xCommerce - extend by composition 3/3

So here we are with the next and the last one part of our journey through xCommerce customization path. Now we will take a look on the most proper way to make xCommerce fit to us - composition.

In this way we have to understand how xCommerce solution is build. It has (like Sitecore) own hierarchy flow to process the request. To handle it it uses a few steps:

• Plugins
• Controllers and Commands
• Pipelines
• Blocks

Let's take a look a bit on them.

 Plugins

• Independent features
• Only accepted way to extend Commerce Engine
• Don’t remove default ones just like that ;)

Controllers & Commands

• Controllers works in the same way as usuall
• Commands are invoking inside the controllers
• Commands invokes Pipelines

 Pipelines

• You can create your own pipelines and hook into pipelines defined in other plugin
• Similar to standard Sitecore pipeline mechanism
• In SXC9 they are in the code not XML
• Aggregate SXC Blocks
• Comparing to XML approach No „ShowConfig.ASPX” but JSON preview
• In Commerce, there is no config patching facilities. Instead we can create our custom plugin and can patch our Blocks through the code.
   

 Blocks

• Equivalent for Sitecore processors
• Chaining calls
• Remember about returning element

Take a look on this examples of adding blocks in a few several ways:

Example

Let's assumme that we have sort of new functionality like subaccounts. To make it work properly we have to add a new controller, command, pipeline and some blocks. To achieve that we have below actions:

• Controller
• Command
• Pipeline
• Blocks

We also should remember about mentioned earlier registration piplines and blocks in the configuration classes. You will have it also below in the examples of code.

Enjoy!