When thinking of the typical Web application you invariably get the image of an online storefront to sell products online. While e-Commerce is much more than that, variations of Web Stores continue to be amongst the most frequent Web projects that are built.

With the West Wind Web Store application we are providing you with a fully functional online shopping cart system with full C# source code. You can use it as is or customize the code for your specific business environment. Why reinvent the wheel for user tracking and profile management, a flexible shopping cart, built-in support for credit card processing and flexible inventory management?

Even if you don't plan on implementing an online store this application is an excellent example how to build a sophisticated Web application with .Net using business objects and a framework of support tools and services.

The application provides the following features:

• Full featured base e-Commerce Solution
  The Web Store provides a solid base Web Store implementation that is easy to extend and customize for your business needs. Out of the box the store is ready to go for many business scenarios. Our focus was not to build a store that works for every possible business scenario, but rather provide a base implementation that can be easily extended to fit different types of scenarios. The Web Store serves as a base platform to build on top of for more complex solutions.

  The base store installation is set up for software sales with electronic delivery (download confirmations) but it also works equally well with inventory based items.

• Complete easy to use Business Object Framework and Data Access Layer
  The Web Store is based on a light weight and easy to use business object framework. The framework abstracts away much of the Data Access logic needed in the front end by providing high level routines to retrieve and update data without writing SQL code for common operations. The business object layer splits the business layer and the Data Access layer which supports multiple backends (Sql Server/MSDE, FoxPro, MySql, OleDb in general). The high level support for common operations reduce writing of data access drastically.

  In fact around 80% of the business logic in the Web store does not use manual SQL but relies on object relationships and the built in CRUD logic to provide efficient interaction between the front end application and the database backend. The wwBusiness framework still provides full control over data access, uses ADO.Net internally and pushes ADO.Net objects to the front end so databinding and front end code uses familar DataSets, DataTables and DataRows, but it provides a much easier way to retrieve these objects. Of course, you also continue to use raw ADO.Net to perform data access in conjunction with the business objects.

• Reusable Framework of Components
  The Web Store also includes a ton of support classes that are useful for any type of Web Application. Among the tools are a full set two-way databinding controls that provide codeless data entry binding. System components include a sophisticated Configuration Settings Manager, WebErrorHandler and Logger, Request Logger, generic message display handler, easy to use HTTP and SMTP components and a host of utility functions and classes that are reusable in any application. In addition, the Web Store puts all of these pieces together into a functioning application so that you can see how the pieces inter-related and fit into the context of a full business application. And finally - you get all the C# source code for all of this functionality so you can reuse it in your own applications.
  

Don't waste your time re-inventing the wheel - see how it's done the right and easy way.