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Project CubeCart  (Patch Work)

Objective:

Community Feedback :: To provide a central resource of locally developed patches and modifications that have been authored to correct or enhance components of CubeCart - the open source, web-based, e-commerce software.

Project output should include a collective of PHP and Shell (bash) code as either whole programs or patches for existing CubeCart components. Any necessary supporting (usage) documentation will be supplied within the respective program code.

Description:

CubeCart is a popular (one million installs) open source e-commerce solution, based on PHP and MySQL. It is one of a growing number of open source e-commerce solutions, though CubeCart itself is available both as a free-to-download program and as a commercially supported product.

CubeCart's user-base appears to be largely consistent of people whom you might consider to be a typical small business owner; hard working, constrained to a shoe-string budget and consequently forced to do all of their own leg-work and most of their own technical work. In this regard, CubeCart is a solid application - it provides a comprehensive feature set and a fairly well thought-out admin interface. And recently (as at CubeCart version 3.0.13), the project made solid in-roads into some of its security issues, too.

Where CubeCart lets its users down is at the edges. CubeCart provides a core/common feature set, and relies on a community of "mod" (modification) providers to offer non-core features. Some of the more popular mods include the Search Engine Friendly (SEF) mod, the Show Prices Inclusive (of Tax) mod, and regional postage provider costing mods. Unfortunately, as there is no "mod" API, modifications are literally patches that end-users are required to apply, by hand, directly to the downloaded CubeCart PHP source code. Worse still, many mods are simple changes aimed at the core software and neither recognised as a core feature, nor provided as a stand-alone offering. The most common repository for these mods are the independent forums run via the two CubeCart sites, which have lost key information, and even whole threads, on occasion.

The following code has been authored for use in CubeCart versions 3.0.13 - 3.0.15 (and probably beyond).


The current set of whole or unique functions are;

- cron_action :: a single shell (bash) script that utilises curl to allow routine site administration functions to be performed automatically (such as daily currency updates). This type of script hasn't been contributed by the CubeCart community because it requires an understanding of session based authentication.

- stock_level_alert :: a single PHP script that will walk the CubeCart database and check to see if any stocked products have dropped below a minimum preset in-stock level, and send an email alert to the shop administrator if they have (can be automatically scheduled using cron_action)

- stock_level_prodopts_alert :: a single PHP script that will perform exactly as the stock_level_alert script, but for CubeCart administrators who have purchased and installed Estelle's product_options mod (can be automatically scheduled using cron_action)


The current set of modifications to existing functions are;

- complete_word_search :: a modification that limits the CubeCart search function such that it searches for whole words only, as opposed to the default action of searching for anything in anything (i.e. a search for "red" returned "credit")

- search_engine_friendly :: a modification that corrects a bug in the SEF mod when constructing meta data descriptions (per the sefMetaDesc function)



Code:

The following code (source, binaries, patches, etc) have been developed or mirrored for this project;

Links:

The following links have been identified as relevant to this project;

Activity:

This project was initiated on Sunday, the 28th of January 2007. Its last recorded activity stamp is Sunday, the 28th of January 2007.