As always, my thanks to those interested in my work!

Many generous readers have provided their ideas and feedback in a forum thread and an earlier blog post. I’ve taken all of those opinions, plus my own thoughts, to come up with this first draft. The content (in terms of what I’m going to write about) is maybe 90% settled and the order of the chapters is about that, too. Many of the specifics, especially when it comes to chapter and section headings will most likely change. Hopefully it should be clear from the table of contents what the intentions are, but just in case…

The book is broken down into four parts. In the first part, which is just two chapters long, I talk about the fundamentals that will apply to any e-commerce project you take on. This starts with planning, choosing a host, development tools, etc. Security as a theory gets its own chapter and security will be hammered in throughout the entire book. But that security chapter covers the bigger picture and some gritty details with respect to choices that have big impacts (such as hosting).

In the second part of the book, I’ll walk through a complete e-commerce project, from HTML and database design to user management to handling payments through PayPal. There are three points to this first example:

1. Understanding the basics in terms of design and the development process
2. Knowing how to perform user management and access control
3. Handling payments with a simple gateway like PayPal

This e-commerce project would be digital/virtual content. The specific example would be a subscription access to the site (like what ConsumerReports.org does) but it could also be PDFs that you sell or licenses for software or whatever. Anything that doesn’t have a limited quantity to be sold or that needs to be shipped. I’ll be using PayPal because it’s far and away the most common payment system, even if not everyone likes it. Google’s payment gateway would be comparable.

In the third part of the book, I’ll cover a second complete e-commerce project. This one will be a lot more complicated, with the focus on:

• Creating a product catalog
• Creating a shopping cart
• A multi-step checkout process, including shipping
• A credit card payment gateway
• Order and catalog administration

This example wouldn’t specifically require user registration and logging in, but you could take the information taught in the second part to enable that feature here. I’ll try to make the thing being sold reasonably diverse (a range of products, not just a single thing).

The fourth part of the book will be add-ons and improvements. This is also the “if I have the space” section, which is to say that I’ll write about as much of this extra stuff as I have the available pages. I’ve organized these chapters in terms of most universally useful, starting with a search engine and then going into marketing. There’s a lot of possible topics in the marketing section, from SEO, to product recommendations and reviews, to analytics. Next up is a chapter on using Ajax to improve the user experience. There should be room for those three chapters in the printed edition of the book.

The final three chapters, in this rough table of contents, are definitely “if there’s space”. If not, I’ll write about them in this blog. Instead of offering entirely new concepts, the last three chapters would be alternative ways to do things you’ve already seen to that point: expanding the depth of the content, not its breadth. First up would be other gateways, as that’s a vital part of the process and there are many good options out there. Next would be a chapter on Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), in which I rewrite some of the book’s code using OOP. Many people really want to see OOP in the book, many absolutely don’t, so as a middle ground my theory is to add an OOP chapter that translates procedural code in an understandable way. The final chapter, which I’ll admit there probably won’t be room for, would present alternative database schemas for other kinds of e-commerce applications.

All that being said, here’s the current rough table of contents. I welcome all comments, questions, and thoughts!

• Introduction

———————

Part 1: Fundamentals

• Chapter 1: Getting Started
  • Identifying Your Business Goals
  • Legal/Business Issues
  • Choosing Web Technologies
  • Getting a Host
  • Development Tools
  • The Development Process
• Chapter 2: Security Fundamentals
  • Hosting Implications
  • Payment Considerations
  • Secure Transactions
  • Protecting Information

———————


Part 2: The Digital Content Example (Rename)

• Chapter 3: Site Structure and Design
  • HTML
  • Server Organization
  • Database Design
• Chapter 4: Handling Payments with PayPal
• Chapter 5: User Management
  • Registration
  • Login
  • Access Control
  • Updating Accounts

———————


Part 3: The Physical Content Example (Rename)

• Chapter 6: Site Structure and Design 2
  • HTML
  • Server Organization
  • Database Design
• Chapter 7: Creating a Catalog
  • Browsing by category
  • Highlighting new products
  • Creating Sales and Discounts
• Chapter 8: Starting Orders
  • Creating a Shopping Cart
  • Shopping Cart Managment
  • Shipping
  • Finalizing Purchases
• Chapter 9: Checking Out
  • Credit Card Payment Gateway
  • Storing Orders
  • Email Status/Receipts
  • Checking Order Status Online
• Chapter 10: Administration
  • Authentication
  • Stock Management
  • Reports/Graphs

———————


Part 4: Extra Touches

• Chapter 11: Building a Search Engine
• Chapter 12: Marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Adding Ads
  • Product Recommendations
  • Notify when product is available
  • Reviews
  • Newsletters
  • Customer Help
  • Tracking referrers/Analytics
• Chapter 13: Adding Ajax
  • cart management in sidebar
  • comments/reviews
  • ratings
  • purchasing
• Chapter 14: Alternative Gateways
• Chapter 15: Using OOP
• Chapter 16: Alternative Database Schemas

I’m just about to do two “5 Tips in 5 Days” blog posts for Peachpit’s site. One will be specifically on the Flex 4 framework and the other will be on Flash Builder. Flash Builder, in case you’re not familiar with it, used to be called Flex Builder and is just a commercial IDE for developing using Flex. You don’t have to use Flash Builder as the Flex 4 framework and its SDK are available for free, but it does ease the process significantly. The book does not assume you’re using Flash Builder, either. There are specific instructions for how to create Flex applications using a text editor and the command-line IDE, but there are also areas that cover how you would do X or Y using Flash Builder. Most of the book focuses on the Flex framework, so it doesn’t matter what development tools you’re using.

• Introduction

---

• Part 1: The Fundamentals
  

  ---

• Chapter 1: Building Flex Applications
  • A Survey of the Land
  • Basic MXML
  • Using Flash Builder
  • A Cheaper, Slower Alternative
  • Creating Desktop Applications
  • Getting Help
• Chapter 2: User Interface Basics
  • Things to Know
  • Customizing the Application
  • Simple Controls
  • Controlling the Layout
  • Creating Forms
  • Putting It All Together
• Chapter 3: The ActionScript You Need to Know
  • Data Binding
  • OOP Fundamentals
  • ActionScript and MXML
  • ActionScript Comments
  • Simple Data Types
  • Creating Functions
  • Looking Ahead: the Click Event
  • Control Structures
  • Arrays
  • Loops
  • Manipulating Components
  • Debugging Techniques
• Chapter 4: Event Management
  • Fundamental Concepts
  • Inline Event Handling
  • Functions as Event Handlers
  • System Events
  • User Events
  • Managing Event Handlers with ActionScript
  • Creating a Hash
  • Common Hash Methods

---

• Part 2: Data and Communications
  

  ---

• Chapter 5: Displaying Data
  • Representing Data
  • Providing Data to Components
  • ComboBox and DropDownList Components
  • The List Components
  • The DataGrid Component
  • The AdvancedDataGrid Component
• Chapter 6: Formatting, Rendering, and Validating Data
  • Formatting Data
  • Using Label Functions
  • Item Renderers
  • The DataGroup Component
  • Customizing the AdvancedDataGrid
  • Validating Data
  • Changing the Editor
• Chapter 7: Common Data Formats
  • The Client-Server Relationship
  • Four Data Formats
  • Data Formats in PHP
  • Data Types in ActionScript
  • Debugging
• Chapter 8: Using Simple Services
  • Flash Security Model
  • Setting Up a Local Environment
  • Creating the PHP Scripts
  • Flex Networking Components
  • The HTTPService Component
  • Sending Data to a Server
  • Flash Builder Data Wizards
  • Using the Network Monitor
• Chapter 9: Using Complex Services
  • Connecting to Web Services
  • Setting Up a Local Environment
  • Using RPC
  • Data Management in Flash Builder
  • Paginating Results
  • Creating Value Objects
  • Adding Authentication

---

• Part 3: Application Development
  

  ---

• Chapter 10: Creating Custom Code
  • Simple Custom Components
  • A Wee Bit More OOP
  • Using ActionScript in Components
  • Custom Events
  • Custom Editors
• Chapter 11: Improving the User Experience
  • Establishing Menus
  • Adding Navigation
  • Using View States
  • Adding Deep Linking
  • More on ToolTips
• Chapter 12: Alerts and Popups
  • Working with Alerts
  • Creating Popup Windows
  • Communicating Between Windows
• Chapter 13: Improving the Appearance
  • Creating Graphics
  • Styling Applications
  • Skinning Applications
  • Working with Fonts
  • Using Themes

I believe another excerpt from the book will be published soon, and I’m currently working on two “5 Tips in 5 Days” blog posts for Peachpit’s site. One will be specifically on the Flex 4 framework and the other will be on Flash Builder. Flash Builder, in case you’re not familiar with it, used to be called Flex Builder and is just a commercial IDE for developing using Flex. You don’t have to use Flash Builder as the Flex 4 framework and its SDK are available for free, but it does ease the process significantly. The book does not assume you’re using Flash Builder, either. There are specific instructions for how to create Flex applications using a text editor and the command-line IDE, but there are also areas that cover how you would do X or Y using Flash Builder. Most of the book focuses on the Flex framework, so it doesn’t matter what development tools you’re using.

I believe the book will be published in July. The list price is about $45 (US), but you can normally get books for much cheaper than that. Amazon currently has it at $33.44. You can also read the book as I’m writing it via Safari Books Online.

At that time, Dev-C++ was more or less a standard for beginners (and it was free). I used either version 4 or the beta of version 5 for the book and for years readers seemed to be fine with Dev-C++. Now it seems that either Dev-C++ is no more or just not a good enough option. The Dev-C++ Web site is down, although I don’t know yet if the site is down for good. You can still download Dev-++ from Sourceforge, but it’s the five-year old version.

In searching for good alternatives to Dev-C++ (I don’t use Windows regularly, so couldn’t make a recommend on that myself), I came across a post about why you shouldn’t use Dev-C++. That writer recommended Programmer’s Notepad, Code::Blocks (which also runs on Mac OS X and Linux), and the free edition of Microsoft’s Visual Studio.  I haven’t used any of these, so I can’t personally recommend them, although I have used the full version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio (years ago for C# programming in ASP.NET), and can attest to how good it is as an IDE. In the comments to that post, some readers still say that Dev-C++ is so much easier to learn with than the others, so I wouldn’t rule that out entirely.

Flash Builder is a commercial IDE, based upon the popular Eclipse IDE, that greatly facilitates Flex development. It is available in a 60-day trial and is clearly the best way to learn Flex, in my opinion. But I acknowledge the Flash Builder isn’t cheap. Still, a 60-day trial is more than generous enough to see for yourself if you’re interested in learning Flex.

I’m currently half-way through my book on Flex 4. It’ll probably come out in July; price to be determined. I believe an excerpt of it will be posted on the publisher’s Web site this week (I will post that link once I have it), and the entire book will be readable through Peachpit Press’ Safari Books Online. I’ll post more details about this when I have them.

I’m just about halfway through the first draft. I’m currently in the middle of the second part of the book, which focuses on using data in Flex. My approach in the book is that data is critical to the value of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), so I’m really focusing on the many ways you can create, retrieve, transmit, format, validate, and display data. The next two chapters on the docket will show how to perform client-server interactions, then demonstrate a handful of the most popular and/or best Web services available. I’m still finalizing that list, but Amazon, Google, Yahoo!, Flickr, Twitter, etc. are likely candidates.

My thanks to those of you that have expressed interest in the book and please keep those comments and questions coming. In the meantime, I’ll be writing more of the book!