Hey there,
I recently completed a fairly extensive NopCommerce plugin tutorial. I created this with the goal of providing a complete training series – one that takes you through the process of building a Nop plugin from start to finish and shows all the code. The plugin is also something you can use on your own stores and is something of value rather than just a “Hello World!” test. The video series is fairly long so I have divided it into four logical sections. Below you will find a summary of each and the associated video embedded. The full source code is also available below.
Part 1 – An overview of the plugin, setting up our project, and getting started with data access
In this first video I will provide a demo of the completed plugin so you have an idea of what we will be building. From there we will download NopCommerce and install it, and then create our initial plugin project in the Visual Studio solution. We will properly configure this plugin so we have a solid base going forward. We will then move on to some of our data access classes and set up some of the default wiring most meaningful Nop plugins require.
Part 2 – Completing our configuration classes, handling routing, creating a custom view engine, and running our plugin
In this video we wil finish adding the essential NopCommerce plugin classes and move on to more specific plugin functionality. This includes taking a look at plugin routing, which can often be a confusing topic. We will then dive into creating a custom view engine for our razor files so that we can treat our plugin views like normal MVC views. We will make sure they get saved to the file system so they are editable and can be packaged up for our end users. We will finish this section by installing our plugin and making sure it runs successfully.
Part 3- Building the user interface
This important section covers building all of the parts our users will interact with – both admins and customers. First we will create the pop up form for users on the front end of our site, and then we will dive into building out our admin pages. This includes crafting a fully functional KendoUI grid and examining that framework.
Part 4 – Working with settings in NopCommerce, adding model validation and implementing localized text and error messages.
This final section is all about polishing up our plugin and refining the user experience. There are some useful example in here for how to make all of the text in your plugin content manageable through string resources. This section also briefly looks into NopCommerce events and services, which is a very important part of plugin development.
I put a lot of work into this – please watch and let me know what you think!
