There are still spammers looking for web pages with such forms as dashCommerce's Contact Us region to overload your system with emails and/or messages stored in a database. This is why CAPTCHA has been invented!

Unfortunately, dashCommerce v3.2 release 395 is missing such a feature that could stop spammers from using a dashCommerce site to "buzz" it's administrator with messages. Fortunately, Ajax Control Toolkit comes with a nice, easy to use CAPTCHA control. Below one can see what needs to be added in "ContactUs.ascx" control in project "Web", folder "Controls/Content" (just add the line shown in blue background):

For the past 3 months we have worked on several improvements and additions to dashCommerce 3.01 in order to adapt it for use in European environment, but some of them are more general and not related to the specific European environment. All changes and additions have been noted in a document that can be downloaded from the links below as well as our source code.

Some of the most notable changes or additions are:

• Database installer: allows for database schema and content setup without changing DB connection settings in web.config.
• 2 specialized controls: LocalLabel and HelpHyperlink
• Null payment provider: it allows for deferred (offline) payment by proposing an extension method (IsDeferred()) "attached" to the payments enumeration. This method "signals" which payment is a deferred (offline) one and which is an online one.
• VAT tax provider: it is the European tax provider.
• 2CheckOut payment provider: a payment provider for using 2CheckOut gateway. Unfortunately it is incomplete and not tested yet.
• Bugs emphasized in chapter 6.
• Localization of enumerations. This is an important issue! In chapter 8 one can find a proposal for localizing enumerations by providing an extension method, an attribute (DescriptionLocoAttribute) and a new resource file 'enumerations.resx". Also a specialized DropDown list control is provided to list localized descriptions of the values of an enumeration.
• Globalization issue: proposed separation of UI culture from data culture. In the European environment one needs to have the GUI in one language but currency in a different culture since not all European countries have yet adopted the Euro as currency.
• Virtual products. This issue is not completely developed. One can see a proposal for a new property for products (IsVirtual) which allows for treating different this type of products expecially when it comes to stock information.

We hope most of our work will be included in the next version of dashCommerce so that we don't have to provide a separate branch for European version.

NOTE: Some of the additions/improvements are based on others proposals and/or discussions in the dashCommerce forum.

dashCommerce_extensions.doc (430.50 kb)

dashCommerce_v3.01_EU.zip (12.00 mb)

Very often we need to have localized labels in our web pages (there are lots of them). The problem is that in each page or user control (ascx) in the code behind we have to add code similar to this:

LocalizationUtility.AddLabelText(lblCurrency);

LocalizationUtility.AddHoverHelp(hlCurrencyHelp);

The localized text of these controls (label and hyperlink) is fetched in the load event based on the control’s ID. It would make the developer’s life much easier if we had specialized controls for such labels and hyperlinks:

<%@ Register Assembly="dashCommerce.ServerControls" TagPrefix="dash" Namespace="MettleSystems.dashCommerce.ServerControls" %>

<dash:LocalLabel ID="lblLanguage" runat="server" CssClass="label" AssociatedControlID="ddlLanguage" />

<dash:HelpHyperLink ID="hlLanguageHelp" runat="server" NavigateUrl="javascript:void(0);">

   <asp:Image ID="Image1" runat="server" SkinID="help" /></dash:HelpHyperLink> 

Thus, the code behind for loading the localized text disappears and one doesn’t have to remember to write it every time a new such control is added to the page. All one has to do is add the text in the Labels.resx or to Help.resx resource files.

The source code of these little but very helpful controls is below. Hope they will be adopted by the development team at dashCommerce.

ServerControls.zip (755.71 kb)

Very often we need to setup the initial database content of dashCommerce and we already have setup the connection string (most of the times with integrated security). We need to have a check box in the database parameters connection string wizard to bypass these settings as in the picture below.

The /install folder contains all the necessary components but one of them must be changed to provide such feature. The component we need to change is database.ascx.

This component is in charge for gathering the connection string parameters. But in case of having already configured a connection string we need to have this option in the form. We need to ad a check box to disable the collection of usual parameters of the connection string.

The modified files can be downloaded from the link below.  They should be copied to "web" project, /install/controls folder.

dashComm_install_database.ascx.zip (5,04 kb)

Hope this little improvement will be included in the next release of dashCommerce.