This is a transcript of PMs between Marco and myself… it could be of public interest to anyone that is not based in Germany, so we are posting the PMs here.
eFire… yes I saw that mentioned, but I still have no idea what eFire is.
I downloaded something called PayPal protlet, but as indicated it is in German…and it is just a PDF file.
Can you tell me where I can find this eFire thing and some more information about it? I am sure this is truly obvious, but I am not an internet newbie and I really cannot find it, at least not easily.
eFire is actually an ecommerce plattform that we provide for applicating interfaces from your OXID shop to other eCommerce services (called “portlets” on eFire), e.g., price search engines, product comparison portals, fact finder (intelligent search), solvency check, email marketing, webmiles and so on. Pretty sophisticated BUT unfortunately (because of the portlet assortment) focussed to the German speaking market firstly.
On https://www.oxid-efire.com/register you might want to register for the eFire portal. As everything there obviously is in German, you might want to use the Google translator for the whole site. Now, you can register for the portlets you want to use. During the registration workflow, the download of the eFire paypal module you need to install in the shop is provided. Please note that this module is Zend encoded, so you would firstly need to install the Zend Optimizer on your server.
Sounds interesting and complicated, doesn’t it? argh
Paypal is free to use, so if this is the only portlet you use, you will get back the deposit of 50 bucks when you unregister. For all other portlets we mostly want to get payed by click. If you need assistence for another portlet that might work as well over there, turn to Nafissa.
I now understand eFire and it is actually very clever and good…and German only…
I tried to register, but it looks like I need to provide a German bank account, besides there is no option for “Taiwan”.
I will have to find another way.
As a general suggestion, since OXID team made the decision to release the CE version, in English and is clearly interested in attracting more developers and growing the user base and community, please prioritize either conversion of elements of eFire to English, or separate OXID eShop from eFire. Having an English version of software with one of the core elements (payment) depending on an external portal that is available only in German is not very intuitive.
…at the very least, please offer a PayPal portal in a way that is easier for non Germans to access and implement.
I am sure this will be solved somehow. In the meantime I am very glad that I am not tearing my hair out with Magento! …our installation broke again, but now I do not care quite as much.
sorry you couldn’t register, wonder how the Brit did it…
Going international with region-dependent portlets is on our plans but sh… loads of work to do.
Sure, PayPal actually is a standard when it comes to payment methods. Any interface, e.g. to other ecommerce services like paypal or even to ERP systems can relatively easily be applicated as shop modules and are done either by the other services (most of the payment providers do so) or by developers/partners who can care even if the other system changes it’s API and who can either sell it under prop. license or put it under GPL. Unfortunately, nobody felt responsible yet to code a paypal module and set it under GPL…
