[ic] Shopping cart

[d davenport]

> From: Mark Whitford
> Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 11:29 PM
> To: interchange-users at icdevgroup.org
> Subject: [ic] Shopping cart

> 1.  I am in the process of reviewing ecommerce software. I am selling
> personalized gifts which requires the customer to enter text as to
> how they want the item personalized. Does your software allow the
> option of using an "Text Input" in product options?

Out of the box, I haven't seen that capability.  IC is meant to be a 
starting-out point -- there's a catalog (IC site) included with IC, that's 
designed to be useful for most stores.  But the software's biggest strength 
(and occasionally weakness) is that it's designed to be extended to fill 
just about any need.  If you're doing something custom, you can...but that 
means learning ITL and Perl.

> 2.  I am researching other software, because my site was recently hacked. 
> How safe is your product?

The docs used to spell out that IC was not guaranteed to be easy to use, 
secure, bug free, etc.  It tries to be, but its power (along with its 
ability, rather *need*, to be extended) gives slightly-but-not-really 
knowledgeable people the ability to royally screw themselves.  If you don't 
know what you're doing, or even worse if you know a little (but not a lot) 
about programming it, you'll have problems.  If you go the IC route, it's 
not an install-it-and-done thing.  IC is a base that you build on -- a 
"foundation", if you will -- not the building in itself.  If security is an 
issue, you'll want to either play around with IC (and learn its quirks and 
gotchas) before you build a live e-commerce site with it, or hire someone 
who already knows.

> 3.  Is there a support forum?

AFAIK there's no official forum.  This mailing list tends to serve that 
purpose.  The creators of IC read it, so it's about as good as talking to 
them.  There was talk about forums and newsgroups and such ages ago, but 
most people decided they didn't want it.)

There is documentation at http://icdevgroup.org, and this and a couple other 
mailing lists available.

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