Latest Version: 1.00011 - Download it now.

Currently Working On: Mango: making it happen......

Introduction

Handel is a quick and not-so-dirty ecommerce framework written in Perl. It consists of a set of core modules to do basic cart interactions and order processing via a plugin based pipeline.

While Handel is written to be web agnostic, it does support various different web based languages and framesworks including AxKit, Template Toolkit and Catalyst.

It was started for the conversion of an IIS/ASP based commerce site to Apache/ModPerl, but I decided that is might be useful to others so here it is on CPAN.

For the curious, Handel is German for commerce.

Goals

  • Database agnostic. Thanks to Class::DBI and staying away from auto incrementing ids, Handel should run in any database that Class::DBI supports.
  • Implementation agnostic. Handel should be able to be used from the command line, from a web page, from a SOAP service, or from a GUI application. It's simply a data access mechanism. Any interaction with forms, web pages, browser, cookies, etc is the responsibility of the consumer
  • Checkout agnostic. A checkout process means different things to different people in different situations. The Handel checkout pipeline by itself does absolutely nothing with an order. It is instead a plugin manager that allows you to specifiy and build plugins to do various actions (payment autorization, address validation, fax delivery, etc). Each site, server, page, even process() call can have it's own uniquie order processing pipeline.
  • Easy integration into AxKit using taglibs.
  • Easy integration into TT2 using plugins.
  • Easy intrgration into Catalyst using plugins.
  • Easy integration into other systems using SOAP.
  • Feature complete demo site in AxKit.
  • Feature complete demo site in TT2.
  • Feature complete demo site in Catalyst.
  • Public Subversion repository.
  • Get someone to actually use the damn thing. :-)
  • Abstract schema into SQL::Translator scripts

Features

  • Add/Update/Delete/Save/Restore Cart Contents
  • Add/Update/Delete Order Contents
  • Plugin-based checkout order processing pipeline
  • Full AxKit XSP Taglib Support
  • Template Toolkit 2 Plugin Support
  • Catalyst Helper/Scaffold Support - Coming Soon!
  • Currency Conversion
  • Currency Formatting
  • Basic Localization Support
  • Multiple Database Support

What Handel Is

  • Simple cart and order record maintenance.
  • Plugin based checkout pipeline processing framework.

What Handel Isn't

  • Intershop, Cart32, WebGUI, CMS, complete web commerce package*. Handel is a simple framework to load/upload cart/order data and shove that data through a plugin based pipeline.

* While it is not a complete web based commerce system, I do plan on having feature complete working demos sites so people can still quick-start their own projects.