Assignment 1: Creating an e-Commerce Web-site

Scenario:
 
The marketing director of a company selling <<you choose the product>> approaches you to help him design an e-commerce website for his company. He asks you to design a website that will display at least 5 different products to the user, from which they can choose multiple quantities of any combination of the products. He asks you to perform a check to make sure that the user entered valid quantities and to then calculate the sales total, including tax and shipping and handling costs.

After completing this assignment, you should have learned the following:

• Inventing and implementing a complete information system (IS)
  
• Building a reasonable user interface
• Processing user input
• Managing information with data types
• Interpreting and following development requirements

The main requirements for this assignment are the following:

1. Use multidimensional arrays (an array that holds other arrays) to display items in a table.
   
2. Use forms to process information. 
3. Allow users to select and process multiple products/services.

Now think specifically of what you will sell or the services you wish to provide. For example, "I will create an online store for selling household robots." Register your idea on the Assignment 1 signup page. 

Getting Started: You can either choose to create a project on your own that meets the above requirements or you can follow the step-by-step guide below to help you create the project.

Part (A)

(1) Make an array for each of your products and include the relevant details for the product such as name, price, description, etc. You will need to identify each item you are offering by a unique name or number.  

Example :

If you were selling cell phones, for each phone you would make an array containing all that particular product's information such as name/model number, maker (e.g. Huawei, Samsung, Apple), description, price, etc. Such as

$phone1 = array(    

'model' => 'Apple iPhone XS',

'price' => 990.00

)

(2) Then you should make a "master" products array to hold all of the product arrays you created in step (1).  In other words, you will create an array of arrays (a 'multi-dimensional' array).

Example :

Continuing with cell phone example, you would make an array (say  $allPhonesArray) that holds all of the individual cell phone arrays. You can use an indexed or associative array:

 $allPhonesArray = array($phone1, $phone2, $phone3);

(3) Then, loop through the master array with either for(), while(), or a foreach() loop to display the descriptions of the items.

Example :

The cell phone display may look something like this (but, in your version, you should include images of each product, as you did in the mini-assignments):

Part (B)

(1) Create an HTML form to ask customers which items they wish to purchase and process this form with PHP.  

(2) Either use a combination of an HTML file and PHP files, or use a single "self processing form" that can both generate a form and process it.

(3) The form displayed will allow customers to select the item that they want and the quantity they want in a text box. You will also need a submit button on the form.

Example :

For the cell phone example, we might change the display to allow for customer input as shown below:

(4) You must use data validation to ensure the customer entered valid data.  Note: if valid data is not entered, display a specific error message and direct the user to enter valid data. And you must do this validation in PHP code. You can not, for example, use a drop-down list to constrain a user to enter only integer quantities.

Example :

For the cell phone example, you should make sure that the customer entered valid quantities in the quantity boxes for each item # (1 to 5) or anything at all. If the customer entered -2.3 for item #1, display "Please input a whole positive number for item #1 quantity" and enable the customer to re-enter number.

(5) Once the customer has entered valid data, you will need to calculate the total price that they have to pay and display this information in an invoice. Don't forget to include tax and shipping if necessary. But specify that the tax and/or shipping are unique to the order (don't just use a static value). All output should be properly formatted (e.g. if there was a dollar amount such as $2.39 it should have two decimal points and a dollar sign).

Example :

                                                  INVOICE

                                    Thank you for your purchase!

Checklist:

After completing the assignment make sure that you have addressed all of the below. Note: Having all of these does not guarantee an 'A' but you must have them.

• Registered idea on class website.
• Meets stated main requirements 1-3.
• Meets functional requirements (displays products, allows user to select product, allows user to select quantities, displays invoice with sensible tax and shipping charges along with totals.
• Commented--get in the habit now!  Put author's name and program description as comments in files. Credit given to original author when using "borrowed" code.
• Used descriptive file names and meaningful variable names.
• Employed good code formatting.
• Defined and used arrays for items.
• Created tables via array data and loops.
• Good data validation (does not allow invalid choices).
• Good user interface design (easy to use and intuitive)
• No extra files or redundant data.
• Correct output.  No parse errors or warnings.
• Tested on the class website, using the itm352student account, saved in a folder with your name in an Assignment1 sub-folder

ONE LAST TIME: You must comment all of your code (you may even want to create a comment on what you are trying to do before you code). The comments are for explaining what your code is used for in the program. That way when we help you, we will know what is going on. Not only because this is required, this will also help you later on when working in group projects because it may be hard for others to understand your code. Also remember to put your name (as the author of the code) and program description in the first part of your comments.

Submission:
Upload completed assignment to an Assignment1 folder within your personal folder on itm-vm. ALSO upload your php file(s) to the Assignment 1 area on Laulima, and indicate there the URL of your assignment on itm-vm. You need to do both uploads!!!