Okay, so before anyone gets annoyed because of another installation question. I have trawled the internet, SS (silverstripe) forums and even youtube for help.

Before anyone posts this...

http://doc.silverstripe.org/modules:ecommerce

...let me save you some time, as it does not answer any installation questions.

It gives you two files to download, doesn't tell you what to do with them, where to install them, how to get them recognised by the SS admin interface etc... but does go into payment methods instead - which are no use to anyone who can't find instructions on how to install the module in the first place!

I'm experienced with the likes of php, mysql, html and css, but Silverstripe is so undocumented its really hard to get your head around as a beginner who's never used it before. Isn't there any step-by-step instructions on how to get up and running in particular the ecommerce module.

Searching the forums its apparent that there are loads of people who are working off scraps of documentation, myself included, to get the software installed. I've created a database (I think, because I ran '/db/create/?flush=1' it was off someone else's forum thread through shear frustration)... but what next?

Nothing is showing up in the CMS admin area? Is there something further that I need to do before? It surely isn't documented clearly if there is!

I can't find a single scrap of documentation that I could follow from start to finish that either makes sense or is complete! Please can some one let me know if there is somewhere that shows this?

As a complete noob to SS I don't even understand what the '?flush=all' line actually does, but have used it when the site has gone weird - that's the kind of situation I'm in here - its just a lack of decent documentation!

Installing a module is as simple as extracting the downloaded file to your root silverstripe installation and running a dev/build which rebuilds the database for you.

http://doc.silverstripe.org/modules#installation

The ecommerce module is probably the worst place to start to setup since there are so many configuration options and its not really the most robust module! Its no longer supported by the same people. You can find a more recent one at http://code.google.com/p/silverstripe-ecommerce/. Installation information for the module is available on http://code.google.com/p/silverstripe-ecommerce/wiki/InstallationAndConfiguration

As a complete noob to SS I don't even understand what the '?flush=all' line actually does, but have used it when the site has gone weird - that's the kind of situation I'm in here - its just a lack of decent documentation!

I suggest going through the tutorials in detail if you haven't already as they explain some general SilverStripe concepts you will need to know. Like flushing the template cache (under http://doc.silverstripe.org/tutorial:1-building-a-basic-site#templates)

Documentation of the core framework is a work in progress, we're busy cranking away on a newer version of it as we speak :) but for module specific documentation you should contact the module authors to provide better documentation.

I went through this frustrating phase and I am still do. In the beginning, I need to evaluate if I should move to silverstripe from drupal. After searching through internet, there are a few good feedbacks indicating that it is easy to set up e-commerce. The Official Silverstripe book talk about E-commerce but nothing about Payment module. Like you, once I have figured out how to install module, I would first like to evaluate if the E-commerce module is exactly as simple to set up and use, as this is the first criteria to decide if I should joy the Silverstirpe vision.

One has to spend hours to comb through the forum

>>Suggestion of improvement to the forum. Instead of sorting by date, please provide sorting by the number of replies.

If you are new, naturally you are using ss2.4.2. Then there is a comparability issues. Many users here who
have managed to get e-commerce working is based on old version of e-commerce and older version of silverstripe.

So, it is up to the beginners like ourselves to figure out all the problems of installation.

I hope this feedbacks will lead to better FAQ to prevent beginners from giving up sivlerstripe too early.