Re: Who has the best all-around package for web-to-print?
We went through and checked out a lot of sites whe nwe were in the process of redesigning our site a year and1/2 ago and realized there are a lot of features various sites have but nothing that was customized to what we needed , so we started from scratch and designed our programs /apps etc.
It takes a bit more time to get up and running, but at least you know your site will function customized to how you need it to function.
Before redesign, the boss checked into some print sites that boasted of coming designed with bells and whistles and cost was around $30,000 for basics, and went up in price based on any customization. This , plus the idea that the code and structure was unknown - what if you wanted to change something, tie one or more things together? There were so many 'IFs' that we started from scratch and was better for (especially me the web guy) because then you know exactly what you have and how to make or change any of it when things expand, change, etc.
The original site from years back was similar to many print sites still out there - where as they just make a table data list of products and prices and it scrolls and scrolls along the page. The boss was looking at the new instant quote calculators o nsome sites and liked the idea, but wanted to go in a different direction with his own options for products etc. I was off wandering the Internet ocean, scrambling a bunch of ideas that were in many different categories on my own.. and got hired to do this. I thought "printing?..what the heck do i know about printing?!"
But after a lot of studying, researching blahblah.. I learned a lot about printing, the process, the history, machines and then was able to understand what they actually needed on their site. Using PHP/MySQL and AJAX - I came up with the 'Instant Pricing' calculators on the ezprintsolutions site.
The idea was to get rid of the billion page refreshes / reloads to recalculate price everytime somebody clicked on an option, but yet he wanted it so it was not scrolling down the side where a customer would have to throttle the scroll bar back and forth to see it.
If you're looking for stuff like that , I would go with PHP / MYSQL and AJAX (some might say .asp) but, hey i dont use .asp and dont care about .asp lol , so i couldnt help you with that. Its preference of program language, but with PHP and AJAX you can eliminate all the annoying page reloads everytime people click a button.
Hope that helps give you an idea - because awhile back we were trying to brainstorm the same things .
