NetObjects Fusion 8 Built-in E-Commerce Lee Underwood
Built-in E-Commerce
One of the headaches for many web designers is trying to set up a shopping cart for a website. Fortunately, if you fit into that category, NetObjects Fusion should make life a little easier.
Setting up an online store only takes a few minutes. All that is needed then is to enter the inventory, which is simplified by using the E-Commerce Catalog Properties Editor. Here, the details about the products are entered, including the sale and retail prices, weight, description, product image (including thumbnails) and related products to help increase sales.
The download time of all the product images on each page is also displayed in an effort to limit customers having to wait for a large amount of graphics to load. Within the Catalog Properties Editor the layout of each page of the catalog is also set up. There is a list page for grouping similar products and a detail page for listing each product separately.
Using the Editor is quite simple. Each store profile can be saved for usage at a later date. If there's an existing product list in either .TXT, .CSV, or .XML format, it can be imported directly into the E-Commerce Catalog Properties Editor.
If real time, online order processing is needed, an account will have to be established with an online service. The software lists ten different merchant accounts and will provide a direct link online to establish the account. In addition, an account can be selected from the web host where the site will be located.
Database Integration
Databases can be integrated into a website "without the need for hand coding," according to the company's press release. I was unable to adequately test this portion of the software, but the press release states "no in-depth knowledge of database coding is required. Users can add and edit object properties, such as how database information is displayed on a page, directly in the page view."
Databases can be modified online using Microsoft Access, MySQL, or other ADODB- or ODBC-compliant databases. The information is updated in real time, so there is no need to re-publish the database. It's probably best to have some knowledge of relational databases to set them up (although the software provides wizards to do much of this without any prior experience).
