I have used Prestashop as my e-commerce platform of choice for around 2 years now, and over this time I’ve created several complete stores, a number of custom modules and core changes all while tearing my hair out because of a lack of documentation.
This has long been a problem, and although Prestashop has come a long way in terms of its MVC pattern, overrides, Smarty 3 etc, clear documentation about Prestashop’s API has not just been lacking, its been absent.
I’ve also noticed a growing number of community members becoming more and more disgruntled that complete, and useful documentation is hard to find.
My proposal
I propose to create a clear and concise website featuring API Documentation, tutorials and news for the Prestashop open-source e-commerce platform that the community can use as an aid while developing.
Features
I will update each feature as we introduce or disregard new ideas.
- API Documentation
- Controllers
- Classes
- Smarty
- Templates/Themes (and the variables available to each file)
- Tutorials (including those submitted by the community)
- Text articles
- Video tutorials
- News / Updates / Blog
- Stack overflow style questions/answers (?)
- User accounts
- Commenting
- Content submission / editing
- Multiple languages
- Retain support for earlier versions as new releases become available.
Vitals
Name: PrestaDB
Domain: http://www.prestadb.com/ (registered, hosted, primed and ready).
Platform: CakePHP
The website will be fairly large, with many inter-linking features I’ve decided to step away from trying to shoehorn it into a framework such as WordPress, Drupal or MODx and instead decided to use the project as an opportunity to create a live website using CakePHP.
Note: It’s also my intention to keep an ongoing journal on the website’s development. I believe that by putting my thoughts into writing I will be able to plan this project much more efficiently, as well as perhaps gaining the support of the Prestashop community along the way.
This post is the first in a series of posts on this project, I will update each post as we introduce or disregard new ideas.
Collaboration
I am very interested to hear your thoughts and ideas on this proposal. Please use the comments form below if you have any suggestions or questions!