Drupal 6.x Integration

Also interested in drupal 6.x-zen cart integration

I am waiting for the DAY for this to be integrated to Drupal 6.
I want to leave OsCommerce so badly, but I can't until Zen Cart is Drupal friendly....
I can test and test and test all anyone needs and I can help in layout in design and debugging. So please someone take a hold of this and move forward to 6.x......

jeremy

I'm afraid migrating the module is not high on my priority list right now, so if someone else wants to take up the mantle, I'd be happy to provide whatever support is needed.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything that would make this a particularly difficult module to port. It doesn't rely on any obscure or fringe behavior of the api. Simply running through the changes recommended by coder would probably suffice to get it running.

Anybody who wants to help out can do so by testing the 5.x branch and filing bug reports against that (with especial attention to the currently unfinished user integration sub-module). I know that's not so much fun for those of you itching to move on (or who have already moved on) to drupal 6, but having a more stable 5 branch will make porting a little easier.

I'm willing to help with this as well. I am new to development of both drupal and zencart, but getting up to speed fast and highly motivated. Right now I'm working on a site that has ZC "within but separate" but I really want the two fully integrated.

I'll take a look at this module and do some testing, but if any of the developers want to contact me with specific tasks, please do.

Hi all,
Just a quick update. Personally I feel it is very important for me to understand how far along the capabilities of existing shopping carts are [progressed and viable] in Drupal to-date. To this end I am working hard on setting up a Drupal v5.10 and e-commerce 5..x-4.x-dev site and making it work as close as possible to my experiences with zen-cart. This will, I hope, expose the gap or bridge between where Drupal is now (and zen-cart stand-alone) and my target of an integrated zen/drupal.

iansears

Without using this module, we have a site up with a community subdomain setup with Drupal, a shopping subdomain setup with Zen-Cart, a common theming, and menu links between the two. More integration would be nice but that really depends on what "integration" means, and at this point I can't imagine too many points where I'd like to see these products intersect.

Can someone provide a short list of features that would help to make these environments more transparently integrated? A common login between the two is my first obvious wish item but we're going to look to OpenID for this.

The way they do themes in ZC is similar to D6 with cascading overrides, but it's significantly different enough to warrant two different themes that need to be manually adjusted to look consistent.

Perhaps ZC categories and products could auto-generate nodes for reference and discussion but I don't see this as being worth the coding effort - YMMV.

Unfortunately, while I can read the code on both sides and I'm fairly familiar with the structures on both sides, I'm not qualified to write PHP code for either. :(

Anyone?

Single log in.
User consolidation much like phpBB3.
Ability to have Blocks and Content Creation of ZenCart items and such through Drupal.
The ability to incorporate any and all of ZenCarts content into the Drupal site for stuff like calendars and mailinglists, blogs, having "latest items in store" show up in blocks and all kinds of stuff.
There is really NO reason NOT to have ecommerce and forums NOT fully integrated with Drupal. Why handle 3-5 different apps when they can all be under one roof.
I know there is way more I wanted to include, but it's early and this is just off the top of my head.

jeremy

I agree with the stuff already mentioned - -single login, etc.

The main things I would want in addition are:

- one search for both the cart and the rest of the drupal site (drupal search indexing of cart catalog)
- drupal taxonomy applied to cart categories & products
- then you can have a "related products" type of cart block on an appropriate drupal page
- or, going the other way, you could have links to related drupal content on cart product detail pages
- one "email a friend" type feature for both the cart and drupal

etc.

Subscribing. I'd be interested to see this working, and might at some point then implement it on a Zen Cart site I developed, but I don't have any development cycles to dedicate to it at the moment.

It sounds like the 5.x version is still very much a dev version, with major functionality not complete. In the event a stable 5.x version is created that works, I might be willing to port it to 6.x if it is the straightforward port that ronan suggests.

I'm also going to unassign this since it doesn't appear any one person is actively working on this at present.

dbabbage,

I think Drupal 5.x needs to be installed along side a Zen-Cart install. And then views created to look into the zen database. You are thinking instead that you are interested in creating a "zen-cart module"? I'm not certain that I understand the intent of your post and unassign there?

Ian

Hi Ian,
I'm confused by your post. I am of course referring to the Zen Cart Integration module, which is the Drupal module whose issue queue this is posted in. I am referring in my post to the 5.x version of that module, not of Drupal. But yes, Drupal X.x would need to be installed alongside a ZenCart install, as this is currently being conceived.

The intent of my post was to say that if someone can make a stable 5.x version of the Zen Cart Integration module, I may be willing to do the work to port it to Drupal 6.x. However, as stated I am not in a position to do the initial basic development to get the Zen Cart Intergration module working.

I unassigned the issue because your initial post was over six months ago and it did not appear anyone was actively working on this module (the code in HEAD was last updated 1 April 2008 and there are no pending patches created since that time). I think people assume that if an issue is assigned to someone then that person is working on it and everyone else should leave them to it. In this case, it seemed best to keep the field open as wide as possible to encourage input from anyone who was willing.

If you are actively working on completing this module and porting it to Drupal 6.x, then please do assign this issue back to yourself. It'd be great to see a working version of this module soon.

I have my zencart 1.3.8 store installed at http://www.salevalley.com and is working fine. I have installed drupal 6.10 at " salevalley.com /drupal1" . What Changes I should be doing, so that all the existing zencart users be able to automatically logged in to drupal. I can do testing if someone has a beta available.

I think the preferred method would be your Drupal site would be
www.mysite.com
and your ZenCart would be
www.mysite.com/store

Something to that affect. I believe this module is to integrate ZenCart INTO Drupal, not the reverse.

Which brings me to my post, is ANY actually working on this anymore? I find it odd that one of the more popular ecommerce systems and CMS systems are not having more people trying to integrate these two...

jeremy

Jeremy,

I agree with your initial point about the URL's. I do not fully agree with your second point.

Both Drupal and Zen-Cart both wish to be the hub of the wheel, holding up efforts to accomplish integration. In truth, either approach would be ideal. There will be folks that feel and argue strongly to both directions.

We all agree Drupal CMS and Zen-Cart Shopping Cart together are an ideal solution. Focus on the first-time visitor converting to an account holder and converting to a sale is key.

To that end, as little modification to either system is also key, from a development standpoint.
To that end, ideally similar stylesheet(ing) and template(ing) are also ideal, from an adoption standpoint.
And to that end, single sign-on and e-mail acknowledgment are ideal from a customer standpoint.

My initial enthusiasm for starting this thread was the top-down view that we all share. As I began to work on this I personally needed to refocus my developmental efforts on v5.x before my personal development of v6.x (Drupal), so my personal involvement in this thread is postponed. However, I am not the key. Anyone of course is welcome to adopt the title of primary developer on this effort (likely THESE efforts) in my view (I agree, dbabbage). But it is important that this effort not get dropped due to lack of activity.

The two applications are different enough to make this integration challenging, if not impossible, but I am confident it is possible.

dbabbage, can you post the link to your 5.x development effort to encourage development of this 6.x version, by focussing our development on the 5.x version first?

Personally, I'm really glad folks are thinking about this overall integration and giving it some though, rather than none at all.

As to the direction if integration, this module definitely takes a Drupal as hub approach. All product and catalog browsing is handled by Drupal where the CMS really shines, and then when you click add to cart, Zen Cart takes over. Cart display and checkout are handled by Zen cart (hopefully themed to look similar though not necessarily the same as the Drupal install.) On the other hand, if you just want single-sign on and not product/catalog integration, then it is probably possible with pretty much any set up as long as the Drupal install can access the Zen code base and database.

With regard to the future of development. It seems that the maturation of Ubercart has made the need to integrate a 3rd party shopping cart non-existent for most users. If Ubercart had been in it's current state when I started this project, I would have used it instead of Zen.

If anybody is working on fixing bugs or porting to 6, let me know and I can provide CVS access to the project.

Hi Ian,
I am not working on a 5.x version of this module. Perhaps some readers are not aware of the dev version of this module since the maintainer has not yet elected to have it appear on the main page of this module. It is, however, freely available for anyone to download in its current state. (Such dev versions are always available if in CVS by clicking "View All Releases" on the main page of any module.)

My interest in this integration module is for the potential to upgrade a current ZenCart site to integrate with Drupal, if that client decides they have need of a CMS and a more sophisticated site than ZenCart could support. I would be developing that in D6 (or possibly, depending on timing, in D7) hence my offer to potentially port the module to D6 if someone can develop a stable D5 version. I won't be able to develop a D5 (or D6) version from scratch, as it isn't a high enough priority for me. All my new sites are being built with Übercart, and I can't see myself using ZenCart on a new site again...