FAQ: What is the difference between WAP and WSP?

Version: AbleCommerce Gold

Last Updated:  06/10/13

AbleCommerce Gold WAP (Web Application Project)

The WAP model is able to compile all of your code into a single assembly and will generally result in a lower initial load time and better resource utilization on your server.

If you develop on a local server, and upload fully tested changes to your live website, then you might want to consider using the WAP version of AbleCommerce Gold.  With this version, you will need to publish, or compile all the code for your website, and the copy to the location you have selected to run AbleCommerce.  The WAP version requires that the code is recompiled when changes are made to the .CS files.

Typically, the WAP version would be used by larger development companies where multiple people may be working on the ecommerce project.  These companies will usually need to have multiple websites for testing, staging, and production environments, where development teams can work on a website in isolation, and when finished, they can upload their changes to a staging (or production) website.  Visual Studio makes this easy to do with the built-in Publish feature.

AbleCommerce Gold WSP (Website Project)

This is the original version of AbleCommerce. With the WSP version, you can go to the running website and make a change to the code. That change causes Asp.Net to automatically recompile the page and your change is reflected upon the next visit to the page.

If you've used AbleCommerce in the past, and wish to continue this practice, then you will probably want to use the version.

Licensing

Our licensing model is flexible enough to support multiple websites in both WAP and WSP development environments.

Licensing is controlled by the file App_Data/CommerceBuilder.lic.  Depending on how you want to setup your development and production environments, you may choose to use a separate license key for each installation, or you may use a single license key that responds to each website name.

Switching Versions

Converting from WAP to WSP can be done without too much trouble. The outline of steps is:

1. Delete all designer files (*.designer.cs) in the project
2. Rename /Code/ folder to /App_Code/
3. Delete AbleCommerce.dll and AbleCommerce.pdb from /Bin/ folder
4. Search and replace CodeBehind=" with CodeFile=" in all files

Going the other way is more difficult.  You can also re-install the desired version and merge any custom changes.