >> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----
> --
> Coherent Software Australia Pty Ltd
> http://www.coherentsoftware.com.au/
>
> Bonsai ERP, the all-inclusive ERP system
> http://www.bonsaierp.com.au/
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/New-to-OFBiz-How-to-modify-the-eCommerce-app-tp4641469p4641484.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

--
Regards,
Varun Bhansaly

[Robert Wynkoop]

Thanks everyone.  Your suggestions are helpful.

I think I'm going the route of making a copy of the eCommerce app for now.
I might look more at BigFish also.

Thanks for the help.

Robert Wynkoop

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 10:26 AM, Varun Bhansaly <[hidden email]>wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
> It depends on how much changes you are making. Instead of copying entire
> eCommerce component over to hot-deploy, you can as well 'extend' the
> eCommerce component, make and maintain your changes separately (See
>
> https://cwiki.apache.org/OFBIZ/faq-tips-tricks-cookbook-howto.html#FAQ-Tips-Tricks-Cookbook-HowTo-HowtoExtendanexistingcomponentincustomizedapplication
> ?
> ).
>
> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Paul Foxworthy <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Robert,
> >
> > I agree with the others that your UI is your UI and it's fine to copy it
> > and
> > make the changes you need for your own situation.
> >
> > It's harder with OFBiz services. You might make a change that with a bit
> of
> > refinement may one day become a submission. But for now you decide to
> keep
> > to yourself, perhaps to test it. You might have customizations that you
> > know
> > would not be relevant to the OFBiz community in general. You might base
> > your
> > work on a release of OFBiz, and cherry-pick fixes that are going into
> > trunk.
> > One day you might move to a later release, and the cherry-picked changes
> > won't be needed any more.
> >
> > In short, you might branch with some prospect of merging at some stage in
> > the future.
> >
> > In these situations, you want a clear separation between core OFBiz and
> > your
> > own changes, so you can move to a different core in future and integrate
> > your changes. I suspect you understand all of that perfectly well, thus
> > your
> > caution about changing OFBiz code.
> >
> > We use Mercurial patch queues (MQ) to handle this. We start with core
> > OFBiz,
> > and we make our own changes in hot-deploy when we need and want to.
> > Anything
> > that is our own mod of core OFBiz is done as a patch in a patch queue. We
> > have several "guards" so we can apply different sequences of patches. We
> > have guards for submitted patches, for pending submissions, and others
> for
> > customizations that are for a specific customer.
> >
> > MQ is working well for us and if you want to manage these issues I
> suggest
> > you give it a try. See http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/MqExtension for
> > more.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Paul Foxworthy
> >
> >
> > Ruth Hoffman-2 wrote
> > > Hi Robert:
> > >
> > > Having worked on many OFBiz based ecommerce applications (both large
> and
> > > small), I agree with Paul. Copy over and use the OOTB webapp as a guide
> > > to move forward with your own customizations.
> > >
> > > Best of luck.
> > > Ruth Hoffman
> > >
> > > On 5/22/13 4:08 PM, Paul Piper wrote:
> > >> Hi Robert,
> > >>
> > >> that really depends on what you are set out to do. In general, I
> > >> recommend
> > >> to copy the eCommerce app over to hot-deploy and get the module to run
> > >> from
> > >> there. Then check it into your local repository to keep it consistent.
> > >> With
> > >> SVN you can use svn:external for instance to include your own module
> > >> while
> > >> keeping the rest of ofbiz consistent with the svn trunk. Then you can
> do
> > >> your own changes and commit to your local repository at any time.
> > >>
> > >> Does that help or were you looking for something else?
> > >>
> > >> Regards,
> > >> Paul
> > >>
> > >> P.S.: I don't think that Nick understood your question - BigFish
> > >> certainly
> > >> isn't the answer
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> View this message in context:
> > >>
> >
> http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/New-to-OFBiz-How-to-modify-the-eCommerce-app-tp4641469p4641473.html
> > >> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> > >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----
> > --
> > Coherent Software Australia Pty Ltd
> > http://www.coherentsoftware.com.au/
> >
> > Bonsai ERP, the all-inclusive ERP system
> > http://www.bonsaierp.com.au/
> >
> > --
> > View this message in context:
> >
> http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/New-to-OFBiz-How-to-modify-the-eCommerce-app-tp4641469p4641484.html
> > Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Varun Bhansaly
>