Ecommerce Developer Content
July 2011 Top Ten
In July, Ecommerce Developer readers explored beautiful ecommerce site design, PCI scope, a library of JavaScript books, top Facebook application developers, a number of open source platforms, and even some HTML5 canvas. Each month, we round up t...
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms, Part 5: osCommerce
osCommerce is a PHP-based, open source ecommerce platform that has eleven years of continued development, a large community, and more than 12,000 live stores to its credit. Harold Ponce de Leon is osCommerce's lead developer and original creator....
Funding Sources for Application Developers
Looking for money to fund your application development? A plethora of funding sources exists, especially if your application is in a hot area, such as cloud computing or mobile. Following are some funding sources and what the funders are looking f...
Improving Pinned Sites for IE9 and Windows 7
Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9 allow users to "pin" some websites to the Taskbar and Start menu, effectively bookmarking those pages outside of the confines of the browser. Data from Microsoft indicates that visitors who have pinned a website a...
Tweaking OpenCart 1.5 Layouts
The first thing most of us do after installing OpenCart is modify the store design to meet the requirements of our ecommerce project. If you’re like me, you look for a theme design that is close to what you want the store to be. This is usually ba...
11 JavaScript Books for Your Library
Not yet fluent in JavaScript? Learning the powerful scripting language requires a good teacher. Here is a list of JavaScript books to master JavaScript. The list starts with beginner books and progresses to intermediate and advanced. There are tu...
Working with Arcs and Curves in HTML5 Canvas
HTML5's canvas API makes it possible to draw fixed radius arcs, quadratic Bézier curves, and cubic Bézier curves that may be combined to create complex, browser rendered graphics. Recently, I described how to draw basic shapes — in "Drawing Basic...
Another SEO Wishlist for Content Management Systems
At an individual page editing level, most content management systems get the job done nicely. However, managing a product or content-browsing structure based on hierarchical levels of categories and subcategories can pose some challenges for searc...
HTML5 Forms for the Real World
Web forms — and the information exchange they enable — are core features of application development. HTML5's significant improvements to form elements and input types are enabling better performance and faster development. HTML5, which may be des...
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms, Part 4: LemonStand
LemonStand is a relatively new PHP-based ecommerce platform that emphasizes design flexibility and simplicity. This article is the fourth in a series where I analyze and review popular open-source ecommerce shopping cart platforms from a develo...
Drawing Basic Shapes with HTML5 Canvas
HTML5 canvas is a relatively new element that can be used to programmatically draw graphics or fonts on a web page using a scripting language like JavaScript. Canvas could enable many new site features and interactions, and potentially improve si...
20 Top Facebook App Developers
Zynga is a developer — a very successful developer — of social gaming apps for Facebook. Nearly 280 million monthly users play Zynga’s games. But Zynga is not the only developer finding an audience on Facebook. Here is a list of the top 20 develo...
Using Cron Jobs to Schedule Scripts
In Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, the cron daemon is a task scheduler that will run executable files at predetermined times or intervals. Cron is extremely useful for doing server or system maintenance or updating and synchronizing....
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms, Part 3: LiteCommerce
LiteCommerce 3 is a free, open source PHP-based ecommerce platform that can operate as a stand-alone solution or as a Drupal 7 module. This article is the third in a series where I analyze and review popular open-source ecommerce shopping cart pla...
13 Beautiful Ecommerce Site Designs
It's been said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," meaning that judging beauty is a subjective challenge. Nonetheless here are 13 "beautiful" ecommerce designs collected for the purpose of inspiring ecommerce web designers. Beauty, accor...
26 Resources for CSS3
We published an article here recently titled "The CSS3 Age Has Begun." The CSS3 color module became the first CSS3 specification to be released as an official recommendation by W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium. Yes indeed, CSS3 is now a modern s...
Eliminating PCI Scope with Authorize.Net's Direct Post Method
Authorize.Net's Direct Post Method allows developers to use a robust payment processing system and maintain full control of the shopper's checkout experience without incurring the burden of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). ...
Analyzing Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms, Part 2: Zen Cart
Zen Cart is a free, open source, PHP-based ecommerce platform with many live shops to its credit and a good reputation as a pioneering ecommerce solution. According to its documentation, Zen Cart seeks to be an easy-to-use ecommerce solution that...
An SEO Wishlist for Content Management Systems
What good to a search-engine-optimization professional is a site full of unique content with no way to optimize it? Not much, unless that professional enjoys nagging web developers to make minor edits. A strong content management system enables ma...
June 2011 Top Ten: The Month's Most-Read Articles
Open source platforms dominated the top ten articles in June, as Ecommerce Developer readers showed interest in Magento and OpenCart. At the end of each month, we count down the top ten most popular articles for that month based on site traffic. ...