NopCommerce integration with Orchard Project

Since nopCommerce is already migrating to ASP.NET MVC 3.0, any thoughts on implementing a complete integration layer between nopCommerce and Orchard Project, or perhaps an outright merge so that nopCommerce's new MVC-based front-end is built on top of Orchard? Silly idea, I know.

I was considering using nopCommerce's codebase as a sort of SDK for creating an e-commerce module for Orchard Project. It would look functionally a lot like some of the bigger commercial e-commerce modules for WordPress. This would require no reworking of the backend but a total rewrite of the web layer. I don't have an immediate need for this, however; more for future planning.

stimpy77 wrote:

Hi Jon,

Andrei and I have both spent some time looking at Orchard. Although we haven't really discussed any integration between the two, I think if we did go down that route then it would make more sense to build nopCommerce as an Orchard feature from the start (rather than trying to integrate the two).

This is something that I looked into doing but I personally feel that whilst Orchard's generic architecture makes it great for less complex features such as blogs, building an eCommerce site with the advanced features of nopCommerce using the Orchard API would be much more challenging.

Orchard has however, given us many ideas for the next version(s) of nopCommerce.

Our main goal continues to be to build the best open source eCommerce app on the .net platform. CMS features will continue to improve in the future but they are not our main priority at this point.

nopCommerce team | retroviz wrote:

OK I just hope you aren't seeing Orchard as just a CMS; the project is currently aiming to produce a CMS application as a v1.0 milestone, but this from the plumbing of general ASP.NET components and architecture that can be used for other purposes besides a CMS. I do agree with your assessment that integration would be less appropriate than making nopCommerce a feature on top of Orchard if any cointeropability was to be had. If you don't feel that this architecture fits the architectural requirements of nopCommerce, as your post indicates, then I highly value and respect that conclusion.

Hi Jon,

Yes I realize Orchard is much more than that and could be used as a platform for any web application.

I think as the project matures, is better documented and Microsoft put more backing behind it (but remember, if you're an enterprise you should buy SharePoint right :p) then it's going to be a key candidate for building more advanced applications.

The next version of nopCommerce will have some major architectural changes, yet a primary objective is that there is an upgrade path from 1.90. If we were starting from scratch and didn't need to provide an upgrade path, then the data model used in Orchard would certainly be more feasible.

I'm not ruling out Orchard all together but with only a few developers on the team currently, we have had to agree our technology "stack" for the next release and need to stick with it if we have any hopes of pushing out a release this year :)

If you are quite experienced with Orchard then we would definitely welcome your advice on how we could integrate the two as the project matures.

Cheers,
Ben

I am not yet "quite experienced" with Orchard but as a consultant I'm going to take a dive into it in the next few weeks, and meanwhile I committed to presenting on it at a local user group, and I set up their IRC channel on Freenode as #orchard. :)

I definitely wouldn't use Orchard's ORM for the e-commerce bits, by the way, except where it is used for CMS functionality. On the CMS side of the discussion, though, there is a functional overlap between Orchard and nopCommerce as nopCommerce has some built-in content management support such as blogs, forums, etc. It may get frustrating in scenarios when I as a consultant have to choose nopCommerce or Orchard for a content web site that happens to have a shopping cart.

I remain tempted to create a custom-built module that interfaces with a nopCommerce database to expose a products display, while the checkout and administrative functionality is managed via a separate web app that is the full nopCommerce installation at an alternate URL path. However, again, I have no immediate need for this; although I have client(s) who use my customized implementation of nopCommerce, regarding Orchard honestly I am attempting to solve a problem that has yet to be presented to me in person. That said, I am also trying to build up a solid toolset to complement certain opportunities I might try to sell to clients in need.

stimpy77 wrote:

Er, I felt I should justify this comment. I only said this because nopCommerce is already focused on its own direction of code-first EF. Orchard uses nHibernate. But as Bertrand LeRoy pointed out in IRC, nopCommerce would probably benefit greatly from Orchard's comments, tags, media management, etc., being integrated with nopCommerce products.

Just a follow-up on this topic, in case anyone is watching. I have had a bit more of a chance to dabble with Orchard more than I had. My findings are that it really is "just a CMS", it is not a "web architecure" outside of the CMS paradigm. Put in practical terms, this means that it will neither scale nor will it be an enjoyable platform to build upon from a developer perspective. It will, however, support code-free web site creation, which has nothing to do with anything here.

I see a bright future for Orchard, but again at this point I don't see it as anything more than an extensible CMS with a somewhat proprietary development and extensibility model (read: steep learning curve for major development).

These things said, there is great practicality in the notion of producing a nopCommerce product-browsing module for Orchard such that it is entirely drop-in and code-free for someone using it. But one would still need to have a complete nopCommerce installation deployed to check out.

If you are moving from webforms to MVC does there really need to be an upgrade path from 1.90 to v2.00?  Personally I'd prefer you to start on the right foot, and not have to be constrained by having to make sure you can upgrade from a webforms app.

As far as I'm aware with v5 of Umbraco which is also going MVC, I have seen no talk of an upgrade path from v4.6.. They are building almost completely from the ground up, which is what I thought was happening with v2.00.

Any more thought on integrating Orchard and Nop?

Hi folks this conversation started on Orchard a few weeks ago.

[url] http://orchard.codeplex.com/discussions/263176[/url]

I felt it was relevant to the discussion going on here so I thought I'd let you know about it. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than myself about Orchard and nopCommerce could chime in with some thoughts and ideas.

I do know that an integration like this would be awesome. I have been able to get up and running very quickly with Orchard as a CMS and if it had eCommerce capabilites like what nopCommerce is providing built in, that would be killer!

Another coversation I found about integrating an existing MVC application into Orchard which may be relevant here is  located at

http://orchard.codeplex.com/discussions/262662

In that post Bertrand points out

If you do your own database access, you need to opt out of Orchard's ambient transaction. This is done by surrouding your data access code with a using (new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Suppress).

Perhaps this could be a way to address the EF/nHibernate issues?

Best wishes

Austin