E-card extension?

[jm-ink]

Hi, I recently installed zen cart on a new domain and have a plan for the site that I am trying to formulate.

In general, I want to make a site that extends a physical analogy: where users can buy e-cards on one set of pages (the card shop), customize and send them from another (the writing workspace), and view sent cards and responses from a third set of pages (the mailbox). I would hope for these functions to extend the login, cart, and payment systems, and be integrated within the main zen cart system.

I have a modest understanding of the template system (overriding standard functions by placing custom versions of files withing a custom template hierarchy), as well as the basic modules and configurations available from the admin tools. I have the paypal (standard ipn) setup and for now it will be used for all transactions. I have heard that express checkout might be a better way to go, but I am not very considered with the payment system at this point.

The (login/customer account) system, payment, layout styling, and supporting information pages are working well enough. However, I haven’t tried making drastic changes, and have only added additional pages through use of ez-pages.

What is missing from the site, though, is one of the most important features- the e-card delivery. I am not selling a physical retail product, I wish to allow for this functionality through the afor-mentioned composition section. Card sending wouldn’t have to be triggered by payment, because I am essentially selling the write to sell a particular e-card or e-card bundle in the future.

I have looked into some php script based e-card systems like maian greetings, these seemed to incorporate their own front-end and account system, and I am not sure if it would be difficult (or neccessary?) to seperate the front-end and integrate the e-mail sending with zen cart.

I am more comfortable with flash development than I am with web development and php scripting, and I hope to make my site distinctive through use of a hand-made flash application (embedded within a zen cart page) that is use for composing, previewing, sending, and viewing the e-cards. This would probably need to be supported with its own mySQL database for storing cards available, customization options, etc. but I am hoping it will not be too difficult to sync a second database with this information to the main zen cart database that stores customers, orders, etc.

My general question is as follows:
Is it a reasonable ambition to try to integrate flash / java / or html webpages with zencart for the following, and (if possible) what might it entail
A - the storage data relating to yet-to-be-sent e-card purchases seperate from the zen cart order catalogue / history
B - the composition and sending of pre-purchased e-cards through a html form or flash application
C - the viewing of detailed, potentially interactive cards by following a e-mail link to an on-site e-card viewer.

As I have already stated, some of these features are very similar to pre-existing e-card scripts such as Maian greetings. I’m relatively new to web development, although I am a computer science student, and It appears that pre-existing solutions would be difficult to dissect and integrate within zen cart. Also, certain features, including the use of a custom flash application for composition and viewing, do not seem to be compatible with existing solutions.

ANY KNOWLEDGEABLE ADVICE on this issue would be greatly appreciated, and I am interested in all of the help I can get. I am considering looking for paid consultation for this plan, although I would be interested in the learning experience associated with building certain features myself. I understand that I am not a security expert, and I know that I do not trust my self to make drastic changes to the zen cart system, or to try to interact with customer information in adventurous ways.

btw, my current site is jm-ink.com

THANKS

[jm-ink]

Just to reiterate, all I am wondering about is what sounds do-able, what doesn't, and what the basic steps of progress on this might consist of.

If this sounds like a lot to ask for, I apologize. I don't mean to come of as asking for the magic solution. I am very willing to look at other posts and resources and learn about the fundamentals necessary to accomplish this. I am also working on getting help from a professor on this topic.

Thanks

[DrByte]

Yes, it's do-able. But will require much custom coding.
And, yes, PayPal Express Checkout is a much better choice than PayPal Standard/IPN.

As for customizing, I would anticipate that you have a catalog of products, and your customizable cards be their own product-type. Then for the product template, you'd alter the logic for that page to present your customization options however you see fit. Then when the customer is done customizing and is ready to pay before sending it, they add it to the shopping cart and complete the payment process via checkout. After that you'll need to take appropriate action with the customized card by adding custom code to the end of the checkout process which takes the items for that custom product-type from the completed order, collects the customization and email details as per how the customer had supplied them when adding to the cart, and sends the email.

Normally adding customization choices to a product is done via Product Attributes, namely pairs of option-names and option-values. You could use the built-in attribute system to present the choices to the customer or you could build your own interface for collecting that information. Simply ensure that your custom interface passes all the required attribute data to the shopping cart when the customer clicks the add-to-cart button. If you do it that way you won't need any extra tables. However, if you find that you need to collect more information about products or attributes than what the system allows for, you might need to expand various database pieces to accommodate your special needs.

Certainly not something you'll build overnight.