Stephen (Steve) Withington - eCommerce

Launched ColdFusion + Mura CMS Powered Site for Mitchell Swaback Charities

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:41:00 -0700

Every once in awhile, I'm fortunate enough to be involved in projects that truly "make a difference." This, for me, is one of those projects.

Mitchell Swaback Charities, formerly known as The Mitchell Swaback Foundation, launched their new web site at www.mitchellswabackcharities.org. Mitchell Swaback Charities was started in 2004 by family and friends of Mitchell Swaback after he suffered from a fatal accident on August 14, 2004. They wanted to continue Mitch's "compassion to serve in missions, the church and to honor God in the way Mitch did on a daily basis." For over five years now, they have been busy fulfilling their mission through a variety of projects and events that continue to impact people throughout the world.

The site is powered by Adobe® ColdFusion® and Microsoft® SQL Server with online content management provided via Mura CMS. I was able to fully integrate Jaci M.'s completely custom "bloggishy" design into Mura CMS without a hitch. I leveraged a number of class extensions and custom display objects in Mura CMS to pull everything together.

I was even able to pull in my cfMediaPlayer project from RIAForge to allow the client to upload and display video quickly and easily. Luckily, Amazon added streaming capabilities to CloudFront just in time for me to allow our client to stream their video as well.

Along with a typical "donate online" feature, the client had a few unique needs such as the ability to "flag" nearly any project as "supportable" which would then allow a visitor to direct their donation amount(s) towards that particular project. Other custom e-commerce applications included a "charity event participant sponsorship" application and a complete "golf outing sponsorship and registration" application.

I truly felt privileged to be a part of this project and hope that my work further enables MSC to continue thriving and growing in their mission to "Advance the Kingdom of Christ by Reaching Out to Others." Congratulations and thank you to everyone at Mitchell Swaback Charities.

Designer: Jaci M. | Developer: Stephen Withington | Content Management System: Mura CMS

Launched ColdFusion + Mura CMS Powered Site for Rockford Linear Motion

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:57:00 -0700

Rockford Linear Motion, a subsidiary of Rockford Ball Screw, has just launched their first ever online presence at www.rockfordlinearmotion.com. The site is powered by Adobe® ColdFusion® and Microsoft® SQL Server with content being managed by Mura CMS, a comprehensive web-based content management system. Rockford Linear Motion offers a fully customizable lineup of linear guide rail systems, products and services.

This was my first "commercial" web site constructed to be managed by Mura CMS. I was able to take our designer's (Greg L.) completely customized design from Adobe® Illustrator® + Photoshop® to CSS + XHTML and then fully integrate this design with Mura. I was also able to leverage and extend much of Mura's functionality to achieve the final result.

At the client's request, we also integrated the custom design with two other third-party vendors including Catalog Data Solutions and Network Solutions CommerceSpace™. Needless to say, I learned quite a bit about working with each of these vendors and look forward to working with them again.

Amazingly, we were able to launch the site within three (3) weeks of receiving the final design files for the site. As anyone who builds web sites would testify, this short of a timeframe is definitely not the norm. However, by utilizing Mura CMS and ColdFusion, we were able to get the job done in record time.

Congratulations to the folks at Rockford Linear Motion! Also, a huge thanks to each person who assisted me in keeping this project moving at light speed.

Designer: Greg L. | Developer: Stephen Withington | Content Management System: Mura CMS

Another ColdFusion Site is Launched for Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:44:00 -0700

Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center's web site has officially been redesigned and re-launched. The Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center "provides quality music for people of the Rockford area through live performances by local and world renowned artists."

Using the power of Adobe® ColdFusion® along with CSS, XHTML and Microsoft® SQL Server, I was able to bring Jaci M.'s sophisticated design to life.

The site features a fully integrated secure shopping cart with payment processing via PayPal. The "all-in-one" customized cart solution accommodates tickets, subscriptions and dues. The site also features a comprehensive back-end to allow for easy maintenance of concerts, venues, subscription packages, performing artist dues and more.

Designer: Jaci M. | Developer: Stephen Withington

Looking to Integrate Your ColdFusion eCommerce Application With PayPal?

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:21:00 -0700

If you develop any ColdFusion eCommerce applications, you will eventually run into a client who prefers to use PayPal™ or would like to offer PayPal as a payment option. I thought it might be useful to offer a few helpful insights and links.

If you haven't already done so, you'll need to build your shopping cart application

If you need to build one yourself and don't know where to start, I recommend checking out the CFWACK (ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit) Volume 1: Getting Started at Chapter 22 'Online Commerce'

This is where you'll get your credentials to test API's
You'll need new credentials before going live which would be generated by the actual client's account.

Have the client log in to their PayPal account and then:
- Under 'My Account', select 'Profile'
- Under 'Account Information', select 'API Access'

Set up some Test Accounts in PayPal's Sandbox test environment

You'll need at least one Personal and one Business test account
- This is very easy, and I'm not sure why it doesn't just pre-populate with this information

Visit the PayPal Integration Center

Here you'll select which integration method to utilize
By the way, if you're going with Express Checkout and you're using ASP, .NET, PHP, JSP, or Java SDK, you've got to see their new Integration Wizard which generates the code for you. It's pretty slick. Wish they had one for ColdFusion though.

Now that you've traversed some of the areas of PayPal, here's the golden nugget ... visit the downloads area of the PayPal Developer Center. There you'll find a .zip file that contains working sample code (in ColdFusion!) for most implementations which covers Website Payments Pro and the ever-popular Express Checkout.

Hopefully this helps get you started in the right direction for your next PayPal integration with your ColdFusion eCommerce application.