Customizing Konakart Admin

[kastor]

Hi All,

Is there an easy way to change the konakartadmin messages? I cannot see i18n properties files in the webapp, like in konakart app, and I want to translate messages...


Thanks,

Kastor!

[john]

Hi Rambo 

Very good timing on this...   Development is already underway to provide a friendly way to internationalise the Admin App.  (Currently, in version 2.2.0.4, there is no easy way to do this).

This will be available in the next release (about 2 or 3 weeks off I expect).

It'll be a case of translating a message catalog in a properties file - just like you've seen for the main application.

Indeed, when you have translated the message catalog we would be grateful if you could share it as a contribution for others to use.   You can add such things to the Contributions section on this forum.

Regards,
John

[kastor]

Thanks, John,

but any hint for 2.2.0.4 version?

By the moment, I have posted in contributions the spanish Messages_es.properties file.

Lots of luck with new version!!

Regards,

Kastor!

[john]

Hi Kastor,

Whilst it's quite horrible to do you can actually edit the huge javascript files of the Admin App.

You'll find them under /webapps/konakartadmin.    There are about 5 large html files wih generated names - they're easy to spot because they're the largest files in that directory.

Inside these you will find 'strings' that you can change... but do so with care not to change the wrong things, of course!!   I'd advise you to tread carefully and do a little bit at a time and keep checking that it's all still working.

A Chinese guy used this technique to create a Chinese version of the Admin App.

Not exactly easy to do and could be something that you might throw away when the next release comes out....  but there is a way to do it if you really need it now!!!

We'll be interested if you manage to do this and get a Spanish version of the Admin App.


Oh yes, thanks for contributing your spanish translation of the KonaKart message catalog.  I'm sure that will save a lot of people a great deal of time.

Regards,
John   

[costis]

Thank you John!
It's a great piece of software you've made!

These 5 files seem to be obfuscated and looks like each one is for a different browser, so the changes there have to be
made 5 times.... poor Chinese programmer 

Now, i want to create two levels of administrators. The high-level should have access to all configuration options,
meaning that she can access the entire menu, and the low-level administrator should only be allowed to add categories
and items.

Do i also have to modify the obfuscated javascript 5 times ending-up with 10 obfuscated javascript files, in order to do that, or is there a better way around?

Thank you
greetings
Costis

[john]

Hi Costis,

It's a great piece of software you've made!

:-) glad you like it.

These 5 files seem to be obfuscated and looks like each one is for a different browser, so the changes there have to be
made 5 times.... poor Chinese programmer   

You're right there.  This is what GWT generates.  I think it's a great tool however, providing an easy way to produce AJAX applications that are portable across the popular browsers.  No-one wants to write complex javascript for different browser quirks...

Now, i want to create two levels of administrators. The high-level should have access to all configuration options,
meaning that she can access the entire menu, and the low-level administrator should only be allowed to add categories
and items.

Do i also have to modify the obfuscated javascript 5 times, in order to do that, or is there a better way?

I have some good news for you!   

In final testing at the moment is a very flexible system for defining role-based security in the Admin App.   You can define roles that specify access levels (Insert, edit, delete etc) for each panel, then assign these roles to users.  I'm sure it will solve your requirement (and plenty more besides). 

We wouldn't want anyone to have to edit those huge javascript files :-)

The role-based security is just one of a collection of new features for the next release of KonaKart - the 2.2.0.7 release.

We anticipate making the new release available within two weeks.

When the new release is available we will send notification to everyone registered for the newsletter on this forum.

Regards,
John

[costis]

Hello John

Thank you very much for this quick response!

This is very good news! I'm looking forward to see the new version!
Roles seem important in order to be able address larger customers.

I do have one more question....

One wants to support a site that contains a community of shops. These shops are independent of each other, so each one can have its own database. Still, it would promote the entire community if a customer would be able to register once and use the same login and password in order to buy from any of the other shops, without having to re-register.

A workaround would probably be a database-trigger that updates the other shop customer-tables once a customer has registered.

Have you ever considered such a scenario?

Regards
Costis

[john]

Hi Costis,

Your requirement to automatically register on multiple shops is an interesting one.

Your idea of the database trigger sounds like a good idea and could be configured to handle the updates as well - if, for example, the user changes his address details after he's registered.

Another possibility is to use our APIs.   On registration you could call the registerCustomer function on each of the shops in the community.  You would have to use the SOAP API to jump out of the current JVM but this would be easy enough to do.    You would have to replicate the customer details updates in a similar fashion.

It sounds like you have an interesting project there.  We'd be extremely interested to hear any details that you can share on the project as we're keen to hear how people are using KonaKart in many different ways.

Regards,
John

[costis]

Hi Costis,

Your requirement to automatically register on multiple shops is an interesting one.

It sounds like you have an interesting project there.  We'd be extremely interested to hear any details that you can share on the project as we're keen to hear how people are using KonaKart in many different ways.

Regards,
John

Hello John,
the roles-version came on-time for our project! Great timing! It's getting better all the time!
We finally went for your API suggestion on the previous Q. Thanx!

Since we are about to kick it off now, Q1: i read somewhere in this forum that you suggest to install around 40 shops
on a 2 Gig RAM dual core-PC. Is there any set-up one could do in order to increase the number without compromising performance? 

and Q2: How do we install all 40 shops with their admin-applications? Could we do it under a common Tomcat server, or do we have to install 40 times KonaKart with the built-in Tomcat instance, as is, from the installation script?


Thank you! Greetings!
Costis

[heidi]

Hello Costis,

Good news that you seem to be getting along so well with your project!  We'd be very interested to hear more details of what you are building...  is it some kind of shopping mall with KonaKart shops?   Please send a link, it sounds fascinating 

To your questions...

Since we are about to kick it off now, Q1: i read somewhere in this forum that you suggest to install around 40 shops on a 2 Gig RAM dual core-PC. Is there any set-up one could do in order to increase the number without compromising performance?

You could split the shops over more tomcats either on the same machine or across multiple machines.  The set-up is quite flexible being a standard J2EE application so the best route might well be to try out a few configurations and measure the performance for yourself.

and Q2: How do we install all 40 shops with their admin-applications? Could we do it under a common Tomcat server, or do we have to install 40 times KonaKart with the built-in Tomcat instance, as is, from the installation script?

I would write a little script that automates this process. (We don't provide a script for this although we do provide consultancy in such areas).  I'd install one KonaKart + Admin + tomcat in the normal way - then duplicate the konakart and konakartadmin webapps as many times as you need and finally configure the duplicated webapps as required.
You might choose to deploy all the Admin Apps to some other server to maximise the resources available to the konakart webapps (you might then need to allow for some small problems such as not being able to see the same file system for image uploads etc... but you can work around these problems in various ways).  You may also find that running the Admin Apps on an internal server behind the firewall provides better security.   There are lots of options..

Good luck!
Heidi

[costis]

thank you very much Heidi for your very quick response!
i will post the URLn when we are ready....

[costis]

Hello heidi!
i am trying to set up two konakarts, that should work together on the same machine. i do get the following error,
when i try to start the second konakart-server. Which is the optimal place to change the 8443 port into something else
like i.e. 8444, so there is no conflict with the first Coyote instance?
do you think of anything else? (This was on an XP machine)
Thank you in advance!
Costis

Dec 12, 2007 2:32:22 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol init
INFO: Initializing Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8785
Dec 12, 2007 2:32:23 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol init
SEVERE: Error initializing endpoint
java.net.BindException: Address already in use: JVM_Bind:8443
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.initEndpoint(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:297)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol.init(Http11BaseProtocol.java:138)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.Connector.initialize(Connector.java:1016)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.initialize(StandardService.java:580)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.initialize(StandardServer.java:791)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:503)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:523)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.load(Bootstrap.java:266)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:431)
Dec 12, 2007 2:32:23 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
SEVERE: Catalina.start
LifecycleException:  Protocol handler initialization failed: java.net.BindException: Address already in use: JVM_Bind:8443

[heidi]

Hello Costis,

You'll have to change that in conf/server.xml in one of your tomcats.

Heidi

[costis]

Hello Heidi!!

You're right again!!  Thank you!!

I got the two stores running this way without interferences and port conflicts now!

So in order to automate the store creation process somehow, i imply that i should JAXB a server.xml with the
right port numbers out and pray that the next KonaKart version will not be much different in this area in order to
upgrade....

We got:

• non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector port


• SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector port


• AJP 1.3 Connector port + redirect

Am i missing anything?

greetings
Costis

[heidi]

Hello Costis,

Good progress!

I would create a little script that replaces those key port numbers in the server.xml.  This should continue to work in future versions.

For upgrades, normally you would run the datbase upgrade scripts, then replace the webapps from your old version to the new one, then re-apply your file-based property settings in each webapp.  It would be unusual for the server.xml to change so you should be OK there.

Heidi