Building a webstore - what exactly do I need.

[Elapo]

So, the title may be not that clear, but I'm working on a web store. This is pretty much the first time I'm ever making something like this. I've experience in HTML & CSS,  C# and SQL, So I was thinking of doing it like this:

Make website using HTML & CSS (And JS maybe, which I still need to learn), and use ASP.NET (for which I can use C#) for the backend, with a mySQL database.

I'm not sure, however, if I've even got everything I need, and I'm not sure I entirely understand the way this works.
Do I make the website in plain HTML/CSS first? Is mySQL even compatible with all this (quick search says yes)? Do I have everything I need, or am I missing things?

I could use some clarification here, thanks in advance!

[unidentical]

SQUARESPACE BUILD IT BEAUTIFUL

[Paralectic]

According to your current knowledge you're better off using an already exisiting webshop plugin/system in my opinion.

[Elapo]

1 minute ago, Paralectic said:

According to your current knowledge you're better off using an already exisiting webshop plugin/system in my opinion.

No can do - it's not about getting the thing done, it's about learning how to do it.

[Paralectic]

1 minute ago, Elapo said:

No can do - it's not about getting the thing done, it's about learning how to do it.

Basic HTML/CSS/Javascript knowledge.

+ The language/Framework you're working in ( Php, C#, etc etc ).

Than comes the complication of internet security, SQL injections, payments.

A webshop got to be really secure, that's your main concern.

[Elapo]

3 minutes ago, Paralectic said:

Basic HTML/CSS/Javascript knowledge.

+ The language/Framework you're working in ( Php, C#, etc etc ).

Than comes the complication of internet security, SQL injections, payments.

A webshop got to be really secure, that's your main concern.

Yeah, if it were going to be used for real, I'd get some help from experienced people. I graduated in Multimedia (though not in the Web part of it), and I do have a couple of friends in the industry that can help me with the security if it ever were necessary.

[Paralectic]

Just now, Elapo said:

Yeah, if it were going to be used for real, I'd get some help from experienced people. I graduated in Multimedia (though not in the Web part of it), and I do have a couple of friends in the industry that can help me with the security if it ever were necessary.

Sounds like a challenge! I am a programmer myself by the way but internet security is a whole new field.

Good luck.

[madknight3]

Sounds like you have your languages figured out. I would recommend starting with ASP.NET MVC over Web Forms as it's a better technology.

You could even start with the latest version of ASP.NET (currently in release candidate). It's a big revamp of the ASP.NET platform as it goes cross platform (although there will be overlap with the older version). Until recently it was called ASP.NET 5 but it's now being called ASP.NET Core 1.0. Just wanted to mention in case you are looking for information on it. A lot of information/tutorials will still be under the old name.

So to summarize, the latest versions are

• ASP.NET 4.6 with MVC 5
• ASP.NET Core 1.0 with MVC 6

[Elapo]

11 hours ago, madknight3 said:

Sounds like you have your languages figured out. I would recommend starting with ASP.NET MVC over Web Forms as it's a better technology.

You could even start with the latest version of ASP.NET (currently in release candidate). It's a big revamp of the ASP.NET platform as it goes cross platform (although there will be overlap with the older version). Until recently it was called ASP.NET 5 but it's now being called ASP.NET Core 1.0. Just wanted to mention in case you are looking for information on it. A lot of information/tutorials will still be under the old name.

So to summarize, the latest versions are

• ASP.NET 4.6 with MVC 5
• ASP.NET Core 1.0 with MVC 6

 

Cool, thanks for the info! I'll be looking into that first then! 

 

[KuJoe]

PHP is the easiest and most widely used web language out there. I built my own "webstore" using PHP with MySQL for the database. I did use some open source code for the authentication/registration portion of it though (the code isn't supported now, but it helped me get started until I could port it to make it my own).

[Gachr]

There is no way around this, if you want to make the whole website by yourself, you HAVE TO learn JS + jQuery. Also, knowing C# doesn't mean much, since you need to learn how clients communicate with the server and how those frameworks work, which is quite a bit to take in.

This video explains everything well:

 

[KuJoe]

8 minutes ago, Gachr said:

There is no way around this, if you want to make the whole website by yourself, you HAVE TO learn JS + jQuery.

 

 

Why do you think this? Sure JS and jQuery offer you a lot of options, but they are not required and don't offer anything vital to a website or a web app. Personally, when I find something I like in jQuery I search for a "CSS only" alternative and they work much better for my needs. Now if you're talking about AJAX, it's really nice to have but again not required.

[Gachr]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

 

Really? Why do you think this? Sure JS and jQuery offer you a lot of options, but they are not required and don't offer anything vital to a website or a web app. Personally, when I find something I like in jQuery I search for a "CSS only" alternative and they work much better for my needs. Now if you're talking about AJAX, it's really nice to have but again not required.

You do need to have dynamic templates/AJAX if you are going to be running a store for all the dynamic content. You won't just change HTML each time a product comes in and such.

[Elapo]

9 minutes ago, Gachr said:

There is no way around this, if you want to make the whole website by yourself, you HAVE TO learn JS + jQuery. Also, knowing C# doesn't mean much, since you need to learn how clients communicate with the server and how those frameworks work, which is quite a bit to take in.

This video explains everything well:

 

Thanks for the video!

 

I actually learned how to setup both a windows server and a linux server (CentOS) through command line, so I do know how to deploy a website. I've used git before (though through bitbucket & sourcetree) and I have gotten networking down to the physical layer at school as well. I've also deployed a PHP-based website to a server before, so I do have a fair bit of back-end experience.

 

I've learned most of the things separately, but I've just never learned to use them together, which is why I'm having issues seeing the big picture 

[KuJoe]

4 minutes ago, Gachr said:

You do need to have dynamic templates/AJAX if you are going to be running a store for all the dynamic content. You won't just change HTML each time a product comes in and such.

 

You definitely don't need JS or jQuery for that though. Sure it's nice but not required.

[Gachr]

1 minute ago, Elapo said:

Thanks for the video!

 

I actually learned how to setup both a windows server and a linux server (CentOS) through command line, so I do know how to deploy a website. I've used git before (though through bitbucket & sourcetree) and I have gotten networking down to the physical layer at school as well. I've also deployed a PHP-based website to a server before, so I do have a fair bit of back-end experience.

 

I've learned most of the things separately, but I've just never learned to use them together, which is why I'm having issues seeing the big picture 

I don't know which things you learnt exactly, just please don't try to prove anything to me and to us. It all depends on how ready you are to take on such tasks. If you don't know what to learn, there is still a bit more to learn

[alex_read]

#1 have you got everything you need.

Yes, that's pretty much the gist of it if you're familiar already with we servers and hosting webpages on/from a server.

 

As MadKnight mentions, the core architecture is the most current trend within ASP.Net area and MVC separation is very widely adopted in web development projects. Learning and implementing these 2 will take you longer to write your site and might be a little confusing, but would serve you well for future projects & furthering your knowledge.

 

#2 is mySQL compatible.

Yes again. It's perfectly fine. In ASP.Net, you alter an XML-based file named "web.config" to add details of how your website can communicate with your mySQL instance. This is done through a <connectionstrings> element & you specify all the connectivity details - usually server addresses, ports, usernames, passwords etc. in there. For samples and a little more detail on this, you might find connectionstrings.com/mySQL useful.

 

Many projects like this use some form of Object Relationship/Relational Mapping (ORM). Basically a set of code classes which expose the database tables as objects callable in code (so you can write things like myTable1.myColumn1 = "someDataHere" etc.) & make your life a little easier. You might want to look at the Microsoft Entity Framework as this might be useful to you.

 

#3. where to start.

In your situation I'd be tempted to sugguest searching online for (i) ASP.Net core and MVC beginner tutorial and (ii) ASP.Net and ADO.Net and web.config tutorials. This would get you familiar with the basics of the architecture and get you a basic, working sample of reading and writing a single value into a single database table with which to build off. Your HTML could just render with basic text only at this stage.

 

One next area could then be to look at the most wanted "use case scenarios" - the main purposes and end user workflows through the website ... basically the requirements & write those down. Once you have them, you could then work on writing tests, the styling and frontend design, database design and the coding logic together to fulfil these requirements.

 

Depending on your level & interest of the frontend design, you might want to take a look at bootstrap or see if there are any sample project templates online to help. These aren't items I've personally looked at too deeply but they might get you up & running with a styled, rich webshop quickly. Javascript will be extremely useful for you to learn if you're looking into any form of web development.

 

[Brenz]

11 hours ago, Gachr said:

There is no way around this, if you want to make the whole website by yourself, you HAVE TO learn JS + jQuery.

There is no way around this, you DONT have to know Javascript or jQuery to make an eCommerce website

[Gachr]

22 hours ago, KuJoe said:

 

You definitely don't need JS or jQuery for that though. Sure it's nice but not required.

 

11 hours ago, Brenz said:

There is no way around this, you DONT have to know Javascript or jQuery to make an eCommerce website

How in the world do you even want to make tabs without JS? JS is a foundation of web and you gotta learn it in order to do anything. Perhaps you don't completely need it to make an eCommerce site, but then it will probably be the worst eCommerce site in the world.

[KuJoe]

2 hours ago, Gachr said:

 

How in the world do you even want to make tabs without JS? JS is a foundation of web and you gotta learn it in order to do anything. Perhaps you don't completely need it to make an eCommerce site, but then it will probably be the worst eCommerce site in the world.

You can make tabs with HTML+CSS without any JS at all. I do it all of the time.

 

JS is not required unless you want AJAX, everything you can do in JS you can do with HTML+CSS.

[Gachr]

2 hours ago, KuJoe said:

You can make tabs with HTML+CSS without any JS at all. I do it all of the time.

 

JS is not required unless you want AJAX, everything you can do in JS you can do with HTML+CSS.

The only way to make tabs without JS is to RELOAD THE PAGE EACH TIME, which is terrible.

There are A LOT of things you can't do without JS.

[KuJoe]

Just now, Gachr said:

The only way to make tabs without JS is to RELOAD THE PAGE EACH TIME, which is terrible.

What is your definition of "tabs"? I think we are talking about 2 different things now because my tabs don't have any JS and don't require a page update to switch between tabs.

[Gachr]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

What is your definition of "tabs"? I think we are talking about 2 different things now because my tabs don't have any JS and don't require a page update to switch between tabs.

https://www.proshop.dk/Hukommelseskort-USB-pen/Ultra-MicroSDXC-UHS-I-80-128GB/2517201?cid=6bbbff09-1963-4fc1-8e45-644e7310a35e

Tabs like "Generelt", "Specifikationer" etc., pretty much every web shop has such on product pages.

[KuJoe]

2 minutes ago, Gachr said:

https://www.proshop.dk/Hukommelseskort-USB-pen/Ultra-MicroSDXC-UHS-I-80-128GB/2517201?cid=6bbbff09-1963-4fc1-8e45-644e7310a35e

Tabs like "Generelt", "Specifikationer" etc., pretty much every web shop has such on product pages.

OK so we are talking about the same thing. I make those tabs with only HTML and CSS, no JS required.

Edited February 4, 2016 by KuJoe

[Gachr]

Just now, KuJoe said:

OK so we are talking about the same thing. I make those tabs with only HTML and CSS, no JS required.

That will be very interesting... Please give me the source code.

Also, there are many more things you can't do without JS, like changing elements outside of the one with interaction.