OpenCart 1.5.0 Progress (2011)

As many of you know, v1.5.0 is the next major release of OpenCart. As with all software development, it isn't always black and white as to what is or isn't going to make it. A lot of times a large list of features gets picked at until the developers feel enough has gone in. Additionally, some times you realize that in the middle of working on a new feature that something else that depends on it needs to be changed.

1.5.0 is planned to be released as soon as possible, but as we have missed a few of our own expected target dates, we will just say it is nearing completion. Remember this is open source and we use our free time to work on the project, so exact deadlines are difficult to make. OpenCart is also still growing and as it progresses there are some hindsight opportunities where we feel additional unplanned changes need to be made. All of this can delay the project and has nothing to do with poor planning... Unforeseen circumstances are simply that.

So here is a list of what is done and almost done.

Completed
- Global Product Options
- All Option Types
- New Theme with full CSS control of styles
- New URL class
- Multiple Instance Based modules
- Product Attributes
- Product Compare
- Reward Point System
- Admin Order Entry
- RMA System
- Banner system
- Affliate System
- List/Grid layouts for controller pages
- Products per page for controller pages
- Ajax suggest search filters in admin
- Page Layout Manager
- New Modules
--- Account
--- Wishlist

Nearly Completed
- One Page Checkout
- New Add to Cart animation
- Gift Voucher Purchase System
- Newer Theme
- Fine tuning the CSS (margins, padding, etc)

Not Yet Completed
- Features and Fixes from 1.4.9.x
- Language merge loading

Deferred to 1.5.1+
- Narrow Filtering


For a better description of some of the new features check this first post:
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24196


There will be no more commenting on any more 1.5.0 topics. We are past the planning and feature request point so there is no point in commenting, deliberating, whining, or anything else on the matter. Existing 1.5.0 threads have simply become bitch threads about missed release dates so this is it. This is the ONLY place for 1.5.0 information.

Any other 1.5.0 whining threads will be immediately deleted.


I will update this list as often as possible as we finish the items on the list. I will also add screenshots as things get finished to give you a look at what we got.

Finally when the last item is done, we should be ready for the beta release to the forums only. From there we can work on a final.

Screenshots:

Product Compare

Gift Certificates

Product Option Selection:

Option Creation

Product Page
The arrows show the things to notice.... little things that take a lot of work behind the scenes

The template that you see will be changed. I don't like the look.

Daniel has been working on the newer-new theme.. Can't say this is what the end result will be but here is what it looks like so far. I'm not sure if the Mega Menu is still a module. I did recommend keeping both the side and upper menus as modules but haven't got confirmation on what the design is.

Cart page with shipping estimator:

Category - LIST


Category - GRID

I'm very very close now. I have 3 things to do.

1. sort out the manual order editing. I have decided instead of having a full backend system for making orders it would be better if the admin users can login as any customer and create orders for that account or create orders for guests.

I have already spent a long time creating a full backend ordering system but this code will now be come redundant. With the new system any changes made to the front of the site regarding the admin system will not have to be added to the backend.

2. The css for the category menu. easy enough should not take long.

3. I have altered the order totals system so they can have there own modules for entering coupons, shipping estimate. Code wise this is now complete. I'm still a little stuck on how this should look. It makes the cart page look very bulk so I need to play around with it a bit to get it to look nice.

I have also already added an extra method to the order total classes. these methods will be called when an order is complete so if you have entered a coupon code this method will be called when the order is assigned an order status and will redeem the coupon. same for reward points.

ok I have sorted the manual order system. some people may not like it but we can discus once its released.

only 2 things left which are really just css stuff. after that going to do some testing then a release.

forgot to mention that I have altered the session class so the session cookie can be shared across multiple domains as long as there on the same server. this will be a big help for people using shared SSL.

Daniel wrote:forgot to mention that I have altered the session class so the session cookie can be shared across multiple domains as long as there on the same server. this will be a big help for people using shared SSL.

by "same server" does that mean host?
Example:
normal: http://www.joestore.com
shared: https://srv123.hostgator.com/~joestore

Those are different domains on the same host but potentially not on the same server

ok guys everything is done.

I'm planing to release Monday. I need to get the template working with IE6, create some banners to go with the new template and remove the test ones.

All the functionality is now done though.

Daniel wrote:ok guys everything is done.

I'm planing to release Monday. I need to get the template working with IE6, create some banners to go with the new template and remove the test ones.

All the functionality is now done though.

So Monday, second Eastern-day, I looking forward to get my hands on it!

Perfect day btw. as everyone is having a holiday and can play around with it.

so this is where i'm up to.

friday had a problem with the pc and only just fixed it.

I have to fix some css and finish 4 banners then we can release. i'm going to work on this for the next few hours. If i can get it done i will release tonight.

ok its going to have to be tomorrow, now sorry.

it is really close now.

Great news!

Daniel has finshed 99% of the cart and turned over what he has for me and I've been working last night and this morning to update 1.5.0 with all the bug fixes from the past few versions.

A lot of stuff has changed for 1.5.0 so the patching has to all be done very carefully one-by-one so it is a very tedious process (Donations welcome ). But I'm cruising along nicely and about half way done with bug fixes. I see no reason I won't be able to finish in the next few hours.

The final bits that Daniel has to finish is the css for the shopping cart dropdown box that shows your cart contents and some banner stuff and that looks to be it. During my bug patching I've been going through all the new cart features and most things are working better than expected.

One of the best new features is the one-page-checkout. This thing is absolutely great. Super fast and intuitive. It works so well that Daniel changed the admin order entry and added the ability to "Login as Customer" to add orders as it keeps the process the same.

This will be a BETA release and make no mistake, there are some quirks and little bugs that will of course need to be worked out. But it has quite a lot of improvements in it, many visible to users, and others only visible to developers.

It will be not be ready for a live store just yet. We need feedback and testing from the community for that. It also does not have a working upgrade script so don't try to update your current 1.4.9.x version.

Daniel has been working nearly 20 hours straight to finish and finally had to call it quits and get some sleep. Which is fine since I have to patch over the bug fixes. As soon as I finish the bug fixes, Daniel will likely be waking up again to finish the last pieces and release it right after that.

So rest assured, that long awaited moment is finally close at hand!