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Magento and Vanilla Forums
In a previous life, I built a couple of Magento sites. I never really got around to building a connector for Vanilla Forums until recently. So if you have a Magento shop and you want the power of Vanilla and commenting, you can try it out here.
Please note: This is not an official "Vanilla" release. It's a hobby project. Please test before use in production.
I also regigged a JS connect plugin for Magento. It was based on work by Bastian. It worked in my testing, but I welcome code improvements on Github.
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Whoops, I could have saved you some time! :O
I developed the same plugin one year ago: https://businessdad@bitbucket.org/businessdad/magento-vanillajsconnect.git. I didn't think of publishing the project, then I completely forgot about it. It was developed for Vanilla 2.0, but I reckon it should work with 2.1 as well.
My shop | About Me
I was going to mention businessdad. I remember him mentioning it was a labour of hate Magento
grep is your friend.
Thanks @businessdad -- thanks for letting me know. I was more interested in the comments portion, so I am glad there is another option for JSConnect
@x00 it's true Magento is a beast but I like a challenge
For the record, I still hate Magento. It's not just a beast: it's bloated, slow and relies on an absurd EAV model, which is the perfect example of speculative generality (unneeded in 99.9995% of cases). Also, I completely disagree with the "sock drawer" (name invented by me) method that the developers choose to organise the code, which often requires the infamous shotgun surgery. I even wrote a post about it, back in 2012, to highlight how the Garden framework (but also WordPress) allows to organise code much better by using self-contained plugins, themes and applications.
@Adrian I also like a challenge, but, to me, Magento is just a gigantic waste of time. The only reason why I had to deal with it is that the consultants who chose it as the target platform for our application dropped the ball half way through the project, when I told them that 64 hours were too many to import 10.000 products and they replied that "it was the best they could do". Such frustration didn't earn me a lot of favours, when on Magento community I started almost every question with a rant (like this one)... -_-
Note: the above is just my point of view. There are thousands of Magento developers who make an honest living out of their profession, and they are more than happy to work with such system. I simply disagree with most of the design choices behind it, and I think there are much better ways of doing things.
Suggested readings
Speculative generality and shotgun surgery are terms I learned by reading an excellent book: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. It's one of my favourite books, together with Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.
My shop | About Me
@businessdad awesome share. I know the next version of Magento (Magento2) fixes lots of the old issues. I have done a couple of shops so I definitely hear what you are saying. It's still far from being as simple as other software -- but it's also a pretty powerful tool for the features. The main issue I find, as you have experienced is people underestimate how much work it is to set Magento up. It's not a small job.
People are spoilt for stores, carts, and merchant/payment system software. It always worth shopping around.
grep is your friend.
@businessdad nice rant, sound like something I'd say
, and I have to agree. I considered it once but had a look, and it was way too complicated for what it does, it just wasn't worth it.
I was meaning to ask you regarding frameworks, what do you think for the way django does things? It a framework that is popular, but doesn't fit neatly into the usual categories and paradigms, becuase they set out to make a useful framework, rather than an idealist framework. Although it is called MVC, you might call it Model, Template, View. Where "views" are bit like controllers and templates are more like views in the Vanilla/Garden.
I do like the implicit hook of vanilla, however django signals are pretty decent too, much better than wordress approach. There is advantages an disadvantages of explicit vs. implicit. The main thing is django is so capable that you may not even need to use signals.
I really do like the explicit routing of django. It s awesome how the routes are understood both ways (reverse resolution). It really easy to get the pattern you want, and tightly restrict it. I think vanilla/garden could be made to work that,but ATM it would be work to get localization of the controller and method part of the urls, as well as change all the links. It would be trivial in a well implemented django app.
Also the tempting system is pretty powerful, blocks and block-overrides are just awesome, and it easy to create to do fragment caching, context processors, custom template tags, and filters, etc, etc.
The main thing I like about django's approach is there are not category of plugins, themes, or other addons. An app will cover all of those and more, or just one, but has the same parallel approach to programming.
There is php version of django called pluff, but I don't think it as good, and hasn't really had any updates in a couple of years.
I like python becuase it is a language for people who don't like idealist languages (unlike Ruby), even more so than PHP. And the "pythonist" approach which you aren't forced by gunpoint to use, is actually pretty practical, and sensible. I would have to say that pyhton explit modularization through packages, really work a lot betters then php approach (including all the auto loading). PHP is good don't get me wrong, but ti tis popular becuase server admins, and web host can rely on default setups, that have enough stuff jammed in there to work reasonably. But 9/10 you don't need most of the stuff that is global available all the time. Modularization through packages make a lot more sense, and make thing a lot clearer, and prevent classes (yes I know php has namspacing).
Having said that because PHP basically work and is practical, i can't be too hard on it.
grep is your friend.
Just one word of advice, on this off-topic: I have worked with dozens of carts, and I still have to find a really good one. Should anyone be looking for it, I strongly recommend to look not only at the code, which makes Magento a complete mess, but also at the availability of resources and the community around it. Based on my experience, one of the most popular carts out there is also one of the most unpleasant to work with, not just because of technical issues, but one of its main developers has an attitude of superiority and arrogance towards other members, to the point of openly calling them idiots when they point out blatant flaws in the software.
A man once said, "your feelings go into what you create, whether you realise it or not. When you feel happy and positive, so will be your products. When you feel angry and negative, so will be your products." I can definitely confirm that.
My shop | About Me
Much of my work is on custom merchant systems, and usually for complicated services, so normal e-commerce solutions are not much of an issue for me these days.
Having said that I recently ordered from rug shop, that used Magento, but they had no payment method set up so i had to order on the phone. As they also sold to shops, they didn't know how to integrate their stock keeping. I would have taken on the job if I wasn't already busy.
In all honestly, for many people they are better off with a SaaS shop, it will do everything they want a better and more affordable then they will have the capacity to host, and if integrated well customers would be none the wiser. If the business is putting froward enough investment (or has the time an expertise), then it makes sense to do it themselves.
Also as like you say the average software isn't that great,with investment, hand-rolled solutions may be better in this case, becuase selling is an art and requires refinement.
grep is your friend.
So true. From time to time I'm asked to look at a shop based on Shopware and getting community support is like a playing lottery: most of the time you get no return at all and if you get something, it is not worth the time that you invested.
LoL for the (un)intentional pun.
I used Django for my last full time gig. Pretty nice.
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No one has gotten it perfect. Personally for a small shop, it seems like Shopify is a great fit (SaaS). Prestashop is also pretty good. Magento 2, the new version of Magento is something I am looking forward to see. I also had the benefit to work on an enterprise solution, and work closely with the Magento team and partners, so I may be a bit biased in that way. It's not a solution for a small store. I was working on something with Millions of skews and dollars
When you have the resource, it's a great solution 
If you have time and some skill cartridge is great platform for rolling you own on top of django+mezzanine
Perfect for boutiques, who want a full integrated systems.
grep is your friend.
Thanks for the contribution @Adrian, this looks very interesting!
Is the JS connect plugin for Magento bi-directional and transparent for users or how does it work exactly?
Also, is there a demo install somewhere?
@rank It's magneto to vanilla, so not bi-directional. There is no public demo at the moment-- but maybe someone here has it working publicly