Google software engineer Ed Davisson has posted news on the Google Checkout blog of a new integration module for the payments system that will relieve many e-tailers of a major headache.

The payments branch of the search company have launched an all-new self installer module for the popular open-source shopping cart osCommerce, which will hopefully lead to similar products from other payment services.

Davisson’s post states -

We’ve completely reworked the installation process by no longer requiring users to manually copy and paste large swaths of PHP code into their files. Instead, we’ve created an automated deployment app that does this for you by looking for the appropriate PHP insertion points and adding the code where it’s needed. This should ease concerns about lines of PHP getting copied into the wrong place. If you want to learn more about the installation process, you can take a look at our documentation that contains a step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots showing exactly how it works.

The post-deployment configuration has also been greatly simplified. We’ve now grouped the most important fields so they’re easy to access, and the rest have been moved to a detailed control panel. There are also descriptions in the walkthrough of how to fill in the necessary fields. Both the app and walkthrough are available here.

Confusingly, the details and download page lists the download link as v1.5_RC1.zip – this may prove confusing for some users – it made me scratch my head for a second or two – the RC1 tag is unfortunate with so many osCommerce 2.2 RC1 installs on the web, and many of those site owners reluctant to upgrade to RC2a, due to osC v3.0 on the horizon.

The tag 1.5 RC1 for the Google download refers to the Google Checkout interface version, not the osC version, despite the fact that common usage in the osCommerce add-ins community is to name the download with the osC version to which it refers.

The download page (linked above) provides the following spec and requirements list for the add-in -

The Google Checkout module for osCommerce allows merchants using osCommerce to offer Google Checkout as an alternate checkout method. The plugin provides Level 2 integration of Google Checkout with osCommerce.  GNU General Public License v2

Plugin features include:

• Posting shopping carts to Google Checkout
• International Shipping support, Merchant Calculation Support
• Tax support
• User and order updates within osCommerce
• Order processing using osCommerce Admin UI
• UK Support
• Google Analytics and 3rd Party tracking Support
• Digital Delivery Support
• Google Product Search support (beta)
• Google Sitemaps support (beta)

Requirements:

• osCommerce v2.2, RC 2a
• PHP3/PHP4/PHP5 with cURL(libcurl) installed and enabled

For us at BuildaSkill, I’m guessing we’re about to lose our site techie for a week or so while Gaz rushes off to upgrade his sites, which I know are all on RC1 of osCommerce, in order to play with this latest offering from Google. While he’s at it, I wonder if he’ll also do my site?

Other payment processors (MoneyBookers, NoChex, PayPal, PayMate, ProPay etc) would do well to follow Google Checkout’s lead on this form of integration – maintaining and developing sites built with osCommerce is already costly in developer time, and anything that shortens the site-build lead-time, or eases the maintenance burden, is to be welcomed.

Ed