Official CubeCart Blog

Well we finally have the first beta release of CubeCart v5 and I wanted to write a little something to let you know what to look out for from a developers point of view.

Firstly I’d like to introduce our beta microsite where you can download the package and read some of the commonly asked questions. Head over to http://beta.cubecart.com to find out more.

Many won’t have realised but development started on v5 very soon after CubeCart v4 was released. As a major release it is a complete code rewrite and effectively a brand new ecommerce solution. A huge amount of time and effort has gone into it.

Things to look out for…

Code Hooks

One of the biggest problems with past versions of CubeCart was the inability to upgrade from one version to another  if you had made code modifications. We have been around now for approximately seven years and we have accumulated a huge community of developers who have made modifications. Quite of lot of our customer have used these modifications to improve the functionality of their store or sometimes coded their own.

The first beta release introduces the new hooks system which allows a developer to build these code changes outside of the core code. This means it will be possible to upgrade the store to the latest release without having to recode all the modifications which is time consuming and introduces a lot of room for error. In there first beta release there are only a few hooks so it is fairly limited and we would love to invite testers to recommend hook locations. Both the new Google Checkout and PayPal alternate checkout modules have been coded into it using the hooks system to prevent them being a core part of the source code. We will soon be releasing developer documentation explaining how they work.

Skin Sub-styles

CubeCart v5 is the first ecommerce solution we have developed that has skin sub-styles. Many will have noticed Carretta-Soft & Caretta-Bright in CubeCart v4. These are effectively the same skin but with a different colour scheme. The beauty of v5 is that it is possible to make more than one theme derived from the same core HTML files. This is achieved by having a skins theme folder containing different CSS and image folders for each sub-style.

Superior Code Architecture

Although CubeCart v4 only works with PHP5 it hasn’t fully taken advantage of its power. This beta release takes full advantage of true OO PHP with a far superior architecture and we have introduced a number of new classes in order to make it more of an ecommerce framework than just an application.

Cart to Cart Portability

If you are thinking of moving from your current cart solution or you have a client with an existing store then the new 3rd party cart import system may be of interest. Instead of manually adding all the data there are number of import tools allowing you to import the data from a 3rd party cart directly into CubeCart. This may be helpful if you have a new client wishing to move away from a well known existing cart system.

All New Templated Admin Control Panel

The very dated looking and often clunky admin control panel of the older versions of CubeCart have bee replaced with a much more slick and friendly replacement. This is much easier to use for the merchant and the PHP has been separated from the HTML using templates much like on the front end.  This allows for the possibility for admin skins. If you are an agency deploying large quantities of CubeCart stores to your clients this may be of interest. Merchants will love the new “ajaxy” features.

Improved Accessibility & JS Libraries

We have dropped Scriptaculous for the much loved and hugely popular JQuery. Using this the HTML output has been massively improved to be more accessible. Our native image capture has been replaced with Recaptcha only.

Native PHP Sessions

We have moved back to using native PHP sessions in place of cookies for session management. Some people are aware of the security issues related to the storage of PHP session data in shared servers temp folders. Also the fact that on some shared server environments all your customers will get logged out as Apache restarts. This sometimes happens if a new domain or subdomain is added to the server. In version 4 our solution was to move to cookies linking them to the IP and browser to prevent session hijacking. Headaches followed mainly due to complex networks and the despicable nature IE’s cookie handling. Grrrr… don’t get me started. Anyhow the use of native PHP sessions will improve browser session compatibility and we have put measures in place to improve their security and to avoid Apache restart boot outs.

More Features

The first release of CubeCart v5 has a great deal of new features that have not been available in older versions. This is great as it will reduce the need to build hooks or make code changes in order to meet your or your clients requirements. We are aware that for some there are still a few order winning features missing and for this reason we have published the 5.1 roadmap on the beta microsite.

And more…

So much more… we hope you like it and we will look forward to haring your feedback, bug reports and notifications of undocumented features.

We are in the process of developing CubeCart 4.3.4 which will fix a number of bugs, improved product export tool for stores with large inventory and 3D Secure for PayPal Website Payments Pro which will be enforced in January 2010.

This release will be available in the next couple of weeks depending upon how long the 3D Secure certification takes.

It’s incredible how fast time goes by. So much has been happening and aside from the occasional tweet we haven’t provided a detailed update for sometime. Sorry not to have kept you more in the loop but rest assured we have been working hard…. very hard!

New CubeCart.com Customer Area
We have been developing a new  customer area of our site and ordering system. We chose against building it on widely available commercial PHP licensing software but instead we have built it from scratch using some bits and pieces from the code base of CubeCart v5. We hope that this makes the current clunky ordering process faster and easier. Using GeoIP* technology CubeCart will be sold in a number of different currencies at fixed prices. This should make it easier to budget for development projects outside of the US and allow us to give you an exact quote in your currency without any concern for a variable exchange rate.

A new feature has also been added so that you can transfer software/copyright keys between each other without having to wait for us to do it for you. The recipient will be invited to obtain a key from the current owner which will only be transferred when the invitation is accepted. Order payment reminder emails and trial key expiration notification emails have also been scrapped as we sympathise that they are too demanding and intrusive. Our system will only send an order complete notification containing your key(s) and a separate Install/Upgrade service email if purchased.

CubeCart v4
It’s coming up to two years since v4 was released and we are pleased that it is now mostly a very stable and secure product with a huge user base. It’s success has exceeded out expectations even with the vast amount of competition these days. We are aware that there are a number of bug reports in our bug tracker and we aim to release a maintenance release over the coming weeks.

CubeCart v5
*Most* of the development roadmap is complete and we are now spending time testing in-house before we make a public beta release. There is a lot to do and we are not yet ready for public involvement. We know how desperate you are to get your hands on it but please be patient. We hope to have a public beta available early 2010 and prices are yet to be decided.

* Due to licence/integration restrictions Maxmind GeoIP mapping will not be a feature of CubeCart v5.

Right now we are spending time looking at how the admin panel of CubeCart currently works and what we can do to improve it.

We appreciate that product and orders need to be found quickly and as easily as possible. Important decisions need to be made as to whether the admin user is returned to the item listing page on “add item” or sent to the edit page for confirmation.

What do you think? What things annoy you the most about the way the admin interface currently operates? Time = Money

The winners have been picked and it has taken hours to read over all of your comments and suggestions. I don’t want to give away too much as a great deal of the data is very precious and we certainly don’t want our competitors to see it.

The majority of those surveyed took the time to leave comments, some funny, some out right weird but maily all very useful indeed. We were most pleased by the fact that almost nothing that was sugested wasn’t already implemented, in the process of being implemented or on our whiteboard for a future release. The same suggestions and comments appeared time after time and it was really very humbling to see that over the last six months or so we have already been very much on the ball and there is absolutely no doubt that we are heading in the right direction.

In summary we found that the overwhelming majority of our customers are happy with CubeCart and the vast majority would recommend it to their aquantances and use it for future projects.

The survey is now closed but we will still enjoying hearing from you. We would like to take this opportunity to thank old, new and potential customers for their support and for sparing your valuable time to complete the survey.

We talk to our customers on the phone every day, we read forum posts and emails all the time where we come across wonderful suggestions, ideas and sometimes even complaints too.

We listen and acknowledge your ideas which have been the main input to our development roadmap which is long, detailed and exciting! Our main tool for prioritising this input is straightforward. Each time suggestions and requirements are asked of us the likelihood of it happening sooner than later increases.

In an attempt to learn even more about our customers and to discover what you like and dislike about our products and services we have created a short survey. We appreciate that there is a huge amount of competition around us and we are determined to keep one step ahead. To arrogantly sit back and assume we know what you want would be dangerous, not only for our company but yours too. In order for our customers CubeCart stores to remain competitive it is vital that CubeCart remains innovative.

We all hate filling in forms so as an incentive some Amazon gift vouchers have been offered to 14 randomly selected. Good luck!

For more information about the competition and to take the survey please visit our forums announcement:

http://forums.cubecart.com/index.php?showtopic=37659&pid=162366&st=0&#entry162366

CubeCart v4 is still growing and sales are as strong as ever. Luckily e-commerce is one of the few industries that still experiences growth in poor global economic conditions but it is really sad to see large high street names close their doors. As I’m sure most of us will agree, it’s going to be a bit of a long haul recovery.

A great deal of development is going on for a new major release of CubeCart. A minor release of v4 should be available in the coming months too. As we don’t want to give everything away, teasers, updates and screenshots may be few and far between now. We do however read all your suggestion and carefully consider all of them. Some people may think that not much is going on but that would be far from the truth. I can hear one of our developers using unrepeatable words concerning Rijndael encrypted cache files and I type!!

Right now we have a talented in house designer whose job is to create new CubeCart skins. Much of his work has been for large industry names such as T-Mobile, Nokia, Nikon, BWM, etc… so the look and feel of future CubeCart releases should be in a whole new league. We plan to have five new skins, some with colour sub-themes. In v4 for example this would make Caretta Soft & Caretta Bright  one skin with two style-sheets. We are also improving the flexibility of skins by having the ability for them to have their own config files, on the fly thumbnail generation and as many different thumbnail sizes as you wish. (Bye, bye unnecessary thumbnail tool). This overcomes problems encountered when designing skins concerning fixed thumbnail sizes and amount of latest products etc…

Of course I am sure we will have a barrage of emails asking for release dates and questions concerning whether there will be an upgrade fee or not. Regrettably we are unable to answer such questions at this time, so please try to refrain from asking. Although we have a huge and incredibly loyal customer base there is a huge amount of competition out there now. We are not arrogant and most certainly don’t take our success for granted but we are positive and determined to be a leader in the market with innovative, flexible, robust and affordable e-commerce solutions.

We thought it was about time we posted some development updates.

CubeCart 4.3.0 is soon to be released. This version has undergone a thorough anual security audit and we have implemented some security hardening features such as password salts. FCKEditor has been updated to the latest incarnation which fixes some of the bugs in newer browser versions and now supports Safari & Google Chrome. We are also talking with recapcha.net to add an option for their visual/audio captcha system. This should not only improve security but improve accessibility for those with little or no sight.

A great deal of development is going on in the background too for a later more major release. Below are a few more sneak peaks.

Simple Contact Us Manager

We have created a simple contact us for customers to use on the front end of the site. It allows you to specify departments with corresponding email addresses. It is also possible to use the rich text editor to add other information such as your address and any other information you want to show such as business hours.

Sales Statistics
The long awaited feature to have sales reports has been made. This is a useful tool to generate general sale / tax reports within a user defined time period. It can be displayed as an HTML table or exported as a CSV file. Right now we are investigating the possibility of integrating 3rd party software such as Quickbook although no development has started on that yet.

That’s about all we have to show for now but there is lots of other development including digital downloads manager. Hopefully we will have more to show soon.

Oh have we been busy!! It is exciting to show you just some of the cool stuff we have been doing.

Many complaints have been made about the current CubeCart v4 filemanagement system. We listen and have been busy completely revamping it for you.

Scenario: We wish to add a new television with six images. We can use the built in filemanager to create a folder called “television”. Navigating into this folder we can choose to upload all six images at once.

We “save settings” and CubeCart shows us the images in the correct folder.

The product has already been added so we select it from the product list page.

This presents the edit product page split nicely into tabs.

The administrator clicks the images tab which loads a dynamic file tree. These folders can be opened and closed dynamically loading the content. This is a fast easy solution to then click the tick or cross to add or remove them from the product detail page.If the image name is clicked an image preview will load.

Pretty cool don’t you think? Oh, did we mention you can crop images too?!