nopCommerce 1.90 is coming in 14 days. Beta testers needed.

Good news! nopCommerce 1.90 is coming in 14 days. Now we're testing the beta version. The latest beta version of nopCommerce is available on CodePlex site. Take it for a test drive and let us know what you think!

1. Download the latest version here.
2. Clear NopCommerceStore\ConnectionStrings.config file (leave <connectionStrings> and </connectionStrings> tags).
3. Install the package.
4. Start testing.
5. Leave your comments and suggestions into this topic.

No major features have been introduced with this release as our development efforts were focused on architecture improvements, further enhancements and fixing bugs:

Highlight features:
•  Architecture improvements
•  Improved existing themes (usage of three-column master page & increased page width)
•  Allow store owner to manage category access by customer role (a store owner can deny access to any customer role)


Improvements:
•  Performance optimization
•  New discount type - 'Applied to order subtotal' (discount applied before tax)
•  New discount requirement - 'Customer must be registered'
•  New discount requirement - 'Customer has all of these product variants in the cart'
•  New discount requirement - 'Customer has one of these product variants in the cart'
•  More user-friendly admin area. Added "Save and Continue Edit" buttons. When editing an item, "Save" returns to continue editing which is great at times. A "Save and return to list" would save the edits and return to the list in one click, rather than 2 clicks.
•  More user-friendly shopping cart page
•  Improved one-page checkout to work without postbacks
•  Canonical URL support for products, categories, and manufacturers (used to eliminate loss of search engine page rank due to duplicate content penalties for multiple URLs linking to same page content)
•  Allow store owner to change 'Pictures are stored into database / file system' option in production environment
•  Negative price adjustment support for product variant attributes
•  Allow customers to email their wish lists (configurable)
•  Minimum order sub-total support
•  Email a store owner when a customer makes a return request
•  Email a customer after return request state change
•  Allow customers to remove applied discounts with coupon code (shopping cart page)
•  USPS Selectable Rates (Services). USPS carrier services selectable in admin area
•  UPS Selectable Rates (Services). UPS carrier services selectable in admin area
•  FedEx Improvements: FedEx carrier services selectable in admin area, additional fee added to each rate (optional), option to use discount or list rates, text names for services (e.g. "FedEx Priority Overnight" instead of "PRIORITY OVERNIGHT")
•  Improved 'Fixed Rate Shipping' shipping rate computation method. Allow store owner to specify rate for each shipping method  (NOTE: This method should be reconfigured if it was used)
•  SEO friendly URLs for product tags
•  SEO friendly page title of product tag page
•  SEO changes (use <h1> tag on product details page)
•  Allow store owner to select a Google Analytics script placement (before </head> or </body> tag)
•  Allow store owner to view product variants on products page (admin area > products)
•  Admin Area. Added a 'Warnings' page
•  Allow store owner to view 'System information' in admin area
•  Forums. Relative date format support (option to display 'Today, Yesterday, 1 month ago...')
•  Allow store owner to filter system log by date range, message or log type
•  Allow store owners to view the store while it is set to closed
•  Option to select time zone during registration ('Time zone' form field)
•  Option to display page execution time at the bottom of all pages in public store
•  Allow store owner to manage maximum number of items allowed in cart/wish list
•  Option to show the number of products besides each category (configurable)
•  Option to display manufacturer part number (disabled by default)
•  Option to vote on polls for anonymous users (configurable)
•  PM (private messages) email notifications (configurable)
•  Allow customers to change their username (configurable)
•  'Search Products' page. Allow store owner to set product page size
•  'New customer registered' store owner e-mail notification (configurable - disabled by default)
•  Allow store owner to choose whether he wants to export all or only active (confirmed) newsletter subscriptions
•  When clicking 'Use same as shipping address' button (checkout process) automatically select the address for the user and move to next step. Rather than copying values then having to click 'Next' button.
•  Admin area. Advanced search of locale string resources
•  'Online customers' module. Display total number of registered customers and total number of visitors
•  'Online Customers' module. Store maximum number of visitors
•  Allow customers to select a store theme (configurable - disabled by default)
•  Improved PDF packaging slips
•  Display tooltip that EU VAT numbers should be entered without country code
•  Improved 'New VAT submitted' message template (include the status of VAT number and name and address of registrant - very useful info when checking validity)
•  Modified 'Products in Lines 2' category template to support price and specification filters
•  Allow store owners to download backups
•  When a customer registers during checkout, after completing registration they should be redirected back to shopping cart page
•  Skip 'select payment method' checkout step if order total equals zero
•  If customers were using reward points and they had more reward point value than the total order value, they were still required to select a payment method
•  PayPal Standard. Validate order total in PaypalPDTHandler.aspx
•  Allow store owner to delete old PDF and excel files (Admin area > System > Maintenance)
•  Added advanced search hyperlink to the main forum page
•  Render order notes in PDF order invoices (disabled by default)
•  Promotion providers. Added input box for product thumbnail size
•  Promotion providers. Allow store owner to generate product feeds in distinct currencies
•  Display entity name during its editing (product/category/manufacturer/customer details pages)
•  Web.config file. Set ValidateRequest to "false"
•  Shipping settings (admin area). Hide 'Value of X' field in case 'Free shipping over X' is unchecked
•  Added a hyperlink to 'Forgot password' page to administration login page
•  Standardized use of color definitions in style sheets to hexadecimal
•  CSS. Removed several hard-coded styles
•  Show 'Password successfully changed' message after changing password in admin area
•  Preselect a shipping method and payment method during checkout
•  'Impersonate customer' functionality. 'Finish session' link should take administrator back to the 'administration' page a store owner started from
•  Localized 'DuplicateEmailErrorMessage' and 'DuplicateUserNameErrorMessage' properties of CustomerRegister control
•  Admin area. Bigger input box for setting & localization values
•  Ensure that reward points are applied only to registered user
•  Display customer email on 'customer reports' page (admin area)
•  Developers. Source code refactoring
•  Developers. Usage of IoC/DI pattern
•  Developers. Pass entities as parameters to manager methods
•  Developers. Use T4 for generating NopObjectContext
•  Developers. Naming changes (Manager -> Service)
•  Developers. Moved all promotion provider libraries to the new 'PromotionProviders' folder
•  Developers. Removed a lot of stored procedures
•  Developers. Added OrderPaid event to EventContext class
•  Developers. Merged CreditCardTypeManager, PaymentStatusManager, PaymentMethodManager and PaymentManager classes
•  Developers. Merged ShippingMethodManager, ShippingRateComputationMethodManager, ShippingStatusManager and ShippingManager
•  Developers. Merged LocalizationManager and LocaleStringResourceManager classes
•  Developers. Renamed IpBlacklistManager to BlacklistManager
•  Developers. The following tables were deleted: Nop_DiscountLimitation, Nop_DiscountRequirement, Nop_DiscountType, Nop_LogType, Nop_LowStockActivity, Nop_OrderStatus, Nop_PaymentStatus, Nop_ShippingStatus, Nop_ShoppingCartType
•  Developers. Better control over 'Online Customers' module (you can decide which page should or should not be tracked)
•  Developers. Renamed Picture.Extension property to MimeType
•  Developers. Removed Nop.HttpModules.BlacklistModule and Nop.HttpModules.MembershipModule assemblies
•  Developers. Removed BaseNopNestedMasterPage class
•  Developers. Added BaseNopFrontendMasterPage base class for public store master pages
•  Developers. Added BaseNopFrontendPage base class for public store pages
•  Developers. Added BaseNopFrontendUserControl base class for public store user controls  



Bugs:
•  Medium trust issue fixed (use FCKEditor instead of HTMLEditor)
•  Added ‘MultipleActiveResultSets=True’ to connection string
•  PNG/GIF transparency issue fixed
•  Deleting product variant attribute issue fixed
•  One-page checkout and PayPal Express issue fixed
•  Turned off case sensitivity for discount coupon codes
•  EURO currency format issue fixed
•  Sitemap issue fixed. 'changefreq' property should be lowercase (SiteMapSEO.aspx)
•  Credit card number and trailing spaces issue fixed
•  Free shipping issue fixed. If one product that has free shipping and one product that doesn't require shipping are placed in the basket, a shipping fee is applied here but shouldn't be
•  Added missed 'ManageEmailSettings' customer action (ACL)
•  Category details page. Filtering products by specification attributes with international names issue fixed (Internet Explorer)
•  Shared SSL issue fixed ('SharedSSL' app setting renamed to 'SharedSSLUrl'; new 'NonSharedSSLUrl' app setting)
•  Anonymous checkout discount issue fixed
•  Minor dynamic price update issue fixed
•  'Customer enters prices' products in distinct currencies minor issue fixed
•  Admin area. Editing guest minor issue fixed
•  Pictures stored on file system minor issue fixed. When you click 'delete' for a product image it does not delete the original image
•  Fixed bug in BBEditor "quote" button functionality (in case we have [code] tag inside [quote] tag)
•  Autocomplete issue fixed for FF and Chrome browsers (replaced AutoCompleteType='Disabled' with autocomplete='off')
•  Continue shipping rate computation on error with multiple providers
•  SagePay payment method issue fixed
•  Svea (hosted) payment gateway issue fixed. 'Success' parameter was not validated on return page
•  PayPal Standard issue fixed when 'Pass product names and order totals to PayPal' option is enabled (shipping fee is missing)
•  Tier pricing/Customer role and product variant discounts issue fixed
•  'Online customers' module. Last URL query string parameters were not stored
•  Mini shopping cart + 'shopping cart' link displayed incorrect product quantity when there is more than one of an individual product in the cart
•  Currency issue fixed when 'Display all applied tax rates' option was enabled
•  'Allow anonymous users to write product reviews' and 'Allow anonymous users to set product ratings' issue fixed
•  One-page checkout minor issue fixed
•  Admin area ('affiliates' and ' topics). Generating a link issue fixed
•  LogTypeEnum.Unknown issue fixed
•  Admin area > DashBoard. DateTime (timezone) issue fixed
•  Password protected topics issue fixed when they are used as nested topics (Topic.ascx control)
•  Wrong order date in customer emails issue fixed
•  Exporting orders to excel minor issue fixed
•  Cancelling recurring payments minor issue fixed
•  CSS minor issue fixed (Customer profile > User latest posts)
•  Maximum length of customer email/username was increased to 100
•  Added static lock object to SEOHelper.InitializeSeoCharacterTable method

I will start testing later today. Congratulations Nopcommerce community!

Great News Andrei !!!!

Thank you very much.... I will download the beta version and give it a shot.

(I'll post my feedback here)

Ok i downloaded the beta 1.9version and i am in the process of testing this version

Here's my feedback till now:

Great work nopCommerce Team, new improvements are looking great !!!

Bugs:

1) Registration Page

When a customer registers on the website - If he/she press enter key instead of clicking the button "Register" - The customer is navigated to the search page instead of registration confirmation.

2 things are important in this issue: Enter key is not working and page is getting incorrectly linked with Search Page.

I don't think it is a design or browser issue as i testing it on latest version of Mozilla, Chrome, I.E 7 / 8.

Important - > I tested it in different manner also, if i activate "Captcha Image" for registration page. Now even if i don't fill out the registration form and click/put my mouse pointer/curson on the text box of captcha image and press enter - it still takes me to the "Search Page"



2) Forums Section - Design Bug

Still username/ e-mail address is not getting wrapped up properly in forums section and if username/e-mail address is long then it comes out from the column section (This is how it looks in I.E 7 ) : http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/8868/forumsa.jpg



in process of testing....will post more if i find any bug/issue

abcd_12345 wrote:

I think this is a common issue. I think this is like windows forms where you can only have one button as the default button and one button as the cancel button. In this case, browsers assume that the first button to be rendered is the default button. Since the search button is in the top of the page it will always be the default button. Don't know if it is possible to change this behavior without some javascript...

More Bugs:

3) Show Manufacturer Part Number (this could be "by design" or could be considered as bug)

When in admin section we enable the feature of "Show SKU" the SKU is being displayed everywhere in "ShoppingCart" in checkout process, in PDF invoice. packaging slip and in order notification e-mail which is a good thing.

So, logically Show Manufacturer Part Number should also work in a same way but it is not.  If store owner enables "Show Manufacturer Part Number" , it only displays the MPN # in short description but nothing in pdf invoice / e-mail order notification , shopping cart, packaging slip etc.


4) Packaging Slip

By default the packaging slip shows SKU #. What if store owner has disabled the option of "Show Sku" ? Still packaging slilp displays the SKU # of the product.


5) Incorrect Address Format in PDF invoices and Packaging Slips.

While testing the order section i noticed that all the PDF invoices and packaging slip are displaying address (shipping and billing) in wrong/incorrect format.

The standard format of address is :

Address line 1
Address line 2
City
State, Zip Code
County

But PDF and packaging slip is displaying in the following format (displaying county and state before city and zip code is being displayed with city rather than state)

Address line 1
Address line 2
County, State
City, Zip Code
(This is an incorrect format)

P.S. The reason i pointed out this thing because order details in e-mail notification and account are showing the correct format - it is only the PDF invoices and packaging slips that are showing the incorrect address format



Suggestions:

1) Poll System

In 1.9version, we have the option by which guests can vote in poll. (which makes the poll system much better)

But it would be great to have 2 buttons instead of just 1.

2 buttons like this: "Vote" and "Show Results"

Many time customers may wanna check the results before voting.
In addition to that, currently there is no way to go back to poll system after voting. I know it prevents spamming poll votes but anyone can overcome/avoid that by deleting cookies and vote again. So anyone after voting should be able to get back to the voting system.


2) Order Notes

Currently store owner can add order notes and have the option to display the order notes to the customer. But what if store owner added an order note and by mistake checked the option to display "to the customer". Now, there is no option to undo that or to hide the order note from customer. (The only option is to go to database and make it false".

So, it would be great to have a button "Hide From Customer" in the order note section.

Update: 1st Bug

I just noticed that combination of registration tries in which a customer tries to create an account and press enter key - by which customer gets navigated to search page instead of registration confirmation - that resulted in creation of "anonymous" accounts in the database.

Email Name Username Active Registration date Edit
Guest   [email protected]    11/23/2010 10:56:00 AM  Edit  
Guest   [email protected]    11/23/2010 10:55:30 AM  Edit  
Guest   [email protected]    11/23/2010 10:53:17 AM  Edit  

(I am not sure what combination of things resulted in these anonymous account but i am pretty sure they were created because of those registration tries)




Reward Points System

When a customer is checking out from the store, he/she gets an option to use his/her earned reward points. That is done by a checkbox.

Condition 1 : If reward points money is less than the order total, the points becomes 0 and rest of the amount (order total) has to be paid by the customer which is also correct.

Contition 2 :  If reward points money is greater than the order total, the points gets deducted which makes the order total 0 and rest of the points becomes the remaining point which is correct. (and rest of the reward points are shows as redeemed points in the point history)

But - in both conditions - what if a customer doesn't want to use all the reward points from the account ? Currently customer is compelled to use all the reward points from his/her account in both of the above mentioned situations.

Along with the checkbox there should be a text box also in which customer could specify - how many reward point he/she wants to use from his/her account for this order.

abcd_12345 wrote:

Good idea!!

abcd_12345 wrote:
Thanks. It should be fixed

abcd_12345 wrote:
Just set 'Customer.FormatNameMaxLength' setting to 40.

abcd_12345 wrote:
It's by design

abcd_12345 wrote:
It always worked this way (even before adding this option)

abcd_12345 wrote:
You're right. It'll be fixed (it always worked this way in the previous releases)

abcd_12345 wrote:
It is not. Everything works fine (no guests are created)

abcd_12345 wrote:
It's by design and always worked this way. But I'll create a work item for this task

Thanks nop team for your efforts and this new version.

Our first results and comments after testing the beta.

The improvements in using the Admin area
The Save And Continue Edit addition is a time saver! Thanks!

ACL on Categories
When setting restricted access on a Category, the Category is indeed invisible in the Public Shop when you are logged in as a User that is member of that Role. I am still able to search or link to the Products that are in that Category, though.
Reading the explanation in the Administration page for the Category, I suppose it should work like this. But I can't imagine why you want a function like this to work this way. IMO it is much more useful to ONLY ALLOW access to a certain Category if a User is linked to a certain Role. Imagine this: when a User is not logged in, he/she can access all Categories. But when he logs in, that certain Category is suddenly gone...!

Preselect a shipping method and payment method
Super!