I tried searching for it here, but, well, anyways…
We just went live with a new website for our store, it’s running Aspdotnet. Can anyone recommend a good book to help me get the hang of it. We do have a webmaster, he did all of the setup for the site. Also, since the company that did the setup is also hosting it we get pretty much all the free help we need (we would get charged for something major. For example, if I wanted to add an item, or needed help setting up a discount code, they’ll do that, but if call them up and tell them we just brought in a new line of products and need all 800 of them online, we’d get charged). Either way, I’d like to be doing most of the work myself. I’m kinda getting the hang of it, but it’s pretty overwhelming right now and I need a book that will help me learn the ins and outs of this new beast.
ASP.NET is a generic programming language. The relationship of ASP to your product management software is a similar relationship from wood and plumbing fixtures to a house. It’s not a quick and easy task to learn the former, let alone taking apart the product (the house) to figure out how it works, unless you have experience in other languages.
More importantly, though, I’d venture to guess that ASP.NET is irrelevant to what you want to do. Your product data is nearly guaranteed to be sitting in a database. So what you want to learn would most likely be SQL and the intricacies of the database system being used (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, etc.) and what all admin apps it has.
Do you have an idea of how the site is set up? Most e-commerce sites are (or should be) built on a database and have some sort of form-based admin area where you can add/edit products and settings, and then a separate area that is the public-facing Web site.
ASP.NET is really overkill for a site that is literally a bunch of pages linked together, so learning how to go in to ASP.NET code and add a product by changing some code would be pretty useless, because that’s not how the pages are set up to work anyway.
If your site is set up using .net but it’s just a bunch of pages then that’s a crappy way to set up a Web site and you got hosed.
But, hopefully, that’s not how it’s set up at all. If you want to change the look of something on your site (say, a static graphic) then you pretty much just need to learn how to use Visual Studio .NET to change HTML. You’ll need to know how to connect to the Web site project and publish the changes.
If you want to change how the site works, then you need to know .net coding and, frankly, if you paid someone else to be in charge of how the site works than it’s not really a good idea for an amateur to poke around in there just to see what’s going on because you can and will break something.
If you post a link to your site, some of us can look it over and maybe give you an idea of how we think it’s set up and what kinds of things you would need to know to edit the site. We can at least tell you if it’s database-driven or just a bunch of pages slapped together.
Okay, you’re right, I thought the web based GUI I was using was aspdotnet. I think what I’m working with is a web based program called aspdotnetstorefront ML 7.xx (not sure the exact version number off the top of my head). That’s what I’m looking for a book on.
If it helps, I did ALOT of BASIC and Assembly in high school and just barely touched a little bit of C and even less PASCAL. (I wouldn’t even recognize the last two anymore). I’ve never dabbled, not even a little bit in anything web based (HTML, Java, Flash), but I’m sure I can learn, given that I have done it programming in the past, and was generally pretty decent at it, so if I have to do a little bit of it, I’m fine with that. But, the way the web based interface works, it doesn’t seem like that’s really going to be needed all that much. I can get around, I’ve made a few minor changes (mostly spelling), but I could use a book to tutor me a bit, at least until I’m more confident.
ETA, Sagerat, during our converstaions, there were certain things that when I asked about, he mentioned something about having to change it in SQL. I’ve never done anything in SQL, frankly, don’t even know what it is exactly (a programming language, right?), but I’m happy to learn if that’s what it means to keep my site up to date and working.
It’s not quite a programming language. It’s a standardised way of saying what data you want a program to go fetch/insert like, “Get me everything that starts with a ‘W’”. It’s a single statement which can be quite complex, but doesn’t go on to further statements.*
Frankly I don’t know that anyone outside of AspDotNetStoreFront (which is a stupid name that I want to slay) will know exactly what all technology is part of the overall package or, more importantly, what you would need to learn to do what you want. That there’s no way to personally modify what’s in your product list seems wrong. A professional product should have an admin page of some sort that lets you do this on your own. You should verify that there is no such thing first of all. It’s entirely possible that you just missed that it is there or forgot to install it or somesuch.
Either way, the best way to know what the shortest path to doing it yourself is, is to call them and ask.
If they tell you you’re going to have to modify the codebase, you should be forewarned that learning enough to make your own apps, figuring out how theirs works (which is unlikely to be a small or simple package), and modifying it could be anything from a 6 month to 18 month project.
Most databases have an internal programming language which lets you link a bunch of SQL queries and more standard code into a program.
I think we had a communications break down somewhere. I have complete access to the back side of this website. There’s an admin page, it brings you to a sort of GUI to make all the changes, and from what I can tell, you can go a bit ‘deeper’ and access what essentially is like a windows registry (that might be the SQL part of it). They gave me a quick training session, but with only an hour or so they really only had time to gloss over alot of things and not even go to deep into the stuff I need to know. I’m managing to find my way around, I just want to get a bit more comfortable with it all.
My point was that it’s unlikely that you can’t modify your product list, promotions, etc. via the admin page. If you don’t understand the method to do this via the admin pages, that’s an entirely different issue from learning ASP or SQL. You should verify that you can’t do what you want there before mucking around in arcane activities that are unlikely to produce any results in reasonable time scales.
Ahh. Yes, I can make modifications to products, add/delete/pricing/discounts etc etc etc. I can change anything I want on the page. I’m just looking for…wait, I think I know what you’re getting at. I think you’re under the impression that since I’m asking how to do it, I must not have access. No, I have access, it’s just that the admin page kinda gives me sensory overload. It be like if someone put you in a car for the very first time and said “this pedal makes you go, this pedal makes you stop, the big round thing makes the car turn” I’ve got that part, I know where (most of) the buttons are. But if that person said, “Hey can you go downtown and buy me some milk now” you might need a little help.
So, I’ve got the basics, the very very basics, of how to work the admin page, I’m just looking for a tutorial or a ____ For Dummies book to get me going.
Here’s a perfect example. I set a discount table for one of my products. When I go to that page, the page says “This product has a multiple item discount” when you mouseover that phrase, the discount pops up. The problem is, it pops up over a bunch of other (pre programmed text). I’d like to make the discounts just be there (it’s odd that you have to mouse over to see it) OR, I need to find a way to make the other text be down a bit further. I’m quite sure there’s a setting (ooh, I might have just thought of what it is) to do one or probably both of these things, I’m just not sure what it is. (I’m not looking for a solution to this, I’m just using it as an example)
I doubt your software package (AspDotNetStoreFront) is popular enough to have a Dummies book. If they have a manual, that’s probably the end of all the documentation you’re going to find in the world.
That said, I understand what you mean now. I was still thinking you wanted to learn ASP.NET (programming language) not AspDotNetStoreFront (some application with a stupid name.) You might try restarting this thread using the proper name and see if anyone knows. I’ve never heard of it, so I can’t help.
Perhaps ask a mod to change the title and OP to reflect the proper name.
I get it now. To go back to my car example, I guess what I was doing was asking for help with gasoline engine, not realizing that gasoline engines power LOTS of things, I was specifically looking for help with the “car” interface. I guess that’s why all the ‘asp.net’ books were for version 3.xx, when the storefront was 7.xx.
There’s an online manual, and a forum, so I’ll just work with those for now.
Sorry I took a bit to get back to you. Sage Rat has it right, though.
AspDotNetStoreFront is just a pre-made ecommerce web application that is built using ASP.NET technology. Your Web site was set up using this software, as was a lot of other people’s Web sites.
It’s not a particularly popular software - I’ve never heard of it. And the only thing it has to do with those ASP.NET books you see in the store is that it was written using the ASP.NET platform and given a craptacular name of “AspDotNetStoreFront.”
Do not look for books about it, because there are none. There are loads of books about ASP.NET but none of them will be about your storefront. You want to look at whatever documentation is available on the Web site for the software, and whatever help you can get from the company that wrote it and sold it to you.
But, I think you’ve got it all straightened out here anyway…
I think we had a communications break down somewhere. I have complete access to the back side of this website. There’s an admin page, it brings you to a sort of GUI to make all the changes, and from what I can tell, you can go a bit ‘deeper’ and access what essentially is like a windows registry (that might be the SQL part of it). They gave me a quick training session, but with only an hour or so they really only had time to gloss over alot of things and not even go to deep into the stuff I need to know. I’m managing to find my way around, I just want to get a bit more comfortable with it all.