When buying an application like CFWebstore® where you may need to modify the code in areas to suit your own site's needs, it's helpful to know a bit about how it is coded. Most major releases of the software go through fairly extensive code modifications and version 6 is no exception.
CFWebstore
® uses a Fusebox 3 framework. And what is Fusebox? Well, it's basically a methodology that outlines a way to organize your code. It includes a
core set of files, and best practices for how to break down the rest of
the application. It allows for separation, for instance, of the page
display elements and the coding logic. Fusebox is one of the oldest and still most popular frameworks used by ColdFusion developers and has an extensive community as well as resources such as books, seminars and classes available.
The main focus with the code for CFWebstore
® was to use a framework that would give developers a common base to work from and that could handle the complexities of an advanced ecommerce application....while still being simple enough for newcomers to ColdFusion and web applications to pick up. While OO and MVC and other more complicated paradigms are now commonplace in ColdFusion development, currently I prefer to keep the application easier for non-programmers to understand and make simple modifications to. Fusebox 3 provides a nice balance in terms of a structured framework without being overly complicated to learn.
Version 6 is the first version to require CFMX and thus use components. Most of the core shopping and checkout functions that comprise most of the "heavy lifting" of the site are moved into components that get loaded into server memory. Other code improvements have been made that provide other performance benefits. You will find additional settings for caching product data and resetting the cache after updates for instance that along with code modifications can increase performance as much as 50% over earlier versions.
Of course, code commenting is also used throughout the code to help work your way through all the functions in CFWebstore
®. The manual provided with the software includes additional information, with a list of all the circuits and fuseactions and details on various custom tags and other features for more advanced developers to use in customizing their stores.
Fusebox has gone through several revisions since the CFWebstore fusebox core was written. Unfortunately the differences from Fusebox 3 and the newer versions make a revision a fairly complicated process that will take many months of development work to do, but I do expect to upgrade it at some point when the time is right. There are many other exciting features I have planned for the product so it's often a tough decision to put those on the back burner!
You don't need to install anything on your server to use Fusebox. All the core files are already included with the software. For more information on Fusebox, visit fusebox.org and halhelms.com. You can also find a bunch of good Fusebox 3 tutorials at http://bombusbee.com.
For more information on CFWebstore® and other common questions about the software, be sure to visit the FAQs page.
