Crystal Laing
During a work experience placement, I was introduced to Shopify. On my own test website I was able to explore the platform and start to learn a new language, Liquid. My first task was to create a custom section and get familiar with the Dawn theme. Later, for a different store, I migrated products from Squarespace to Shopify and adjusted the details when necessary.
I was asked to create a custom section on a website that was completely new to me, in a language I hadn't heard of until that very day. This was a challenge, and I approached it by first educating myself as much as possible. I started very basic and learned what the differences were between sections, blocks, assets, what a schema actually does, and how to build a theme. I made a very basic schema and constantly tested the code as I went. This particular section featured a slideshow that wasn't built into the theme. I used a plugin from Flickity and built some code around that. I was very close, but couldn't quite nail it to the way that I wanted it to look. At this point my mentor stepped in and showed me a working example that he made. This was valuable as it showed me exactly where I was missing the mark and now I feel much more confident in this area.
For the migration, I had the products in a spreadsheet file that had to be transferred to a template that Shopify would recognize. This was quite simple, just a matter of lining things up where they needed to be. Once it looked good, I imported the new products. There was a problem with some of the images transferring over. After troubleshooting, it was because the original URLs were not valid and I had to insert a placeholder image URL in a few cases. Once the transfer was complete, I manually swapped out the placeholder images for the true product images. After checking that everything else transferred over correctly, I was done.
The biggest things I learned are how to navigate the Liquid language, build custom sections, and migrate products into Shopify.
The largest learning curve was learning Liquid and how it can be utilized to build custom sections. The existing theme had a ton of files already, so navigating what was already there and feeling confident enough to adjust things here or there was something I needed to fully understand before messing around with.
I did find that Liquid is similar to PHP in some ways, so that was a connection I was able to make. Once I understood the structure of schemas and blocks, it became more straight-forward. I liked how it can be combined with HTML and CSS, much like PHP.
The Shopify migration part taught me how exactly products are migrated, along with all their descriptions, images, and details like quantities, taxes, categories, etc. I became familiar with the help section of Shopify's website and feel like if there is something else I am unsure of in the future, I can easily find what I am looking for.
Shopify is a platform that is growing in popularity. I feel that it is an important aspect of web development that I should know. This experience has given me a great overview of the platform with some detailed experience in creating my own sections for a pre-built theme. I was exposed to a new language and now feel confident that I can write basic code in Liquid when necessary. In addition, I had practice migrating products for a client that had an existing store on Squarespace. This was not an example from a tutorial, but a real-world situation that I was able to do quite well.
I have written about one of my experiences from this placement in my blog.