Deconstructing my eCommerce Site
You know, I’ve been working on this site for far too long… I haven’t done a progress update since July’s Progress Update XII, but the last real update on the eCommerce site was Progress Update XI back in, ahem, March. Still haven’t done goals 1, 2 or 3 from that March entry.
Well, technically, I have used the printer/scanner, but it’s not set up permanently and now it doesn’t print well… Probably due to infrequent use.
As for goal #3, technically, I have done some work on it. Once my eCommerce site is done (which I have been working on again), I will use it as a template for my flagship website. And, that’s going to be wicked cool. Well, at least in my opinion. You might have a different definition of “wicked cool.”
Way back when I was still working on the design of my eCommerce site (some of you may have seen it), I finally settled on a design. After doing that, I ripped it apart. What I did was break the design down into a bunch of different files in order to make doing additional pages easier, as well as making future upgrades easier as well. Say, for example, that I want to change the header, I can just change one file instead of having to change every page on my site.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with building websites, this would be similar to how you might change the header on your WordPress (or other) blog. You just change it once, and it’s changed on every page you bring up. I’m not using WordPress or anything like it for my eCommerce site, so this kind of functionality is something I needed to build in myself.
And, now, I’m tearing it apart again…
You see, I’ve learned some things from over a year of using WordPress. One of those things is the concept of themes.
As I mentioned, if I want to change the header on my eCommerce site, I just have to change it in one place and I’m done. But, what if I want to change more than one thing? What if I want to have a Halloween theme or a Christmas theme or something along those lines? I would probably want to change more than just the header. I might want to change the colors as well as numerous images throughout the site.
I could update a whole bunch of files, then un-update them (by re-uploading the original versions) after the holiday was over. And, hope I didn’t miss any!
So, then I thought I could apply the concept of themes to my eCommerce site (as well as other sites I use this site as the template for). I’d still have to design all the stuff for the particular theme, but the actual act of changing between themes would be super-simple. I wouldn’t have to mess around with updating a bunch of files and then re-uploading the original, non-holiday-themed pages and images later. I could just make a little change to switch from one theme to another.
And, it wouldn’t affect the site as much either. With the non-theme method, somebody could be browsing the site and see a half-themed site or something weird if I were in the middle of uploading pages and images. With the theme concept, the change would be almost instant! (There might be some issues due to caching.)
So, that’s where I’m at. I am breaking down the eCommerce site (again) to make it theme-ready. I think this is going to be completely awesome. And, I’ll be able to do the same for other sites I base off of the eCommerce site.
Of course, what I really need to do is resolve the shopping cart issues that have been the major reason for the long, long delay, but I have some ideas about that too…
Well, deconstructing sounds like you are taking one step backwards in order to take several steps forward so, in the end, it is good. I hope it ends up being even more awesome for you than you originally thought.
Thanks! I hope so too!
The only reason I follow your blog is because I want to see this eCommerce site. Oh, and also the rest of that Darnella story, but we won’t go there.
The caching thing is an unfortunate side effect to building a new site. We just completed a new site at work and a few of us were seeing different things after it went live. No big deal though, nothing a reload didn’t fix. Shopping cart? gah, i don’t envy you on that one. Shopping carts are definitely not wicked cool.
I thought you wanted to see my brain-training eBook?
Shopping carts typically aren’t bad. It’s the level of customization that this one needs to handle that makes it complex. If I was just selling non-customized goods, I’d be done.