Thread: Interview with Dan From ASPDNSF

I don't know if anyone else saw this interview with Dan Van Kuren, ASPDNSF EVP, over on Practical eCommerce where they profiled our favorite shopping cart as Cart Of the Week (http://www.practicalecommerce.com/ar...tNetStorefront).

Of particular interest was the announcement that some of the future product enhancements include:

• Native Blog Support
• User Defined URL Generation to ease transition from legacy sites to new ones without losing SEO mojo
• " ERPS [ERP Synchronization Specification], which is a set of standard contracts, add-in interfaces, event notifications, and web services that allow developers to integrate AspDotNetStorefront ML with basically any back-end accounting or ERP application without ever touching a single line of our code.

Wow, can't wait! Hey guys, on the Blog support, please ensure that it supports not only an easy way to inserting/link to products from the blog articles but it is IMPORTANT to support Metaweblog API so tools like Windows Live Writer can be used to create postings. With Blog support (assuming the blog will support author and/or user tags) will products support tags as well?

Also, the ERPS looks very interesting, can't wait to hear more!

Just curious, could someone expand on the statement

"allow developers to integrate AspDotNetStorefront ML with basically any back-end accounting or ERP application without ever touching a single line of our code"

Thanks

@mgibbs: Thanks for the heads-up re the metaweblog API. Regarding tag-support, that's an excellent idea to expand it to products as well. This functionality will not ship in the next release, but the release after that.

@mudge: We are adding support for the System.AddIn Namespace that shipped with the .Net Framework v3.5 SP1. We've identified 14 places in the application where we will allow customers and 3rd party developers to author AddIns to replace/extend the functionality baked into the product.

For example, if you don't care for our box-packing algorithm, used to calculate shipping rates, we'll allow you to write an AddIn, using any .Net Compatible language (no AdNSF source code required).

Or if you have your own business rules that need to be processed when a new order is received, you can write an AddIn that waits for new orders, then processes the order information in any manner.

The AddIn API will be stable, so developers are guaranteed that their AddIn will work in future versions.

This package just keeps getting better every day! Woohoo! The Add.In api sounds like it is gonna rock. Could lead to a whole new world for 3rd party developers...

Originally Posted by ASPDNSF Staff - Jon

We've identified 14 places in the application where we will allow customers and 3rd party developers to author AddIns to replace/extend the functionality baked into the product.

Can you elaborate on what the 14 places are? We have to do a lot of mods on our storefront to allow integration with Vertex (tax system). Because of this, and some of our other quirky business rules, upgrading our storefront is a major endeavor. Having the option to build add-ins instead would be a huge boon to us.

i agree about the add-in. we currently use Microsoft AXAPTA and the amount of code modification has been extensive. between the post order processing and accounting to site maintenance with regard to new items, current inventory levels, pricing, etc. i have made a lot of aspdnsf mods for the existing axapta system, and have also created a standalone vb utility which grabs various product information from our existing systems and imports to the web db on a daily basis.

thanks for the planned addition!

The integration points are covered in the ERPS document here: http://manual.aspdotnetstorefront.co...r%20SyncV3.pdf

We will be updating that document frequently as more information is released.

Haha, the Griz (aka dan) is now a celebrity