OXID eSales Blog

Minor release 4.1.3-19918 of OXID eShop is out now

Marco Steinhäuser — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:58:26 +0200

- Published at: Friday, 26. June. 2009 from Marco Steinhäuser -

Yesterday we published the minor release 4.1.3 of OXID eShop.

We improved session handling: A fallback mechanism has been introduced that allows to sustain a session for shop visitors whose browser does not accept cookies. Along with this come a couple of related changes to some methods within the classes oxSession, oxSeoEncoderArticle, oxSeoEncoderTag and in oxArticle.

Some cosmetic changes where made to oxid.css so that the standard front end of the user interface looks better now.

Find further information about new features in the release notes.

Additionally, lots of bugs were fixed, to be seen in the change log of our bugtracking system, section OXID eShop (all versions) - 4.1.3 revision 19918.

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Road map for OXID eShop 4.2.0: Generic international version and more

Marco Steinhäuser — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:31:14 +0200

- Published at: Wednesday, 03. June. 2009 from Marco Steinhäuser -

OXID eShop 4.2.0 will include the following enhancements:

A fall back scenario with session ID-URLs will be applied where no
cookies are allowed. That means, that even shop visitors that do not
have cookies enabled, will get a chance to buy your stuff :-) Actually,
this feature is nearly about to be finished and will hence already be
introduced in the earlier minor release 4.1.3.
The administration area will slightly be improved. Yes, we know
that a complete re-structure would be great and itt is already part of
our mid-term
plans.
The 4.2.0 release will ship as a "generic" international version of
the OXID eShop. On top of it, it will be possible to easily and quickly
create localized versions. Let's see what we will start with - maybe a
UK version as well as a US version?

How to extend OXID eShop (Part2)

MaFi — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:15:45 +0200

- Published at: Monday, 25. May. 2009 from MaFi -

Make sure you read my last post How to extend OXID eShop (Part 1) before you continue reading.

Reusing Classes in Various Modules

In the first part we created the class extendedArticleRating which extends the class extendedArticleRating_parent and showed that the parent class works as advertised as soon as you register the module in the OXID eShop admin interface. Now I‘ll satisfy your curiosity and explain what happens in the background.

The basic idea about creating modules for OXID eShop is that all classes in the eShop should be extensible by multiple modules. To fullfill this requirement, the eShop has a factory for creating instances of all kind of classes. The factory is called oxnew and is a function which can be called from everywhere within the OXID eShop software framework. The implementation can be found in the class oxUtilsObject in the folder core/.

Usage of the factory oxnew guarantees that changes and extensions made by a module will be available to developers throughout the whole eShop. A big advantage of this system is that it allows to map multiple modules to the same class. One basic rule to ensure that your module is compatible with other modules is beside the usage of „oxnew" a parent-call in all methods that you override. „parrent::METHODNAME".

All instances of PHP objects in the whole shop are being created with oxnew (,CLASSNAME‘);, hence there is a central point to control which classes are being instantiated.

In the example contained in the previous part, we only added the class extendesArticleRating, but it is in fact also possible to add any number of modules for the oxArticle class. In the module box in the admin, the generic syntax for new modules and related classes would look like this:

oxArticle => ourmodule/extendedarticlerating&theirmodule/anotherarticle

In the background the *_parent classes will be created to dynamically connect all modules to a single class upon runtime.

Above graph exemplifies how various modules can be mapped to one class within OXID eShop.

View Concept and Tweaking Templates

The easiest way to display a page with custom content is for sure the built-in CMS functionality that is part of OXID eShop. With OXID eShop, navigate to admin->customer info->CMS Pages to find it. But if you want to do more then showing static information and instead want to implement custom display logic, the first step is to have a look at Smarty. The Smarty template engine is used by OXID eShop to render all templates which are located in the folder out/basic/tpl/.

Let's start with building our own template by displaying a simple template with static content first: We copy the impressum.tpl and call our new template staff.tpl and open it in an editor.

The second and last line we won‘t change as they are both responsible for generating all top, left, right and bottom elements we see at every page of an OXID eShop site. But in between those lines, we can write some basic HTML.

Lets add:
<h2>List of our staff</h2>
<dl>
<dt>Mr. Doe</dt>
<dd>CEO</dd>
<dt>Mrs Smith</dt>
<dd>Support</dd>
</dl>

For each view (e.g. a single page) in the eShop, there is one responsible view class. To display our new template we can use the view class info.php and pass the name of the new template as an URL parameter:

example.com/index.php?cl=info&tpl=staff.tpl

But there is still the text about the imprint that we want to remove. So lets have a look at this line within the template:

[{ oxmultilang ident="IMPRESUSUM_IMPRESUSUM" }]

This is a call to a Smarty function called oxmultilang which handles translations of the GUI within the eShop. You need to specify a translation for each language constant and each language used in the shop. You‘ll find this files in out/basic/en, out/basic/de or whatever language you want to use. When adding new constants please use the cust_lang.tpl file and add an own prefix to your constants to avoid mixing. The next line:

[{ oxcontent ident="oximpressum" }]

is responsible to load the CMS block with the ident oximpressum, we can delete it as we don‘t need it here.

Displaying Dynamic Content in Templates

In the next step we want to display more then just static content. Based on the office hours of our staff we‘ll indicate if they are available right now. Therefore we need our own view class.

Let‘s start with an empty php file we call staff.php and put it into /views/.

<?php
class staff extends oxUBase {
public function init()
{
parent::init();
$this->_sThisTemplate = 'staff.tpl';
}
}

When we now open example.com/index.php?cl=staff, we should basically see the same as last time when we used different URL parameters to call the template.

Now its time to add own functionality to our new view class:

public function isWorkingHours()
{
return (boolean)(date('G') > 10 && date('G') < 15);
}

and

public function render()
{
parent__render();
$this->_aViewData[blWorkingHours] = $this->isWorkingHours();
return $this->_sThisTemplate;
}

The interesting part happens in the render method. There we added the variable blWorkingHours to make it accessible from within a template.

So we can add this code to our custom template:

[{if $blWorkingHours}]
[{oxmultilang ident="STAFF_IN_OFFICE"}]
[{else}]
[{oxmultilang ident="STAFF_NOT_IN_OFFICE"}]
[{/if}]

Do not forget to add the two new language constants to the corresponding cust_lang.php.

Another way to access the working hours information within our template is:

[{$oView->isWorkingHours()}]

This works automagically because all public methods in our view class staff.php are available in the template staff.tpl via the variable $oView.

Right now the information about office hours is only available on our staff page, but wouldn‘t it be nice to be able to display it in every template wherever we want to? To add functionality which is available in all templates we need to extend the class oxviewconfig, as descriped in part 1. Afterwards we add the method public function isWorkingHours().

From now on we can write [{$oViewConf-> isWorkingHours()}] everywhere within any template in OXID eShop to retrieve information about office hours.

Conclusion

In this part we learned how to deal with views, build custom views and add functionality. Stay tuned for the next workshop on OXID eShop. There I‘ll show more basic functionality of the OXID eShop framework we‘ll need everyday, such as database access, session handling and more.

Just launched: OXIDforge, the OXID Community Lab

Marco Steinhäuser — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:33:03 +0200

- Published at: Thursday, 14. May. 2009 from Marco Steinhäuser -

The aim of the new site is to have a collaboration platform for all developers and any other members of the OXID community.

Our first goal with OXIDforge was to collect all relevant information on OXID eShop in a Wiki and to grow the content base with the community's help. We implemented the Wiki with MediaWiki, an Open Source software that, as you all might now, is the technology behind Wikipedia.

In a next step, we'll extend the Wiki to further open up the development process of OXID eShop, getting your valuable input, for example via Wiki pages where you can vote for new features to be added and other pages where feature requests could be specified.

We also plan to integrate Launchpad or GForge as a tool for our developers community to create, share and collaborate on OXID modules, themes, patches and more.

Please also note our developer mailing lists that have been introduced together with OXIDforge.

You are welcome to participate in the OXID community at OXIDforge, the OXID Community Lab!

Patch 4.1.2-18998 of OXID eShop is released!

Ralf Trapp — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:26:59 +0200

- Published at: Thursday, 14. May. 2009 from Ralf Trapp -

As usual, we fixed a lot of bugs (see https://bugs.oxid-esales.com/changelog_page.php) again. and implemented a couple of new stuff. What probably is especially interesting is the handling of external pictures from now on: No mingeling the code any longer, just a quick entry into the config file - and here we go :-)

As we have the new community dev site on now, we switched the place of the community downloads and you can find the patch for updating from a previous version to the brand new 4.1.2-18998 here: http://www.oxidforge.org/wiki/Downloads/18998. Much more comfortable, is not it?

Have fun updating your system!

Opening OXID eXchange with introduction phase

Andrea Seeger — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:17:50 +0200

The Marketplace for the exchange of OXID eShop extensions

- Published at: Tuesday, 28. April. 2009 from Andrea Seeger -

Dear OXID shop owners, community developers and partners,

for some weeks, during the preview phase, many of you already had a look behind the curtains of OXID eXchange to test and get familiar with the platform. Many thanks at this point for your valueable feedback and your ideas, which we will use for some optimization and fine tuning! Please keep that great feedback coming!

For those, who didn't yet participate during the preview phase, here are some words on our newest idea: OXID eXchange is a new platform where you can download or purchase modules, themes and language packs to extend core OXID eShop functionality. You can browse commercial and community extensions or add one yourself. Test it out at http://www.oxid-esales.com/en/exchange

No commission until June 30th 2009:
During the introduction phase will no provision be charged for revenues of your commercial extensions. Thereafter, the price list applies.

Looking forward to find your extensions on our OXID eXchange!

Kind regards
Andrea

Some hints how to add your own extensions

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Softengine Frühlingsevent 2009

Claudia Reuter — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:13:34 +0200

Roadshow with Softengine partners

- Published at: Monday, 27. April. 2009 from Claudia Reuter -

Last week I spent all of my working hours on the Softengine Roadshow (www.softengine.de).

We started in Salzburg (Austria) on Monday, 27th of April and toured around Austria and Germany. Invited were all BüroWARE Partners. All of the speakers have interfaces to the well known ERP Software BüroWARE. The tour began in Salzburg, stopped in Gera, Hannover, Düsseldorf and finally ended in Wiesbaden. Every day began with a trip to the following city, where every tour participant held his speech.

TIA Innovations (www.tia.com) for example gave a lecture on ATLAS, and its upcoming changes in German customs authority. Afterwards the BüroWARE Factory (www.bwfactory.de) was introduced, as well as DocuWare (www.docuware.de) – a worldwide operating document archiving solution. After every third speech a small break for “time2talk” was held.

After the first break the attendees learned about controlling appliances in its highest level, presented by PantaSol (www.pantasol.de) and InfoZoom (www.infozoom.de). Within the last quarter hour before the second pause smp Synergie (www.smp-synergie.de) spoke about commercial process optimization.

Directly afterwards the short refreshment it was up to me to give a speech. My main focus was about letting the BüroWARE Partners know how easy the sol:fusion interface (www.solfusion.de) can be installed and that we are proud to have such a good and long term business relationship. Also Mr. Helmut Dietz and Mrs. Corinna Müller – who attended and led the super-organized roadshow – highlighted the collaboration which already generated over 230 common projects. Furthermore they pointed out that BüroWARE users should also focus multi-channel solutions in the future, which means that they should consider doing eCommerce besides just having a retail store.

The last three lectures were about POS systems, from QUAD (www.quad.de) and VSD (www.vsd.de). Finally Distribution² (www.distribution2.de) let us know about their TWIN motto (talk + win) with which they serve as central distributor for many BüroWARE partners’ interfaces. From there the (road)show was Mrs. Müller’s and Mr. Dietz’s turn. They gave a forecast to Softengine events in the future, strategic changes and other important stuff.

The most important part after all these dissertations was the collective dinner. From that point on networking began. I was proud to hear that many of the attending partners already knew OXID – and some of them even had already realized OXID projects. When all visitors had left the event the casual part of the day started and we – the speakers that travelled together for the whole roadshow – sat in a round and reviewed the funny stories of the day and learned how talented singers we had in our group. - I just say “Soschel Komörs” … and I am sure that every speaker has a little grin in his/her face.

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Patch 4.1.1-18442 for OXID eShop now available

Philipp Grashoff — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:07:48 +0200

- Published at: Wednesday, 22. April. 2009 from Philipp Grashoff -

2 weeks after 4.1.0 release, we do release a patch for this version today.

Where to get the patch

- Community Edition users can download the patch from the CE update page.
- To Professional Edition/Enterprise Edition users with support contract we send an E-Mail containing a download link for the patch.

General hints for this package

File cache reset now will not erase cached objects structure info (files starting with "oxc_fieldnames_...") from temp directory. Developers need manualy delete these files from temp directory if updating objects structure. This will save time when rebuilding cache.
Since the OXID eShop version 4.1.0_17976 the templates of the previous versions eShop v3 are not maintained anymore. They may still work but will not be supported any longer.

Installation

See our instructions for detailed information about patching/updating.

Fixed Bugs:

- 0000786: [Files & Source code & Database] only copatible with PHP 5.2.3 onwards

- 0000799: [SEO] SEO urls are not created when non-ASCII charactes are in product title

- 0000792: [Discounts] discount on categories and articles does not work

- 0000441: [Files & Source code & Database] Variant prices are not inherited from father articles

- 0000806: [GUI & Navigation & Sorting] "Function 'getDynUrlParams' does not exist..." occurs when users logs out from SSL

- 0000784: [Languages] no charset defined in cust_lang.php

- 0000644: [Admin area] Memory error on showing User List

- 0000788: [SEO] duplicated words are cut out of the meta description

- 0000816: [SEO] Huge amount of cycles executed for removing duplicated META keywords

You may find the complete list of bugfixes in OXID eSales bugtracker.

For developers: Changes in public interface

New class is introduced: oxSimpleVariantList (extended from oxList), it is supposed to contain the list of variants (oxSimpleVariant instances).
oxList::_assignElement() protected method added. It is called in loop in oxList::selectString() so you can override it to perform some functionality after (before) each element is assigned.

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OXID Commons 2009

Andrea Seeger — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:43:07 +0200

Join the OXID Community Day on July 9th 2009

- Published at: Friday, 17. April. 2009 from Andrea Seeger -

Hello OXID Community!

We are happy to announce our very first OXID Commons, the OXID Community day, in Freiburg i.Br., Germany, at July 9th 2009!

Everyone who is interested in Open Source and eCommerce is highly welcome to attend OXID Commons 2009. Including for example shop owners, OXID users, developers, solution partners, integration partners and of course the OXID staff.

Would you like to contribute to OXID Commons with an exciting talk or workshop about Open Source eCommerce and OXID? Everyone is invited to share his knowledge with our community at OXID Commons.

We welcome all topics that could be of interest to the OXID Community, covering business as well as technical expertise related to OXID and eCommerce. Potential topics include for example case studies, programming hints, SEO tricks, eCommerce law, market trends and more.

If you order your OXID Commons ticket until May 15th 2009 you’ll benefit from an early bird discount.

Support the OXID Commons as a sponsoring partner, take the advantage to meet the OXID Community face to face to demonstrate the added value of your offerings!

Sponsoring and admission tickets will help to cover the costs of running the event. Any surplus will be donated to OSBF.

We are looking forward to a highly valuable program with lot’s of interesting speakers and last but definitely not least a get together in the evening where you can recap the day and do some inspiring networking.

Let’s ecommerce together!

Andrea

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Database repair fix for OXID eShop 4.1.0-17976 released

Marco Steinhäuser — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:33:24 +0200

- Published at: Friday, 17. April. 2009 from Marco Steinhäuser -

In the last update package, inadvertently an additional line was
placed in update.sql which can cause serious trouble if applied for those who did not want to switch to UTF-8. Thus we prepared another sql file to revert changes which were made by this additional line.

Please
note that this database repair fix is needed only if you already
updated your shop to version 4.1.0 and did NOT want to convert your
database to UTF-8!

Installation:
Please execute the sql file delivered using a database administration
tool like phpMyAdmin. Please gently note that this may take a while.

Please download the sql file from this location:
http://support.oxid-esales.com/versions/index.database-repair-fix.html

Sorry for any inconvenience!