dferguson
14th November 2006, 03:28 PM
During the development of Version 4 we have discovered several problems that our clients face on a day to day basis that need addressing in V5.
Image File Handling
Currently we leave all image handling - including image file storage and maintenance upto the end user, however it has become obvious via continual customer problems that ezimerchant Pro needs to take an active roll in image file maintenance.
Advantages:
Backups will be able to contain all the websites images - a more complete backup solution.
Common problems like duplicate image names, missing images etc will be eliminated.
Automatic Image resizing and watermarking features. Simply insert an image from any location and ezimerchant will look after all image resizing and storage.
As images will be indexed in the database ezimerchant Pro can remove images that are no longer required - Helping to keep website sizes down, which will reduce upload times.Disadvantages:
Customer education. Creating an entirely new way of handling images will require customer education and may confuse beginners.
Advanced users may baulk at our attempts to control images more carefully - However the advantages outweigh the need for ultimate control.Search
Currently the search in ezimerchant Pro is JavaScript based, which means the larger the website gets, the slower the search. The search feature also does not have any real flexibility. For example: Being able to search by price range etc.
Shopping Cart
Currently the shopping cart works with JavaScript and Cookies. As with search the JavaScript implementation approach has its limits.
Template Standardisation
Creation of template CSS standard as well as elimination of any remaining hard coded font tags will help developers create visually rich websites.
Migration to SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (from MS Access)
Currently ezimerchant Professional uses a Microsoft Access database to store all the store data. The MS Access solution does not scale well and is prone to corruption which requires database repairs to be performed.
MS SQL Server 2005 Express Edition provides a free, robust database which ezimerchant Professional can build upon in the future. It will also provide a proper foundation for ezimerchant should a full client/server version be required at a later stage.
Image File Handling
Currently we leave all image handling - including image file storage and maintenance upto the end user, however it has become obvious via continual customer problems that ezimerchant Pro needs to take an active roll in image file maintenance.
Advantages:
Backups will be able to contain all the websites images - a more complete backup solution.
Common problems like duplicate image names, missing images etc will be eliminated.
Automatic Image resizing and watermarking features. Simply insert an image from any location and ezimerchant will look after all image resizing and storage.
As images will be indexed in the database ezimerchant Pro can remove images that are no longer required - Helping to keep website sizes down, which will reduce upload times.Disadvantages:
Customer education. Creating an entirely new way of handling images will require customer education and may confuse beginners.
Advanced users may baulk at our attempts to control images more carefully - However the advantages outweigh the need for ultimate control.Search
Currently the search in ezimerchant Pro is JavaScript based, which means the larger the website gets, the slower the search. The search feature also does not have any real flexibility. For example: Being able to search by price range etc.
Shopping Cart
Currently the shopping cart works with JavaScript and Cookies. As with search the JavaScript implementation approach has its limits.
Template Standardisation
Creation of template CSS standard as well as elimination of any remaining hard coded font tags will help developers create visually rich websites.
Migration to SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (from MS Access)
Currently ezimerchant Professional uses a Microsoft Access database to store all the store data. The MS Access solution does not scale well and is prone to corruption which requires database repairs to be performed.
MS SQL Server 2005 Express Edition provides a free, robust database which ezimerchant Professional can build upon in the future. It will also provide a proper foundation for ezimerchant should a full client/server version be required at a later stage.