Ride With The Top Down

Miva Merchant is an adventure -- not a program.

Positutely. You can do killer pet tricks with Merchant by learning just enough Miva Script to make you sound like you know what you are doing. You don't (and you probably won't), but you can create your own unique e-com site using Merchant source as the base. Once you catch the Zen of Merchant the rest will fall in place.

Where To Start

Duh. At the beginning, by creating good work habits.  Digest the documentation on the Miva web site. Install Merchant. Add the modules you need to make your site function. Make sure the whole thing works -- then delete it and do it all again. Try doing it 4 or 5 times. You'll get that Merchant registration notice each time, but you soon will feel less threatened. Do it locally (through Miva Mia) on your own computer first, then (if you can) do it a couple of times remotely on your server. Install and un-install a few modules and get a feel for how they interact with Merchant. Then, and only then, you will be ready to begin site modifications in confidence. If you receive the error message about the Egyptian Miva Goddess (the one with the golden graphic on chartreuse background, with the wavy bagel and small cat on the right) then you have done it too much.

Kill It Dead

There is nothing more confidence building in software than doing an install that you know you will delete. It takes off the pressure for perfection. You'll see what happens when it breaks, but it won't bother you because you were going to delete the sucker anyway. Try it. You'll see what I mean. It will give you big hairy testes - or large firm breasts, whichever the case may be. The latter may be preferred by the former, but the latter may not be too impressed with the former.

As long as you have a way to backup and restore your orginal site, you can install and delete Merchant at will -- just be sure to completely delete each copy before installing another. Get to know the directory structure of a properly installed Merchant store.

Only Screw With What Already Works

Do not try and modify a non-functioning site. Your factory-level installation must work properly before you can change a single damn thing. You must always have a static-state to return to. Doing it any other way is like engine maintenance on your Cessna at 10,000 feet. If you do not fully know how something is supposed to work, how to you expect to diagnose it when it does not work at all? Always have a fall back, and always have a progressive backup. It is said that a good Merchant developer keeps one backup for each point of IQ she has -- at least during the development process.

The best perspective to have in creating and maintaining a Merchant site is to think of your site as mission critical.  Always take each source code change very seriously, and never try untested code on your customers! If you have not run at least 10 transactions through each and every primary modification in Merchant, small gremlins will start to snowball until your entire interface fails. Test, test, debug and test. Then test it again. Be anal retentive with your code and it will not defecate on you.

Look To The Code

Don't be bashful to stare at the naked Miva code. You do not need sunglasses, and you will not hurt a damn thing by snooping into how they did this or that. Some starving programmer with the first initial of J will be proud you did. Learn from their examples by isolating a portion of code which interests you -- and follow it through until you understand what it is doing there, and where it goes. When first confronted with bare MM code, its kind of like staring at one of those weirdo paintings from which some neat picture is supposed to emerge if you stare at it with unfocused eyes (which, I know, is simply a communist plot to drive capitalists crazy. Like an artsy-fartsy Rubick's Cube or something). The trick of staring at MM code is to learn what to ignore.

Don't Expect It To Do What It Can't

If MM does not suit your exact needs, fix the damn thing to do what you want. You cannot expect a generic store front package to accommodate the strange and often unrealistic desires of new web merchants. Let's face it, the majority of folks trying to create DIY web ecom sites do not have much retail experience; much less a programming background. If you really knew what you were doing, you probably wouldn't be reading this page. And if I really knew what I was doing, I would not be typing this silly thing for free, now would I? So if you and I are borderline boobs, we cannot exactly expect the original developers of the package to have anticipated our every twisted, sick need. Personally, I like Merchant to trigger a shock collar on my cat when I receive a new order. And I am greatly offened that they would not have included this simple ability in this release version.

The power of MM comes from the ability to change the source code. You can make MM do much, much more than a generic Merchant install will make evident. The longer you use the software, the more you will want it to do. And the more you want it to do, the more you will have to know about Miva Script code to make it happen.

Do not expect this application to teach you the basics of retail trade. Do not expect it to teach you the tax statues of your state. Do not expect it to explain what a credit card merchant account is, nor to create one for you. And for christsake do not blame MM for not emailing credit card info. If you do not understand why that never should be done, you really need to hire someone who does and keep your hands off an ecom site: Customers should not suffer the threat of your ignorance.

Put Business First To Make Your Business First

Miracles will not happen just because you post 10-20 products on a Merchant web site. The world will not beat a path to your door, and you will not be mentioned on Yahoo as the most terrific site since Babes-R-Us. You will not make a lot of money and have really smart people wanting to work for you -- unless you take care of your business at the start. Don't offer to sell what you do not have, and know a damn sight more about how to run your business than your customer's do. This software will not make you into a web Rockefeller, but it might facilitate it with a little patience, lots of luck, and a bunch of sweat. Owning a few banks doesn't hurt either.

Each transaction through MM is just like any transaction at your local quickie-mart or grocery store. Know the basics of how money changes hands and what is tracked during each sale. Your MM site can operate as a complete cash register web sales program, but only if you know the "why?" and "how" of a basic retail transaction. Merchant is not doing anything mysterious or, in some cases, very unique. But empowering Merchant to drive your web business can only be done once you understand the basics of doing business. Learn what a charge-back is before you get your first. Verify that your credit card merchant account provider will permit you to take on-line charges, or even let you manually enter charges without an impression (and learn what that means). Last year's Yellow Pages is filled with ads from those who ignored 'first-things-first' -- who are not in this year's edition. 

Baby Steps

Make small changes in code first until you grow in confidence and competence to tackle the tough jobs. Collect all the messages flowing through the Miva mailing lists and store them in your own reposipotty knowledge base. Get real good looking at other people's Miva sites and saving the source code of their pages as examples of what you can do. Every time you see a trick or feature that floats your boat -- bookmark it. Build a link list of your own illustrating the features you would like to have on your site. Click your hiney off at Amazon.com and Ebay and Microsoft and Yahoo and any other site which shows a feature or layout style you might want to incorporate in your site. Look for the common threads between them all. These common features are often there for good reason: either they are the most common-ground use of available technology, they fit accepted web standards and practices for business, or someone else's millions of dollars have been spent finding out what you 'should' be doing on a web storefront. Learn from them before testing your bells and whistles on your users.

Build A Cool Tool Box

You can't build a house with only a hammer, and you're not going to build a cool MM site using only the Admin interface. A well equipped web developer will have a tool box worth an easy $1,000 to $5,000 when starting out, then easily into the 5-digits once they reach a reasonable size. You do not have to own expensive tools to make cool web sites. But you get what you pay for. Having a copy of $695 copy of Photoshop might not be required, but it sure does help you look good. A $35 copy of HTML Validator may not sound important, but it can save you the cost of a development server in one single use on a client's job; not to mention save your client's account with you. There are links to a few workin' man's tools on our links list, the rest you can find through an evening spent surfing decent web developers' sites.

If you are a Windows person, consider creating a special 'personality' login for your development work. This setup can be structured more towards your task at hand with only your tool box and Miva-related stuff on the desktop. Silly as it sounds, it helps to build a psychological dividing line for your Miva work. It can take an immense amount of concentration to develop a tasty Merchant site, so treat your dev time with care and quality. But don't expect nifty tools to save you from failure. Only work and patience will do that.

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