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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Presentation layer
WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
WebSphere Commerce JSP programming best practices
This section offers the following selection of JSP programming best practices, which promote development of reusable and easily maintainable JSP pages within the WebSphere Commerce store development framework:

User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
- Planning
  Creating a custom implementation of a WebSphere Commerce store requires a significant amount of planning. From gathering client needs, to deploying the live solution, much work is needed to successfully deploy a custom client store. Use the resources in here to help you plan every phase of store creation.
- Installing
  Review the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Deploying
  The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
- Operating
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
- Tutorials
  WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
- Developing
  The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
  - Functional architecture
    Functional architecture provides both the set of patterns used to implement the business functionality and the frameworks in which these business functions execute.
  - Persistent object model
    WebSphere Commerce deals with a large amount of persistent data. There are numerous tables defined in the current database schema. Even with this extensive schema, however, you might need to extend or customize the database schema for your particular business needs.
  - Presentation layer
    WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
    - WebSphere Commerce Struts framework
      Struts is a well documented, mature and popular framework for building front ends to Java applications. To address concerns in software applications, it uses a Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture: The Model represents the business or database code, the View represents the page design code, and the Controller represents the navigational code.
    - Spring framework
      The Spring Framework is a lightweight, open source programming and configuration model for developing Java based enterprise applications. This framework is used in WebSphere Commerce for building and configuring Management Center, including the managing of URL requests from Management Center to retrieve and process object data.
    - Management Center
      The IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce framework is the foundation for WebSphere Commerce business user tooling. The business objects that are managed with Management Center are defined by the individual components that make up Management Center. The Management Center framework uses these definitions to provide the features that you can use to find, create, modify, and delete the defined business objects. If you plan to customize the Management Center, ensure that you understand the framework and all of the components that make up Management Center.
    - Developing Commerce Composer assets
      Enrich the capabilities of the Commerce Composer tool by developing your own widgets and templates, and extending other features and functions to suit your business needs.
    - Customizing promotions
      Customizing promotions can involve the customization of the promotion business user tools and the underlying promotion engine, which features a clean architecture supporting rich functionality, as well as a wide array of customization possibilities.
    - Working with the promotions component configuration file
      Some Management Center components, like the promotions component, have customizable configuration files. These files contain properties that control certain component features.
    - Customizing marketing
      You can customize marketing features and objects to better meet the business needs of your site. For example, you can customize e-Marketing Spots, customer segments, activities, activity components, such as triggers, targets and actions, and more. Customization is supported for the Marketing tool in Management Center and for the storefront to display e-Marketing Spots.
    - Customizing price rules
      You can customize price rules to suit the business needs of your site. For example, you can create a new condition or action for business users to add to price rules. Customization is supported for both the Price Rule Builder tool user interface in the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool, and for the pricing services.
    - Customizing store preview
      You can customize store preview to add enhancements that help business users work more efficiently. These enhancements include the click-to-edit function and in-context preview function.
    - Customizing content versioning
      The content versioning feature is enabled for some objects in the Catalogs tool in Management Center. You can add or remove content versioning support for existing objects and custom objects by customizing both Management Center and WebSphere Commerce server.
    - Customizing the infrastructure component
      Customizing the infrastructure component provides you the ability to change configurable properties for Management Center and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) functionality.
    - Developing JSP pages
      To create JSP pages for WebSphere Commerce, you should have Rational Application Developer skills and JSP skills. You should also be familiar with JSTL.
    - WebSphere Commerce JSP programming best practices
      This section offers the following selection of JSP programming best practices, which promote development of reusable and easily maintainable JSP pages within the WebSphere Commerce store development framework:
      - Use JSTL in place of Java code
        JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL) is a collection of JSP tags that provide standard functionality most commonly sought by JSP page authors. JSTL has support for conditions, iteration, locale-sensitive formatting, and so forth. It also has an expression language (EL) that allows page authors to control how data is retrieved and displayed.
      - Use the Commerce-specific tag for bean activation
        WebSphere Commerce data beans require activation prior to their use. WebSphere Commerce provides a Commerce-specific version of the useBean tag, <wcbase:useBean>, that performs data bean activation in Java-free manner and is the recommended method of data bean activation in store JSP pages.
      - Use Commerce-specific maps to access request parameters
        WebSphere Commerce provides the following Commerce-specific versions of the implicit JSP objects param and paramValues to facilitate access to decrypted HTTP request parameters:
      - Use the StoreErrorDataBean data bean for error handling
        To display store-specific error messages in JSP pages, use the StoreErrorDataBean data bean.
      - Use an appropriate inclusion mechanism
        JSP supports two inclusion mechanisms: Static include and Dynamic include.
      - Use the .jspf extension for JSP segments
        A JSP page can consist of one or more files: for example, the file containing a top-level JSP page, several files containing dynamically included JSP pages, and several files containing statically included JSP segments. Unlike the top-level or dynamically included pages, JSP segments need not be legal JSP pages and thus may not compile properly.
      - Use the escapeXml attribute to preserve HTML formatting
        By default, the value of the escapeXml attribute of the JSTL <c:out> tag is true. This default behavior ensures that HTML special characters, such as <, >, &, ', or ", contained in output strings are converted into their corresponding character entity codes and displayed properly in the HTML page produced by the JSP page. In some common WebSphere Commerce store scenarios, however, this behavior is counterproductive. One such scenario is the display of prices in globalized stores:
      - Ensure XHTML-compliance
        JSTL and HTML elements of your JSP pages should conform to the W3C XHTML standard and recommendations.
      - Use the post method for form submission
        Data can be sent from client to server by way of an HTML form using either the get or the post method. Servlets can handle either method properly by appropriately parsing and decoding the incoming request. In general, use of the post method is recommended due to the following reasons:
      - Changing the appearance of a starter store
        The storefront appearance is an important factor in improving customer experience. In this tutorial, the cascading style sheets (CSS) are modified to change the color and layout of the storefront. The new style is then made available as a display option for a starter store. The new style is selected in the Change Style wizard in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or in the Management Center Store Management tool.
    - JSP pages and data beans
      A data bean is a Java bean that is used within a JSP page to provide dynamic content. A data bean normally provides a simple representation of a WebSphere Commerce entity bean. The data bean encapsulates properties that can be retrieved from or set within the entity bean. As such, the data bean simplifies the task of incorporating dynamic data into JSP pages.
    - WebSphere Commerce useBean tag
      The useBean tag instantiates a WebSphere Commerce data bean and automatically populates it for you. A new programming direction has also been undertaken with our starter stores that now use the JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL) to perform view logic, instead of Java code. At the same time, business logic has been moving into data beans. The combination of these steps allows for less Java code in a JSP page.
    - Search engine optimization (SEO)
      You can use one of the following solutions to optimize your store for search engine results.
    - Double-click handling in WebSphere Commerce
      The purpose of double-click handling in WebSphere Commerce is to prevent processing the same request twice to ensure data integrity within the system. When processing certain URL requests, such as OrderItemAdd, the double-click feature of WebSphere Commerce will identify whether the request from the online shopper is currently being processed and blocks the current request if that is the case.
  - Controller layer
    The Controller layer is the conductor of operations for a request. It controls the transaction scope and manages the session related information for the request. The controller first dispatches to a command and then calls the appropriate view processing logic to render the response.
  - Business logic layer
    The business logic layer is the business components that provide OAGIS services to return data or start business processes. The presentation layer uses these OAGIS services to display data, or to invoke a business process. The business logic provides data required by the presentation layer. The business logic layer exists because more than just fetching and updating data is required by an application; there is also additional business logic independent of the presentation layer.
  - Persistence layer
    The interaction between the business objects and persistence layer is isolated in an object called the Business Object Mediator. Business object document (BOD) commands interact with the Business Object Mediator to handle the interaction with the logical objects and how they are persisted.
  - Business model information model
    A business model, a representation of the business processes used throughout the site, provides a sample commerce solution which includes an organization structure, default user roles and access control policies, one or more starter stores, administration tools, and business processes that demonstrate best practices. A business model can be customized to support business requirements and scenarios. WebSphere Commerce provides sample business models that show some common commerce solutions. These business models are created by setting up an organization hierarchy structure, access control policies, stores, and contracts that help satisfy the necessary business requirements.
  - Business models
    Before starting to develop your site with WebSphere Commerce, you need to determine the business model supported by WebSphere Commerce that best represents the purpose of your site. Usually sites created with WebSphere Commerce will be implemented based on of one of these business models.
  - Store data information model
    Store data is the information that is loaded into the WebSphere Commerce Server database, which allows your store to function. The URL Registry Entries and View Registry Entries packages are included in the diagram, but they are not database assets. These entries are presentation configuration (that is, struts actions and forwards) that must be deployed. URL registry entries are shown in the diagram to illustrate the entire store data information model. To operate properly, a store must have the data in place to support all customer activities. For example, in order for a customer to make a purchase, your store must contain a catalog of goods for sale (catalog data), the data associated with processing orders (tax and shipping data), and the inventory to fulfill the request (inventory and fulfillment data).
  - Customizing WebSphere Commerce
    You can extend the WebSphere Commerce product to fit your business needs. This topic describes the prerequisite skills and required knowledge that you need to customize business logic. After you have the required knowledge, use WebSphere Commerce Developer to take tutorials that guide you step-by-step through various customization scenarios.
  - WebSphere Commerce development environment
    WebSphere Commerce Developer is the development toolkit for customizing a WebSphere Commerce application.
  - Web services and WebSphere Commerce
    A web service is an interface that describes a collection of operations that are accessible through the network by using standardized XML messaging.
  - WebSphere Commerce Search
    WebSphere Commerce comes with a powerful and fully integrated search function. The search functions in WebSphere Commerce provide an enriched customer experience, with features such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. Since it is built on open standards, WebSphere Commerce Search is highly flexible and extensible. Starter stores can use the search engine's most sophisticated features without requiring extra customization. A key feature of Search is that sales personnel can create and manage search term associations, and search-based merchandising rules, from within the Management Center and Store view.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage WebSphere Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
- Troubleshooting

WebSphere Commerce JSP programming best practices

This section offers the following selection of JSP programming best practices, which promote development of reusable and easily maintainable JSP pages within the WebSphere Commerce store development framework:

These Commerce-specific best practices are intended to be used in conjunction with the common Web application development standards and practices, such as those associated with the Java EE at a Glance technology and the JavaServer Pages technology, as well as with general principles and conventions of WebSphere Commerce.