Akopia Interchange

[spcover]

I want to test out the Akopia Interchange e-commerce system.

Has anyone ever installed this software before? Any problems I should know about? How difficult is it to install and use?

My client is not terribly sophisticated, but I want to give him the best. Akopia has gotten good reviews and it's free, so I'd like to give it a try if it's feasible.

Thanks in advance,

Sean

[spcover]

Well, I guess the answer is No.

Shame, too, because I ran into a problem. After running the install for Interchange, you have to run a separate command to create a store "catalog". I get an error at this point, just after typing in the /bin/makecat command.

[domain@host3 interchange]$ bin/makecat store
Can't locate Vend/MakeCat.pm in @INC (@INC contains: domain domain/lib /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.0/i686-linux /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.0 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/i686-linux /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl .) at bin/makecat line 40.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at bin/makecat line 40.

(I substituted "domain" for the actual name of the account. "store" is the name of my catalog.)

I have no clue why it expects to find the Interchange file MakeCat.pm in the same directories as the main Perl modules and not in an Interchange directory.

Of course, there is practically no (free) support or bulletin board at the Akopia site, just a mailing list, which I've just joined.

Darnit. I hate it when something simple turns out to be a really big pain for no reason.

:(

I'm sure you've all been there before with me.

Oh well, I'll keep you posted.

Sean

[Stephanie]

Thats too bad Sean. I was kind of interested to see how the install and configuration of it went. Annette might be able to figure out what is wrong. :D

[Annette]

Even less of a good solution than you think, even. We attempted over a week's time to get interchange up and running with zero luck and no bright ideas from people who are using it. The catalog problem occurred no matter what we did (tried it as a standalone install on the server, a global install, and a local user install). The support (what there is of it) was less than enlightening. Of course, now that it's been bought, paying for support might be good for those who are incredibly interested in using it.

[Annette]

Well, we're not geniuses, after all, and since I'm still having trouble with ImageMagick (maybe I should have my avatar be Yosemite Sam? racka-fracka! And no one has come up with any bright ideas on that one, either), it may very well be something that I'm doing wrong. However, like so many other open source projects, the cool stuff comes first - the documentation/support tends to be an afterthought.

[spcover]

Well, actually I feel now that I know Annette and Steph were having the same problem.

Shucks. But at least i know it's time to hang it up and move on to options #2 and #3. I think I will try Zelerate and then Agora.cgi in that order. Agora seems the most stable, but Zelarate looks prettier. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for the replies. They helped a lot.

Sean