Thanks to Wine Direct/vin65, This is shaping up to be a resource I’ve been looking for since Dec. 2015.
With more than twenty years of web design and web dev, I recently joined the Wine and Spirits industry.
The vin65 ecosytem is utterly new to me and our Sales team has made a valiant effort - now it’s my turn.
I’m looking for an absolute newb approach to understanding the nomenclature, jargon and skills needed to support the two brands we sell on the platform. The ultimate goal is to be able to train support staff, but first I need “train the trainer” leads.
Hey Zach, I keep lobbing the words “vin65 BootCamp” around here; conversely think “vin65 for Dummies”.
It doesn’t need to be a book, but I wonder if even a PowerPoint deck stepping through the basics and glossary of specific terms could help new users with an eye toward Certified Designer training as an end-game.
Hi @Tim, certified developer here jumping in uninvited!
What I found with Vin65 is that, like a lot of things in dev, you really need to build with it to understand it. I’d recommend grabbing a plain html ecommerce template and try to convert it. That would probably be my whole teaching technique.
@zach One thing I’ve thought would be super helpful for developers/designers as a resource would be a CSS repository. You have something sort of like that here for the buttons: https://documentation.vin65.com/Designer-Launch/Basic-Customization/Buttons but it’s of course limited (to buttons). Using developer tools is unavoidable, but there have been times—especially when customizing the look and feel of the cart and forms—that I’ve wished for a CSS tag reference.
Thanks for the reply, I tend to agree about “build it to understand it”. The problem in my case is that we’re talking about online, e-commerce sites. I break a brochure-ware site, doesn’t much matter. I break a live e-commerce site, sales are potentially lost.
Any ideas about a sandbox, or how I would go about building a test-site that I could kick around without worry?
Thanks again.
Vin65 does allow for some sandboxing. Right now I know they are fulfilling limited requests for developers who would like access to sandbox the Base3 beta. There’s a form to request access: https://www.vin65.com/Features/Base3
Previously developers had a month to get designs ready to go inside Vin65. Assuming you come in with a website with html/css/js done, that gives time to convert, sandbox, and troubleshoot a lot of features.
It would be super, super cool if established (not sure how this could be defined) designers/developers could have access to a sandbox on an ongoing basis. It would probably improve the speed and quality of launches. (Hint, hint @zach).
@Lindsay, I’m picking up what you’re putting down. Have you ever used a sandbox before you were a customer on any SAAS platform? We (not Vin65 but in a previous life) were looking for a software scheduling tool and were asking for sandbox access so we can try things out. The guy was super reluctant to give us access but finally relented. As soon as we jumped into the shared test site, it became clear as to why he didn’t want to give us access: Things were messy, daunting, ever-changing, and we even picked up a couple of bad habits by seeing and teaching ourselves suboptimal setups.
This anecdote was not meant to shut down the idea but this is the first thing I thought of after reading your note. Also, you’re a designer and you know more about the system and how systems work than normal people.
Designers/Developers can get a sandbox site free of charge. We want to encourage you to play around and learn our tools. You could definitely use this sandbox to build out designs for future projects without being charged. Just note that you would only be able to do one project at a time this way.
You could definitely use this sandbox to build out designs for future projects without being charged. Just note that you would only be able to do one project at a time this way.