Online documentation - Websydian v6.0

Users Guide | Patterns Reference | WebsydianExpress | Search
 

The WebShop Pattern

Introduction    Implementing    Other Uses    Parts

Library

WsyShop

Introduction to the WebShop Pattern

The Websydian WebShop pattern provides functionality to create and operate both simple Internet Shops and highly complex Shop-like E-business application deeply integrated with back-end ERP systems.

Overview of WebShop Entities

A Websydian WebShop application will contain a number of entities, that can either be used as-is or replaced by existing, application-specific entities:

Cart.Cart A shopping cart for storage of selected items for a user.
Cart.Item Placeholder entity for items.
Cart.ItemLineInCart The selected items for a shopping cart.
CategoryStructure.Data.Node Entities inherited from the WsyStructure pattern, providing a hierarchical structure of item categories. 
CategoryStructure.Data.Link
CategoryStructure.Data.ExpandedLink
CategoryStructure.Data.ItemRelation Relation from Category Nodes to items.
NextSurrogate Surrogate table, providing sequence keys.
SessionManagement.Data.Session User Session inherited from WsySession pattern.
Shop Shop entity, providing support for multi-shop capabilities, i.e. the same Shop Application drives several Shops with different or overlapping items.
ShopProperties Properties for a single Shop like E-mail addresses, mail subject lines, dynamic texts displayed on web pages, and the like.
UserManagement.Data.User User entity inherited from WsyUser pattern.
UserManagement.Data.GenericUser Representation of both visitors and registered users providing functionality so both can select items to carts and purchase items.
This entity is also a placeholder for contact information fields.

The WebShop entities are described in more detail in the Parts section.

Items are Organised in Category Structure

In a WebShop application, the items are organised in a structure of item categories. 

The categories are presented to the web user as a hierarchical menu structure of categories and subcategories. There is no limitations to the size or depth of this hierarchical menu structure.

The web user traverses the categories and subcategories by selecting the category of interest. 

When leaf subcategories are reached, the items related to that category are listed, and the web user then selects items to his or her shopping cart.

A sample item category structure is shown to the right.

Sample of Item Category Structure

Sample of Item Category Structure

WebShop Default Web Page Navigation

By default, a Websydian WebShop will use 3 different frames organized in 2 framesets for web page navigation, i.e. to show item categories and item lists. 

Default WebShop Framesets

This can of course be altered and modified to suit any navigation scheme, with or without usage of frames; refer to the Other Uses section for more details. 

The WebShop frameset functions and some of the functions providing web page content is depicted below:

Navigation Webflow Diagram

Navigation Web flow Diagram

If a user navigates to "Show Cart" or other pages not part of the StructureFrameSet, Frame 2 and 3 will be replaced by a single page.

WebShop Starts with Item Category

By default, a Websydian WebShop will start by loading the Visitor menu Frame 1, the top item category in the Frame 2 and a list of the top-most item subcategory nodes in the Frame 3. Below is shown a sample layout:

Example Layout of Simple Music Shop Start

Sample Layout of Simple Music Shop start, Showing Item Categories

When a visitor user navigates through the hierarchy of category nodes, the current expansion is updated in Frame 2. When a category node containing items is reached, the items are shown in Frame 3:

Default WebShop Frame-based layout

User Navigated to Category with items, Item List is shown

Other Shop navigation layouts could e.g. show the Shopping Cart in a separate frame, show both items and Category Nodes at the time, etc.

WebShop Ordering Web Page Flow

When a user selects "Show Cart", the Shopping Cart contents is listed, and the ordering Web page flow can commence. The default orderings steps are the following:

Ordering Web Flow Numbered

 Ordering  Web Flow Numbered

  1. In the "Cart Contents" page the "Purchase" button is pressed.
  2. Contact information fields are entered or confirmed and "OK" is pressed.
  3. The "Submit Payment" page for order confirmation is shown and "OK" is pressed. The order is registrered.
  4. The "Order Confirmation" page is shown, with the possibility to return to the Item List and continue shopping. Visitors are given the possibility to register as users, saving the entered contact information for later purchases.

Note! The PageGenerator function Submit Payment has the name triple "Confirm Purchase" since no online payment is involved when the WebShop pattern is used directly. 
In PaymentWebShop the same page is used for submitting Credit Cart information, and here the page is named "Submit Payment".

WebShop Administration

The Websydian Enterprise WebShop Framework provides a Windows Client program for WebShop Administration. In this program administrative data for Shop and Shop Properties is maintained, Items are structured in Category Nodes, Users and Visitors can be managed, and Orders registered in Shopping Carts can be viewed and modified:

WebShop Administration GUI

This Windows GUI is part of the inherited objects and thus can be modified and enhanced just as easily as the rest of the WebShop functionality.