RyanMarinoff | ISW-Prism Blog
Within this site I will describe the process I used to create the ISW-Prism application and this site. I am learning everything on my own.
Project maintained by RyanMarinoff Hosted on GitHub Pages — Base Theme by mattgraham
Base Model Structure
What is MVVM
MVVM is a programming structure that is used to organize and modularize the internal workings of a program. This is the structure that Prism is based under. After doing a bit of research on how to approach the programming of this application, this method of programming was chosen. I am new at it, so this process will be a self taught process. I am going to place here the work I have done, and why I have chosen the process. As far as the why of MVVM, a personal choice. I like it!
MVVM means Model - View - View Model. Model is the structure of the data. This would include the classes and code that represents the data, and only the data. View is the presentation of the data to the user. This would include all the pieces and parts of the user interface, modularized and organized based around the presentation of the different parts of the data. View Model is the connection between the model and the view, the conversion of data to be presented by the program. The model should not know how the data will be represented. The model is just the data itself. The view should not need to know how the data is stored. It is the presentation of the data to the user for the purpose needed. View Model will pull from the Model, format the data as needed, and presents it to the View. The View binds the fields within the presentation to the data that is presented by the view model. An image would describe this process more clearly (or a reformatting of this post).
Current Process
Basic structure of the models of the application has been completed. The following is a quick bit of each models. For more information, check out the ISW-Prism GitHub Wiki.
Product
The product model represents the products found within the Reyers Volusion website. The website contains a ‘Parent Product’ to represent the item that is ordered. This is what the customer sees when they visit the product page. The ‘Child Product’ represents the inventory items. With shoes, this will be the size / length combination of the product. Each ‘Child Product’ is associated with a SKU within the internal database. Currently this data is not available. Only the data from the site will be processed within the program.
Option
Within the Volusion store front, the options are used to tie the physical inventory with the internet inventory. Currently a raw porting of the information is used within the application. Refinement will occur when use is determined beyond raw data.
Category
Categories are used to determine how the products are displayed and organized on the site. For purposes of this application, the Categories are used to determine multiple aspects of product use and need. This model will need the most work to stream-line. Currently this is just a data-dump.
Vendor
Vendors are the manufacturers of the product. Volusion has a separate section within the database for the vendor information. For this program, very little is currently needed for Vendors. Bare minimum is used to represent the vendors.