What Exactly is a Plugin? How is it different from the API.

[fbgluck]

I posed this question to 3D support and they say that there really is no such thing as a method to write plugins (it is what they call parts of their internal code) and the only way to "extend" the functionality of 3D is through the API.

Can anybody who has experience in writing a plugin verify that there is no architecture or documentation to do this?

Here is why I am asking. We have some custom code on our current (non-3D) site that takes parameters like year, model of car and make of car and returns a set of products. The shopper chooses the product and the product is then placed directly into their shopping cart.

They API items does not seem to have this capability so we were hoping with a plugin architecture we could do something like this.

Any ideas?

[GonzaloGil]

The API is exactly what you are looking for.
What the API does is give you access to the store database through XML, so you can write your own software that interacts with it.

You would build a script/software that would have the brands and relationships to the parts on your website, ie, perhaps a table of

BRANDS
MODELS
YEARS

and a relation table that defines that BRAND 10 (Honda), Model 20 (Civic), Year 2000 (2000) can use part #ABCD. Using the API you can then retrieve in realtime part ABCD from your store, get the price, stock, images, etc.

[fbgluck]

But can I place an item into a shopping cart with the API?

Thanks for the reply ....

All the selection of the product based on MAKE, MODEL and YEAR is done outside of 3D in an external application / webpage.

The real question is...

When this external app determines an item based on this info, can I use the API to then drop it into my shopping basket without user intervention?

[GonzaloGil]

With the API you can get the catalog id, and so with that, you can build a custom add to cart form on your end. However, if the product has options, then building that form will be pretty difficult and so it would be best to redirect the customer to the product page to add -to-cart.