Forking/Customising

(sorry if this is a double post - thought I had posted but cannot find it!)

I would welcome feedback on the best approach to using OC (latest version, natch!) as the basis for a store I am developing, while ideally getting the benefit of enhancements and fixes, and future versions. I envisage quite extensive changes and am happy with PHP, css, html, js, sql etc so plan to do the changes myself. What I'd like input on is whether to fork the current version and then manually eyeball/monitor future releases to see if I want to fit those changes into my fork or to diligently ensure that any and all changes I make can be turned into mods and applied as patches to future releases>? What does the team think?

Also is there a roadmap for OC development and future versions?

Many thanks,
Mark

...just don't forget, that this is FREE software, so, noone really has any obligation, to do something at all! It's kind of a Community Project only, so, everyone if free to partizipate, adding his/knowledge and work, as a common goal, sort of...

Therefore, do NOT overestimate, what you can get. Take it or leave it, as it comes, and if you cannot agree to those terms, just forget it.

This was the hard Part of it, don't take it personal, I just wanted to make it clear, not belonging to the Team either.

The soft Part is:
https://github.com/opencart/opencart/

Here, you find at least parts of what your'e looking for. Other Branches , regarding Opencart, are also available on GitHub, as well as on other Sites, it just takes a little time to find 'em all.

No offense! Just plain Information.

Ernie
ipc.li

Thanks Ernie - I understand and appreciate all that and I have kind of been down this road before hence my question - do I develop from the ground up or do I embrace and extend - remember that old one of Microsoft's 3 E's ?! - thus far OC looks a great starting point so I was just trying to work out to what extent I want to keep any dev open for future enhancements.

Again - is there a roadmap of planned developments for the core product?

Cheers,
Mark

There currently isn't a roadmap.

Direct editing the code can be a good fit if:

1. You're happy with OpenCart's current feature set.
2. You have in-house developers who can keep up with maintenance issues.
3. You're looking for rapid deployment using modern techniques like IDEs, git, and unit testing.

Direct editing may not be a good idea if:

1. You don't have the time or resources to backport security and bug fixes.
2. You'll likely upgrade to a newer version of OpenCart some day.
3. You'll be depending on third-party mods (particularly shipping and payment gateways) which will likely be discontinued at some point.

It essentially comes down to "Do I do the difficult work now or possibly later?" If you develop with OCMod or vQmod now it'll be a major slowdown in writing and deploying code but it will make life much easier when you upgrade. If you direct edit the code you'll be working much easier and faster now but transferring all those changes to a major upgrade will be a huge task.

Also below is a quick comparison of the different mod systems:

Thanks - I have to say that today, less than 24hrs after first looking at this seriously I have managed to configure a system, build some ETL (in Talend, superb!) to migrate live data from my existing SQL/Server ASP site into a local mysql OC instance and have the basis of the whole thing working - have to say I am very impressed. There's much to do of course but I am happy to do that in the coming weeks.

Cheers,
Mark