[Typo3-shop] future of shop extensions

[Horn Gábor]

Hi,

After reading the conversation about ext_commerce and the development 
plans for tt_products, some question and idea came into my mind, i'd 
like to ask your opinions.


1, Why we need a new shop?

There are some advanced features which i think would be hard to 
implement in tt_product with maintaining backward compatibility (but 
correct me please if i'm wrong), eg

- set up a really felxible category system where not only 1-2 product 
variant fields could be used, but eg completely different fields / BE 
forms for the different categories. Eg if a hw shop both sells cpu-s and 
cpmplete configurations, it would be nice to have different form to add 
a CPU than for a complete desktop. I think it's described in the 
"Can-features" of the product category descreption at

  http://wiki.typo3.org/index.php/Ext_tt_shop

- based on the previous idea, it would be nice to generate automatic 
menus from the categories, or even category fields (which articels 
iherite). Imagine you have a webshop selling hw, and you begint to sell 
a new product line: earphones. You insert it as category, specify 
attributes for the articles: manufacturer, type (wireless, sport, 
normal, professional :), connection type (jack, mini jack, etc), 
manufacturer. Now you insert some product articles (some sony and 
panasonic models), and u can generate menus automatically:

- cpu
- cooler
- harddisk..

- headphone (everything above it generated autmatically from category 
and article properties after some TS magic ;)
    - manufacturer
       - panasonic
       - sony
    - type
       - wireless
       - sport
       - normal
       - professional
    - connection type
       - jack
       - mini jack


Got the idea? I think it would be a very powerful system (a bit similar 
to the latest changes to represent news categories in tt_news but even 
more sophisticated at it can generate menues from not only category but 
also article data ...)

well the above is just one example which i think would be a huge step 
forward a generic shop engine and seems hard to implent w/ extending 
tt_product.

2, what the developers want?

obviously, contribution :)

3, are there people who would contribute?

yes, many independent people said he would contribute/donate for a 
better shop solution

4, what's the problem then?

I think the problem is that the users don't know how, for what, how 
much, and to whom should donate to make things faster or get their ideas 
implemented. The devs don't know (exactly) which function would be 
really succesfull and important, so what should they work on to get 
donation?

5, what can be done?

I think with some organization, clarification of the current stage, 
outline clearly the planned functions and point out the bottlenecks we 
could start to collect donations for the devs. I know nobody's time is 
free, but a good shop would be good for all of us - it would worth now 
help it's development w/ donation, as we (typo3 solution providers) can 
get it back now or later from the end users (our clients).

Maybe the wiki page could be a start to see who exactly works on what in 
tt_product and ext_commerce, and who should we turn to w/ a specific 
request? Eg if i knew devTypoMaster develops featureX or areaY in 
ext_commerce, i could write a mail to the Ml, hey guys, my client needs 
featureX so i could donate some cash for developing it to devTypoMaster, 
who else interested in it?

What do you think about the above guys?

bye, hirisov