
----------------------
PgMarket main features
----------------------

- PostgreSQL (>= 6,5) and MySQL (>=3.22) support
  (through the corresponding module)
- multilingual support (i18n)
- images and thumbnails handling
- easy customization of many look elements through .css files
- secure passwords handling: passwords are automatically md5'ed
  on the client side through JavaScript, hence also the remote administration
  of categories and products does not compromise the web shop security
- a simple and an advanced search engine
- products are organized in categories and subcategories;
  they are shown ordered by their respective "special level" values
- a "Special products" section
- a category browser through the integration of TreeMenu 1.1 by Bjorge Dijkstra
- a JavaScript hierarchical layers menu for fast and immediate
  categories browsing
- a detailed description for users
- handling of different users types (italians, non italians, and companies)
- Euro currency notation
- IVA (Italy, a Value Added Tax) and brands for the products
- brief and extended descriptions for products
- discounts support
- delivery price based on the the total shopping cart weight
- ability of disabling many features through the configuration file,
  without modifying the scripts
- mailing of the orders, and storage of all the orders in the database
- order states handling
- ability for the customers to track their orders states and logs
- ability for clients to contact the store without buying anything,
  through a suited contact form
- splitting in sub pages for pages that show a large number of products
- easy customization of the currency and of the weight unity
- comfortable administration interface: the web shop is easily built up
  through a simple browser interface, the "web shop root" can insert categories,
  as well as insert, edit, and delete products also while browsing the catalog,
  even if connected from home
- importing of brands, categories, users, products, products images,
  and IVA values from text files easily obtainable through a spreadsheet
- maybe some other features, but just now I'm so sleepy and maybe
  I don't remember everything '-|  ;^)

PgMarket has been developed by Marco Pratesi
starting from MyMarket, authored by Ying Zhang
(ying@zippydesign.com).
For instance, the work has started from the following version:
http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/Commerce3/mymarket3.tar.gz
Now the MyMarket project can be found also on
http://sourceforge.net

There are many differences between MyMarket and PgMarket.
MyMarket uses MySQL, while PgMarket uses PostgreSQL and provides
MySQL through a suited module.
Moreover, PgMarket fixes some bugs of MyMarket
and introduces many security improvements, input parameters checkings,
many modifications and extensions such as the multi-language feature,
images handling, and others.

PgMarket includes code developed by
Oleg V. Kalashnikov <oleg@ok.gnu.zp.ua> and 
Fabio Molinari <fabio.m@mclink.it>

-------------

I think that my English could be improved...
please contact me if my Italian --> English translation is bad,
any valid help is surely welcome.


Documentation
-------------

Sorry, I still haven't had time to write a comprehensive documentation.
I hope that PgMarket code is sufficiently self-explanatory
and that I will write soon a better documentation.
Feel free to contact me if you need.
Furthermore, a large portion of the documentation wrote by Ying Zhang
for MyMarket, see
http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/Commerce1
applies to PgMarket, too.

--
Marco Pratesi
http://www.telug.it
pratesi@telug.it

