Macromedia Drumbeat 2000 eCommerce Edition
The Drumbeat 2000 eCommerce Edition has the features and capabilities of Drumbeat 2000 (ASP), plus additional features for building secure, fully customizable online stores. It's the fastest way to build Web applications and Web interfaces to existing applications and databases powered by Active Server Pages (ASP). The visual drag-and-drop interface and sophisticated wizards enable you to quickly build ASP applications that access and update data in real time and work across all major browsers--without manual coding. The eCommerce edition includes everything you need to develop online stores that scale to support thousands of products and are simple to maintain. Build stores quickly using built-in tax and shipping calculations and sophisticated merchandizing options such as discounts, cross-selling, frequent-shopper points, and automatic order confirmations. Wizards and point-and-click interactions let you quickly create a full-featured e-commerce application.
Macromedia Drumbeat 2000 eCommerce Edition Accessories
Macromedia Drumbeat 2000 eCommerce Edition Reviews
The shopping cart is a cinch to setup, and the overall layout of Drumbeat is very comfortable.
I have created an online record store as well as 3 other sites - using Drumbeat for everything but image manipulation.
Macromedia has a very handy online database of tips & tricks for using Drumbeat as well.
This is a good application and a dream for people who's strength lies more in the design than the coding.
One thing that many 'hardcore' ASP/HTML coders will miss is the ability to view the source code as you go; this is only accessible after publishing the various pages and viewing source in another editor or in something like notepad.
I have been using Drumbeat 2000 eCommerce edition for approximately 6 months now and absolutely love it.
You can lay everything out exactly as you want, right click on the elements and add Java/VB-Script to them to assign various interactions.
Piece of Cake.
The "Starting Points" (pre-written website applications used for examples of various aspects of the app) really hammer home the basics.
One thing that some will find odd about Drumbeat is that there isn't any way to view the HTML/ASP within the application. I bought Drumbeat 2000 eCommerce edition back in November of 1999. After you run through a couple of the "Starting Points" (pre-constructed mini-web applications/sites with explanations on how to use them)you will get the hang of what elements do what and how they can interact with the other pages elements. I was amazed.
I have since used this application to create approximately 10 data driven web applications and websites - in 1/4 of the time that it would have taken me to create them in Visual InterDev. The user interface is laid out very well - a very comfortable environment to work in. I found this mildly irrating at first, but since Drumbeat does almost all of the coding for you - you can just go with what it has propogated. (One note on this - you need to have your screen resolution set at 1024x768 to have adequate room to view all of the elements) The "drag & drop" javascript "contracts" and "site elements" make creating dynamic pages a snap.
You must first publish the pages to your web server (IIS or Personal) and then open the pages in another HTML application or in notepad. Using Drumbeat 2000 eCommerce, I was able to create an online music retailer site - with full checkout / shopping cart functionality - in less than two months.
They have always had great documentation and support for their products. The next upgrade promises to be the best version of Drumbeat. Don't be mislead by the "easy-to-use" statements on the package. When I got this it was made by Elemental Software. The creation of non-"e-commerce" pages are fairly easy to do after you get an understanding of Drumbeat's inheritance.
If you've worked with a lot of Microsoft products - beware - this isn't like any of Microsoft's applications. (Not that that's bad).Nothing will be familiar to you. To put it mildly, I was disappointed. You will have to learn a whole new vocabulary - Drumspeak. They are truly easy to learn. The present Drumbeat version by Macromedia is exactly the same as the Elemental Software version. I bought the Drumbeat 2000 E-commerce package last August. All that was changed was the box.
Now, I'll be looking for Drumbeat to inherit the excellence of Macromedia's products. Dreamweaver is an awesome program. When I was notified that Macromedia had purchased it, I was very hopeful that the problems would be ironed-out. I'll wait for that one.
The asp elements are well explained but the e-commerce tasks and instructions come in a brief guide that doesn't answer all questions relative to building an e-commerce application. If it wasn't for this lack of instructions in the user's guide, which Microsoft is well known for, I would have given the software five stars. Drumbeat e-commerce is a powerful e-commerce and asp design tool but unfortuantely comes with very little, not to say too little literature on how to put the aspects of the site together. Think about buying Drumbeat for Dummies to complete the product.
Many standard features like option dropdown lists were hard to figure out how to do. I am a relatively advanced webmaster, and found it a lot of hard thinking, reading, and studying to get used to. Only buy Drumbeat if you're going to create a site that doesn't use e-commerce. Drumbeat's claim of being easy-to-use is not necessarily true. It took me a while just to find the elements to add shopping cart capabilities.
Sometimes a simple interaction takes many complex steps. It uses a lot of new terms you'll only find in Drumbeat, so you have to get used to its vocabulary, and knowing what things are and where you can access them. Buy a simple merchant software from your web host or a company. Even for a simple company site, it's easy to design and update. Drumbeat is a wonderful program, it's just so hard not to be complex when there is so many possibilities to ASP. I went through the QuickStart tutorial and the QuickStore tutorial, and read the User's Manual and I was still stumped on how to put everything together. There are so many interactions, filters, elements, galore that it is often hard to figure out what to use to get a job done. You should enjoy this product mostly if you're creating a non-ecommerce site.
I didn't like how little information I was given about the e-commerce capabilities. It's great for creating searchable databases, user cookies, and more. I think Drumbeat needed to go more in-depth with its e-commerce features. I would suggest purchasing this only if you are advanced and looking forward to long hours of hard work. I purchased the e-commerce edition of Drumbeat and was slightly dissatisfied, although its features are amazing and unsurpassable. I love its design capabilities, but it's too complex for e-commerce. Macromedia has a great reputation for software, and I have just about all the programs they make.
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