Shopify Application Development

Michael Larkin

• Editore: Packt Publishing
• Anno: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781783281053
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Computer Science
• Categoria: Application Development

In Detail

Shopify is an e-commerce website platform that allows merchants to create and run their own online store. The Shopify App Store is a collection of apps that extend the capabilities of online stores and is a perfect place to earn recurring revenue.

Shopify Application Development will teach you to build Shopify apps using Ruby on Rails, deploy them to Heroku, and publish them in the Shopify App Store. Additionally, you will learn how to receive recurring revenue via the Shopify Billing API.

This is an easy-to-follow manual that will guide you through the entire process of application development with Shopify. This book focuses on building and launching a single application using best practices such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), agile methodologies, and iterative development from start to finish.

Approach

This is an easy-to follow manual that will guide you through the entire process of application development with Shopify, beginning with the installation and configuration of your local development environment for your app to the deployment of the app to Heroku.

Who this book is for

If you are a web developer or a designer who wants to extend Shopify stores by building apps, then this book is for you. A basic understanding of programming concepts and some familiarity with Shopify is all that is required to get started with Shopify app development.

Shopify Application Development

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Table of Contents

Shopify Application Development

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started with Shopify

Revealing Shopify's power

Deciding which type of app to build

Discovering the API

Exploring webhooks

Orders

Products

Shop/Application

Getting ready to build an app

Summary

2. Setting Up

Choosing a development tool

Setting up our development environment

Installing a Ruby management tool

Installing Ruby

Creating the application directory

Installing Rails

Generating a Rails app

Installing Twitter Bootstrap

Setting up source control

Deploying to Heroku

Summary

3. Building a Private App

Signing up for Shopify

Understanding our workflow

Building the application

High-level requirements

Installing a few necessary gems

Storing Shopify API credentials

Connecting to Shopify

Retrieving product information from Shopify

Retrieving order information from Shopify

Cleaning up the UI

Updating the sidebar

Updating orders, products, and variants

Cleaning up the rest of the site

Picking a winner from a list

Creating contests

Summary

4. Going Public

High-level requirements

Supporting multiple accounts

Authorizing user access to data

Verifying Shopify requests

Verifying HTTP GET/POST requests

Verifying webhook requests

Installing from the Shopify App Store

Subscribing to and processing Shopify Webhooks

Summary

5. App Billing and Publication

High-level requirements

Adding free and paid plans

Integrating with the Shopify Billing API

Supporting recurring charges

Publishing in the Shopify App Store

Summary

Index

Shopify Application Development

Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: May 2014

Production Reference: 1210514

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78328-105-3

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Benoit Benedetti (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Michael Larkin

Reviewers

Joey deVilla

Christophe Favresse

M. Scott Ford

Will Rossiter

Zac Williams

Acquisition Editor

Meeta Rajani

Content Development Editor

Athira Laji

Technical Editors

Ankita Jha

Sebastian Rodrigues

Copy Editors

Tanvi Gaitonde

Insiya Morbiwala

Shambhavi Pai

Laxmi Subramanian

Project Coordinators

Melita Lobo

Jomin Varghese

Proofreader

Simran Bhogal

Indexers

Mariammal Chettiyar

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Production Coordinator

Saiprasad Kadam

Cover Work

Saiprasad Kadam

About the Author

Michael Larkin has been building software professionally for over a decade and has worked on large and small projects for companies across the globe. He has been working with Shopify for over five years and has co-created the first ever Shopify app, available at http://fetchapp.com. He has also worked on dozens of Shopify stores for which he built custom applications, modified existing themes, and added complex JavaScript to enhance the shopper's experience.

I would like to thank my wife, Sarah, for her help and patience while I was writing this book. I'd also like to thank my colleagues and friends who offered their professional and technical expertise as reviewers. Additionally, I'd like to thank the folks over at Jaded Pixel for creating such an excellent platform. Finally, I'd like to thank Packt Publishing for making all of this possible.

About the Reviewers

Joey deVilla has worked on all sorts of projects, such as creating Olympic athlete training software, CD-ROM directories for every mall in America with Visual Basic, Python-powered gift certificates, travel agency websites, the frontend for the censorship-thwarting project Peekabooty in C++, Duke of URL in PHP that suggests domain names, and a failed social networking app for frat dudes and dudettes in Ruby on Rails. He's also done some technical evangelism for OpenCola, Tucows, Microsoft, and Shopify. He's currently stirring up trouble in the mobile industry, and when he's not doing that, he's stirring up trouble playing Nine Inch Nails, AC/DC, and Britney Spears on his accordion.

I'd like to thank my family and Anitra for helping me during some really crazy times.

Christophe Favresse developed a passion for e-commerce technologies, and in early 2013, launched his wife's online retail business (www.favresse.com) powered by Shopify and Amazon fulfillment services. In less than one year, this website attracted customers from eight EU countries and the U.S. Christophe, an international sales executive in the software industry, has spent the last 15 years prospecting telecom operators and providing CRM, marketing, and risk assurance solutions to optimize their customer lifetime value and revenues. He has spent two years in Thailand and 15 years in the UK. He currently lives near Nice (France) with his wife and four children. He holds a master's degree in International Marketing from Michael Smurfit School of Business (Ireland) and a bachelor's degree in Economics from Solvay Brussels School (Belgium).

M. Scott Ford has been developing software for the last 15 years. He's worked in many industries, from aerospace to e-commerce. His goal is to stay a polyglot developer. He's worked with many different languages and frameworks over the years, but his favorites are Ruby, JavaScript, and Objective-C.

Scott is the founder of corgibytes (http://corgibytes.com), a consulting company with a focus on legacy applications. This is where he applies a pragmatic, test-focused approach to working with existing code. This results in a new life for apps that would otherwise have to be rewritten or abandoned.

Will Rossiter is a Senio...