Chapter28.Adding Shopping Cart Functionality

Chapter 28. Adding Shopping Cart Functionality

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating the Employee Store Shopping Cart in ASP

• Creating the Employee Store Shopping Cart in ASP.NET

Welcome to the chapter that covers the heart of all dynamic web applications: the shopping cart. Most dynamic web applications are created for the sole purpose of making money on the web. Let's face itwhy go through all the work of creating a dynamic web application if you don't plan to make money through it? Sure, companies employ dynamic intranet sites and granted, there are still some (although very few) free web applications you can use. In the real world, however, dynamic web applications are created in an attempt to make money by selling merchandise on the web. Providing the capability to add items to a virtual shopping cart as you browse through a website is still very much a business that commands good money. Companies such as VeriSign, WebAssist, and LinkPoint charge to provide developers with the capability to add this virtual shopping cart functionality to their own websites. Fortunately for you, Dreamweaver comes through by providing the capability to interact with shopping cart features by using feature-rich extensions you can download from the Macromedia Exchange.

This chapter discusses the creation of an online shopping cart for the Dorknozzle application. The topics covered in this chapter include:

• A shopping cart definition

• An overview of the UltraDev Shopping Cart

• Installing the UltraDev Shopping Cart

• Building the Employee Store shopping cart in both ASP and ASP.NET

NOTE

Because of the limitations on chapter length, this chapter covers adding shopping cart functionality to the Dorknozzle site under only the ASP and ASP.NET server models. In the ASP server model, we'll use the free UltraDev Shopping Cart server behaviors suite while the ASP.NET model covers building a shopping cart by hand. The UltraDev Shopping Cart server behavior is but one example of a set of server behaviors for adding shopping cart functionality to your web applications. If you're using the ColdFusion or PHP server models, review the process as it's covered in ASP, then browse through the Macromedia Exchange and pick out a server behavior suite that outlines the topics covered here in your server model of choice. The goal here is not to pick ASP over other server models, but rather, to demonstrate the overall functionality using a free set of server behaviors in the UltraDev Shopping Cart that happens to run only under the ASP model.

As you've done with the rest of the chapters in this book, you can work with the examples in this chapter by downloading the files from www.dreamweaverunleashed.com. Remember that you'll want to save the files for Chapter 28 (not the folder) in the C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Dorknozzle<technology> directory, where <technology> represents the server technology (ASP or ASPX) you plan to use. Of course, make sure that your site is also properly defined within Dreamweaver, including the appropriate server-side technology you plan to use in the Testing Server category. For your convenience, the files you download include the free UltraDev Shopping Cart server behavior and patch.