Developer Tools

  • Article

The following Commerce Server 2002 development tools are designed to help site developers build and customize sites quickly, and to then transfer them to customers:

  • Solution Sites
  • Retail2002: International Retail Site: A .NET-Based Site
  • Commerce Server .NET Application Framework
  • Commerce Server Developer Portal
  • Commerce Server SDK
  • Developer's Documentation
  • Commerce Server 2000 Resource Kit
  • White papers
  • Knowledge Base Articles

Solution Sites

The Solution Sites are development reference sites that provide an integrated set of features included in Commerce Server. The Solution Sites provide merchandising, catalog display, customer service, and order capture and receipt.

Because the Solution Sites provide comprehensive e-commerce functionality, you can use them as a starting point for developing your own Web sites, and, when you are ready, add functionality that is specific to your business.

The Solution Sites include Business Desk applications. You can get a Business Desk application only by unpacking a Solution Site.

Commerce Server 2002 includes the following Solution Sites:

  • Blank site. You can use this Solution Site as a starting point for building your own custom site. It includes all of the Commerce Server 2002 resources. The Blank site is installed with Commerce Server 2002.
  • Visual Basic .NET Site. You can use this Solution Site as a starting point for building your own custom site using Microsoft Visual Basic .NET without using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. The Visual Basic .NET Site (VB.pup) is installed with Commerce Server 2002.
  • C# Site. You can use this Solution Site as a starting point for building your own custom site using Microsoft Visual C# without using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. The Visual Basic .NET Site (CSharp.pup) is installed with Commerce Server 2002.
  • Data Warehouse Site. The Data Warehouse Configurator uses this site, which contains a version of the Commerce Server Business Desk application that only includes the Analysis and Security modules. The Data Warehouse site (DW.pup) is installed with Commerce Server 2002.
  • Retail site. You can use this Solution Site as a starting point for building a business-to-consumer site. It includes business-to-consumer functionality for personalization, merchandising, catalog search, customer service, and business analytics. It includes the Customer Service, which enables users to manage their own profile information and to view their order status. The Retail site is available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=6491.
  • Supplier site. You can use this Solution Site as a starting point for building a business-to-business site. It uses Active Directory in Microsoft Windows 2000 to provide secure user authentication and group access permissions. It provides purchase order and requisition handling, XML-based catalog updates and exchange, and trading partner self-service. It includes the Partner Service, which enables a delegated administrator (a contact at a supplier company) to manage organizational information, purchase orders, and order status for that supplier company. The Supplier site is available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=6491.

Ee811575.note(en-US,CS.20).gifNote

  • You must grant the ASPNET user permission to access the required Commerce Server databases when you build custom Commerce Server sites, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, or Microsoft Visual C# (VB.pup or Csharp.pup) Solution Sites.

Retail2002: An International.NET-Based Retail Site

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  • We recommend that you do not develop a production-quality site based on the Retail2002 Site. We recommend that you use the Commerce Server 2002 Starter Site to develop a production quality site. You can download the Starter Site from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=37800.

The International Retail site is a technology preview of a multilingual, multicurrency business-to-consumer and business-to-business Web site.

The International Retail site demonstrates a Commerce Server 2002 site built using ASP.NET and managed code. Much of the functionality of the site is contained in compiled assemblies and controls that inherit from the classes in those assemblies.

The International Retail site supports multilingual catalogs and demonstrates using .NET CultureInfo data to control how the site displays text and currency. The architecture of the site is designed to manage text and images for multiple cultures. For example, the site can differentiate between French (France) and French Canadian content. It can provide the correct currency, currency symbol, and delimiters for each while using the same French content translation.

Commerce Server .NET Application Framework

The Commerce Server .NET Application Framework enables you to create .NET-based Commerce Server applications using the new features of the .NET Framework. The Commerce Server .NET Application Framework provides two new layers to the Commerce Server platform: the Base Class Library and the Common Language Runtime Interop Layer. These layers allow ASP.NET code to run Commerce Server services and systems. Using Visual Studio .NET, you can access Commerce Server features and tools to build Commerce Server applications.

The Software Development Kit (SDK) includes the following four sitelets that you can use with the .NET Application Framework:

  • Advertising Sitelet
  • Catalog Sitelet
  • Profile Sitelet
  • Order Sitelet

The .NET Framework sitelets are available in Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2002\SDK\Samples\WebForms. In addition, the SDK includes the following seven sitelets that you can use with standard COM applications:

  • Advertising Sitelet
  • Auction Sitelet
  • Catalog Sitelet
  • Discount Sitelet
  • Order Sitelet
  • Passport Sitelet
  • Profile Sitelet

The COM sitelets are available in Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2002\SDK\Samples\Sitelets. For more information, see Commerce Server .NET Application Framework.

Commerce Server Developer Portal

The Developer Portal is suite of Commerce Server tools integrated with Visual Studio .NET, the Developer Portal includes a project creation wizard that enables developers to create Commerce Server projects from the Visual Studio .NET environment, and schema designers to create profiling and product catalog systems that are hosted in the Visual Studio .NET environment.

For more information, see Using the Developer Portal.

Commerce Server SDK

The Commerce Server SDK includes header files, sample code, sitelets, and tools for developing e-commerce solutions with Commerce Server 2002.

Header Files

Sample Code

Sitelets

Tools

Header Files

The Include folder of the SDK contains the header and Interface Description Language (IDL) files required to use and extend the services provided by Commerce Server 2002 in Microsoft Visual C++.

Sample Code

The following is a partial list of the sample code provided in the SDK:

  • Administration Samples. A reference for creating Commerce Server 2002 resources, integrating with and extending Commerce Server Manager, building custom Commerce Server Site Packager components, and building custom Commerce Server Business Desk modules.
  • Business Desk Module Framework. A working code base from which to develop new Business Desk modules. This code base demonstrates how to use XML data-islands, and includes the Business Desk widgets for creating a rich, Web-based user interface (UI) to allow for non-technical administration of your Commerce Server site. This sample provides you with an Edit page for implementing the Edit widget, a List page for implementing the List widget, and a Response page for handling requests from the Business Desk UI.
  • Business Desk Installer. A simple COM component that demonstrates how to use the Administration API in conjunction with the Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 metabase, and how to use the Microsoft Extensible Markup Language (MSXML) parser to install new Business Desk modules into an existing Business Desk.
  • Custom Site Packager Component. A component that demonstrates how to package and unpack data specific to the site resources that you create in a Commerce Site Package during the packaging/unpacking process. The Custom Site Packager component is a Microsoft Visual Basic ActiveX dynamic-link library (DLL) that implements the IPuP interface (required for Custom Site Packager components), packages data stored in a Microsoft SQL Server database, and unpacks the data into a specified site.
  • Data Warehouse Schema Browser. A schema browser you use to view Commerce Server Data Warehouse classes, class properties, data members, and class relationships as they are defined in the logical schema. This sample demonstrates how to use the Commerce Server OLE DB provider to access the logical schema of the Data Warehouse.
  • CSF Score Headlines. A sample that demonstrates how to extend the Targeting System using custom Content Selection Framework (CSF) Cache Loading and Scoring components. The CSF Score Headlines sample is based on the premise that you want to target headlines to users of your site based on the age of the headline and what headlines have been seen the most. It demonstrates integration with the Targeting System using both Microsoft Visual C++ and Microsoft Visual Basic.
  • CSF Debug Utils. A set of Active Server Pages (ASP) that you include in your scripts to dump the contents of a CSF cache and to trace the scoring logic applied for any given content request. The CSF Score Headlines sample demonstrates how to use these debugging utilities.
  • CSF DB Utils. A set of SQL scripts that purge the CSF, Expression Evaluator, and List Manager databases of all content.

Sitelets

In addition to the traditional code samples provided in the Commerce Server 2002 SDK, small scale Commerce Server 2002 sites (referred to as "sitelets") are also included. The sitelets demonstrate how to use the API sets from ASP pages, without integrating them with the rest of the run-time services for Commerce Server 2002. Run the sitelets to help you isolate and understand the APIs for a particular feature, without manually filtering extraneous code unrelated to the task you want to perform. The Commerce Server 2002 SDK provides the following sitelets:

  • Advertising Sitelet. Demonstrates how to use the Profiling System in combination with the Targeting System to display targeted advertisements. Available for both .NET Application Framework and COM.
  • Auction Sitelet. Demonstrates how to use the Auction component to implement Winning Bid auctions. It includes a custom Business Desk module designed for managing auctions. Available for COM.
  • Catalog Sitelet. Demonstrates how to use the Product Catalog System to offer catalog browse and search functionality on your e-commerce site. Available for both .NET Application Framework and COM.
  • Discount Sitelet. Demonstrates how to leverage targeted discounts in the order capture process on your Web site. Available for COM.
  • Order Sitelet. Demonstrates how to use Commerce Server to implement an order capture process on your Web site. Available for both .NET Application Framework and COM.
  • Passport Sitelet. Demonstrates how to integrate Passport single sign-on capability with the Profiling System. With this capability, you and your users can benefit from a single sign-on authentication service, while still being able to use the Profiling System for targeting users, managing user data, and so on. Available for COM.
  • Profile Sitelet. Demonstrates how to use the Profiling System to register and authenticate users on your e-commerce site. Available for both .NET Application Framework and COM.

The COM versions of the sitelets are located in Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2002\SDK\Samples\Sitelets. The .NET Framework version of the sitelets are located in Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2002\SDK\Samples\WebForms.

Tools

The Commerce Server 2002 SDK includes a set of tools to help you simplify and speed up the development process for building sites run by Commerce Server 2002, building products that integrate with Commerce Server 2002, and building add-on components for Commerce Server 2002.

  • Pipeline Component Wizard for Visual Basic. This tool provides Visual Basic developers with a release and deployment (RAD) environment for building Business Processing Pipeline components. To install the Pipeline Component Wizard for Visual Basic, register the PipelineCompWizard.dll file in the VB Pipe Wizard folder of the SDK Tools. For example, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server\SDK\Tools\VB Pipe Wizard.
  • Pipeline Component Wizard for Visual C++. This tool consists of a group of files that you add to your Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 installation to automate the creation of Commerce Server pipeline components. The Pipeline Component Wizard creates the object definition and implementation files that contain the function prototypes for all of the interfaces that you need to implement to create a fully functional pipeline component. In addition, the Pipeline Component Wizard creates a property page for your project, in which you add the controls through which users set component properties.
  • Pipeline Component Registration Tool. This tool helps you register pipeline components for stage affinity. You register the pipeline component on the computer in which the tool is being run and you can export the data to a Registry Script (.reg) file for deployment to other servers. The Pipeline Component Registration Tool is located in the Registration Tool folder of the SDK. For example, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server\SDK\Tools\Registration Tool.

Developer's Documentation

Commerce Server 2002 Help provides detailed documentation that explains how to customize Commerce Server 2002. For example, the documentation includes instructions for:

In addition, for each of the Commerce Server 2002 objects, Commerce Server 2002 Help includes example code.

To install updates to Commerce Server 2002 Help, go to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=6724.

Commerce Server 2000 Resource Kit

The Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 Resource Kit provides detailed information about developing e-commerce solutions with Commerce Server 2000. It is not specific to Commerce Server 2002 Enterprise Edition. The resource kit is available from Microsoft Press.

The Commerce Server 2000 Resource Kit includes information about the following topics:

  • Implementing identification and authentication
  • Extending the Business Analytics System
  • Implementing complex pricing schemes
  • Developing with the Profiling System
  • Modifying order processing
  • Integrating with SAP
  • Integrating with J.D. Edwards OneWorld
  • Testing your site
  • Maximizing performance

White papers

White papers are written by Microsoft consultants, software development engineers, and system integrators. White papers highlight specific development and site infrastructure issues and provide detailed information that may not be included in the product documentation.

For a list of white papers available about Commerce Server, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=6274.

Knowledge Base Articles

Knowledge Base (KB) articles are written by Microsoft Support Engineers. KB articles provide details about troubleshooting and resolving specific technical issues.

For more information about Microsoft Knowledge Base articles, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=5166.

See Also

Using Site Packager

Programmer's Reference

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