Developing extensions to NOPCommerce (RFQ, Workflow, etc)

What is the opinion of the developer community in terms of ease of adding extensions to NOPCommerce?

Background...

We're evaluating NOPCommerce as a foundation shopping cart system, then would want to add new functionality like Request for Quotes, attachment uploads (for quotes), project pricing, user approval workflows, etc.

So far NOPCommerce looks promising; very modular and object oriented.

Is developing and adding entirely new functionality as simple as developing and 'snapping in'? Or are we in for a lot of pain?

As far as nopCommerce is used, there is no need to add much.But , when it comes to development, there is no proper resource, and very little support.SO, I recommend you to not use nopCommerce if you want to make so many changes.I asked too many questions on this forum, and privately, and answer is "No time", or no reply at all!!
Wheresas many of the much required functionality is not present, when you really come to e -commerce terms.

I have found the product to be easy to modify and build. But its not simple if you not a programmer as the code has a lot of layers of complexity and can take a while to understand how it all plugs together. It was all a bit overwhelming at first but I have it pretty much in had now and created a new payment method for use in Australia and added a few changes/enhancements to suit our business logic.

For what it does it does very well and it seams the nop team have a lot more enhancements planned. We are planning to use to base on a number of other sites in the coming months.

There is a pretty comprehensive manual and lots of helpful posts in the forums - and if you really have a problem someone will respond to you. Offcourse the best way to know what the system can do is jump in and have a good look around and understand what’s is happening from a programmers point of view.

If you checkout some of the show off sites there are some pretty good ones so anything is possible.

All the best with it !

https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/4601/new-payment-method-for-ccavenue.aspx

I am  a programmer, but it is good if someone helps you to understand there program structure, so that I do not have to give time to understand the code rather than actually coding .Above given link may help you what I want to do, and I can also see that there is no reply for almost 4-5 days.So its pretty obvious,what I have said.

Hiya, I think no reply just means know one knows anything about ccAvenue ? There are plenty of other posts about making payment modules - a few I've created my self that maybe of help to you - maybe have another search of the forum. I just replied on your other post re payment module.
Just thinking it through – To actually design new code or change it in anyway, other than its format or the the way it looks on the screen, then I think you must understand the code and all that comes with it or risk the inevitable.
All the best

NopCommerce is indeed very modular and it's pleasant to program with. The difficulty comes if you want to keep up with updates - you  may well find you have a lot of patching to do at upgrade time.

A few threads which may help: In addition I suggest looking through the Development forum. You may well get the impression that you'll be mostly on your own when working with NopCommerce.

I've just done some extensive work with Nop which I hope it will make it into the codebase. The coding experience was good, but I'm not sure how open the source will be if you see what I mean.  https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/4339/can-you-provide-hooks-global-event-handlers.aspx

Idea regarding hooks or plugins https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/4339/can-you-provide-hooks-global-event-handlers.aspx (with a vote)

Thread about the upgrade problem https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/4499/upgrade-after-making-huge-changes-to-adminstore.aspx

Another person's take https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/4662/points-on-the-future-of-nopcommerce.aspx