avoisin Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 One of the most useful things that I've done on any large PHP/MySql project is to document what pages I've got, how the connect together, how data fields flow from one page to the next, where DB updates are done, etc. I don't see any such types of documentation out in the community right now ... have there been any suggestions to create such flows? I've created some of my own on paper to help me figure out some of the more complicated mods to osC, and I suspect others writing contributions could also benefit. They could be stored in Acrobat or whatever format. I'd be willing to help create some of these. I suspect they'd probably belong in their own sort of section, rather than sprinkling the diagrams around the documentation in general. Any thoughts?
star_contact Posted January 26, 2005 Posted January 26, 2005 It exists already ! If you unzip the original milestone installation pakage you get a directory: oscommerce-2.2ms2 You will find a PDF-file: tep_database-pr2.2-cvs.pdf What you wanted is on your fingertip. Peter webdesign ARANDAS
avoisin Posted January 26, 2005 Author Posted January 26, 2005 It exists already ! If you unzip the original milestone installation pakage you get a directory: oscommerce-2.2ms2 You will find a PDF-file: tep_database-pr2.2-cvs.pdf What you wanted is on your fingertip. Peter webdesign ARANDAS <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, this covers what ID fields link each of the tables together, but it doesn't cover the flow of the pages throughout the site. Obviously, many pages are linked together, but there is a normal flow of things, expecially during the checkout. I'm more referring to these sorts of pictures. A typical line would show something like "checkout_success.php gets these fields and moves them to this table". I'm sure some folks know the progression/copying of information from the products table to the orders_products table, things like than, which is what I"m looking for.
Guest Posted March 20, 2005 Posted March 20, 2005 This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about in: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?sho...ndpost&p=575098 Very much needed. Should we start up our own Wiki's or can we have access to the knowledge base and we'll start hacking through this crap ourselves... That way, the admins can "proof read" and validate what we assume to be the case from our hacking... Or, the admins could save us all a TON of time and produce these docs themselves... Just pointing folks in the right direction in the form of a wiki where the rest of the community makes the pretty pictures and builds out the explainations would be fantastic!! - Ray
Roostafari Posted March 24, 2005 Posted March 24, 2005 Amen! I have been scouring the forums and KB for DAYS trying to find this. Very much a needed addition to the docs! -Jared
Guest Posted March 25, 2005 Posted March 25, 2005 I'm sure with the addition of new team members it will rejuvenate efforts to increase the content of the knowledge base and other areas of documentation. However, if you want it done you'll most likely have to organize a team and do it yourself. I agree this would be nice for beginners trying to learn osC... Bobby
Guest Posted March 29, 2005 Posted March 29, 2005 As a beginner myself with osC I would like to chime in and say I agree 100%. I do HTML, CSS, some PHP (not very well, but enough to get into trouble) and even less MySQL. I really feel that if someone who knows the nuts and bolts of the program could develop flowcharts for the most frequent tasks then it would be much easier for us newbies to (i) figure it out ourselves and (ii) ask more directed, intelligent questions of of the pros when necessary. For example, what happens behind the scenes in displaying the mainpage of an osC site? How about adding items to a cart? Creating an account? Product info page? Checkout? Etc. What I would like to see is how the pages are built with respect to the DB calls, variables set, which functions and classes do what for that page, etc. I realize it is complex, but when you don't know where to start, it can be very daunting. Here's a concrete example. I want to add image swaps for product attributes. E.g. For a specific product attribute, one can include a picture showing that particular attribute, such as color. When the user selects a color from the attribute drop-down, the image swaps to reflect that attribute. I have just started to look at how attributes are implemented and quickly realized that the learning curve looks like Mt. Everest!
Guest Posted March 29, 2005 Posted March 29, 2005 What I would like to see is how the pages are built with respect to the DB calls, variables set, which functions and classes do what for that page, etc. I realize it is complex, but when you don't know where to start, it can be very daunting. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> LOL yea that question is right up there with the best of them like... How do I change "Whats new here" which is asked almost daily. By installing contribs etc you soon get a good overview of what does what and where. People should also bear in mind that the development team currently comprises on THREE people, and the documentation TWO people as seen here id give them credit where credit is due and not overload their currently overloaded plates any further.
Guest Posted March 29, 2005 Posted March 29, 2005 LOL yea that question is right up there with the best of them like...How do I change "Whats new here" which is asked almost daily. By installing contribs etc you soon get a good overview of what does what and where. People should also bear in mind that the development team currently comprises on THREE people, and the documentation TWO people as seen here id give them credit where credit is due and not overload their currently overloaded plates any further. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I just love the idea that someone can deride newbies for asking questions about the software and at the same time for thinking out loud about how it might be possible to help prevent those noob questions in the first place. I'm sure once you install contribs, etc you do get a good idea of how it all works, but if I get a knife and plunge it into my belly I can also figure out where my spleen is located. I'd prefer to go to an anatomy book and find out about it that way. Also, I do realize that the main development team is small and dedicated and I hope that in no way did anyone feel like I was putting them down in any way. I was simply trying to promote an idea that is needed in some form or another. Let me give one example of how I think a flow chart type diagram of how a page is built would help both noobs and pros alike. I have been following from time to time Chemo's thread on optimizing osC here. It appears from reading that thread that there are lots of places where osC is quite inefficient. If it were documented visually how things are built, which DB calls are made when loading a particular page, etc. , then perhaps it would be easier to spot areas of inefficiency? Perhaps not, but I bet it would. I guess when I really start plunging into the code for our osC conversion, I'll begin my own diagramming of how things work--to the best of my limited programming knowledge--and see if it helps me. If it does, maybe someone else will be interested in it too. I don't see this type of diagramming as a replacement for a Wiki in any way, but rather as a complement to it.
dwatson Posted March 30, 2005 Posted March 30, 2005 I am writing out the flow in pseudocode (mostly English, not code) with interactions shown. I'm starting with the flow of everything that happens to activate and display the home page through index.php (and all the files it includes). I'll have a draft done of that bit by early next week. It is pretty illustrative because it calls general function and config files that are also included in most of the other pages. I'll put it up as a contribution. If others want to help, correct, criticize, whatever, I would welcome it. Keep an eye out for it if you are interested. The next step would be to document the other central pages and their associated routines, then finally draw an overview chart of how they all fit together. Thanks, David Watson
Roostafari Posted April 5, 2005 Posted April 5, 2005 FWIW, DocWatson's contribution can be found here: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,3078 Take a few minutes to look at it and perhaps some members of the documentation team could assist in adding to it as well.
slofly Posted April 19, 2005 Posted April 19, 2005 So we have a few ways to learn: Plug in contributions Good points: You go where you may not have ventured before Bad point: 'stab technique' of learning- poke here and there and hope for big picture to come in. Program Flow charts: Good points: takes the mystery out of how it works. Bad points: programmers have no time so it isn't around now and we need to post our notes in a thread Outside the box learning: This one is neat because you can sit back, have a drink and learn. You have various examples which incorporate the functions and DB queries. For instance- How to list the first 10 products using OSC functions. From this you would learn the basic structure of query, results storage, iteration of the results and output to html A few simple queries like that then I can work up to those long ones I see which include the language table etc... It is quite hard how it is now. Been looking for days how to set the title to the current category yet I've been able to do some stuff that should be even harder. Even driving my car I think about this code and wonder how long it will take to master it. I know I have the passion to endure - OSC rocks and with a community like this we can get it modded any way we choose.
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