Google Commerce Search Demo with Google Web Toolkit

Introduction Download Getting Started What's Next Summary

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Introduction

The Innovent Solutions Google Commerce Search GWT Demo is a feature-rich demonstration of Google Commerce Search using Google Web Toolkit.

To help commerce site managers and developers understand the capabilites of Google Commerce Search, and see the features that are often important, we developed a reference application that we are making freely available as open source. We are a strong proponent of the adoption of OSS technology and we wish to explore the benefits of the use of Google Commerce Search with the Google Web Toolkit community as a whole.

Read further for more information, or visit our Google Code repository for access to the demo.

Click here to see a live demo.

Objective

The goal of this demonstration is to show how quickly a demonstration of Google Commerce Search can be implemented. A few tweaks to a stylesheet and the results will appear identical to the original source page. It's that simple: add some javascript, wrap some elements with <div> tags, and tinker with a few CSS settings. We can layer this solution on a testing desktop and present the Google Commerce Search results as if they were within the client's site itself, fully functional with faceted navigation, promotions, and all the power of Google's searching relevancy.

Audience

The Innovent Solutions Google Commerce Search documentation is intended for programmers who want to write client applications that interact with Google Commerce Search using Google Web Toolkit.

Current Features Enabled

• Product Search
• Faceted Navigation
• Root Category Naviation
• Promotions
• Boost
• Breadcrumbs
• Pagination

Download

Obtain the code from the source repository here.

A self-contained WAR will soon be available to deploy to a web application container such as Tomcat.

GettingStarted

Environment

This project was written with version 2.0 of the Google Web Toolkit. We highly recommend using the GWT Eclipse plugin to take advantage of the powerful embedded development environment.

Dependencies

Dependencies can be reviewed here

First Steps

1. Create a Java project based on the repository code.
2. Be sure to wire up the existing dependency libraries, included in the /deps/ folder for convenience. The primary requirement (other than GWT) is:
   • Google Base API - the Google Base API has its own requirements (read here for more information.)
3. Run the project in the Eclipse Google Development Environment and view the base URL for the project (typically http://127.0.0.1:8888/CommerceViewer.html?gwt.codesvr=127.0.0.1:9997)

What's Next

Now that the project is up and running you will have three primary things you may edit to make visual changes:

• Composites found in the src/com.innoventsolutions.gcs.client.composites package
• The basic layout HTML in war/CommerceViewer?.html
• The styles in war/CommerceViewer?.css

As per the standards for a GWT project, the code to control the visual layout is contained within the HTML and cascading stylesheets, not within the GWT project code.

Within the CommerceViewer.html file look for comment tags such as this:

	<!-- ISGCS Search Button -->

This is a marker for a <div> element that will be replaced by a GWT composite from code, allowing for a very easy mechanism to build a Google Commerce Search site around an existing web site.

Feel free to explore the code and let us know what you think.

Summary

This project acts as a showcase for using GWT to access Google Commerce Search. The implementation is modeled after the Google Store and is expected to demonstrate the same features.

Documentation explaining the composites currently crafted and the signals available in HTML to trigger the composites will be available very soon.

Current Limitations

Some features of the demonstration are currently under development:

• No defined limitations