new features 3

Web Store 3 New Features

This document is a quick list of the new features in Web Store 3. A more formal explanation document will be developed by our training and documentation team, but for our partners, we wanted to give you a quick overview.

• New framework, all code has been migrated to Yii (yiiframework.com). Qcodo is dead. At long last.
• PHP 5.5(recommended) or 5.4 supported. (5.3 is not)
• New Admin Panel. The options are predominantly the same as the old admin panel, but the layout now uses the new framework as well.
• New installer, including requiring email server config during install process. Installer will upgrade databases all the way back to 2.0.8 (though a new blank database is required, data is simply copied).
• Facebook Login - create an account in Web Store just by logging in with your Facebook account. Requires setting up your web store as a Facebook App at https://developers.facebook.com/apps/
• Built-in multilanguage support. Simply turn on the language menu though Admin panel, and define the languages you wish to use. Languages can be displayed as links, dropdown or flags. In LightSpeed, wrap your web descriptions/titles in "pseudo-HTML" language tags such as:    This is my long description<fr>C'est ma description longue</fr><de>Dies ist meine lange Beschreibung</de> which will be parsed automatically and displayed correctly for each language -- note unwrapped text assumed to be your default language, usually English. Web Store strings for menus, form labels can be translated inside of Admin Panel under Db menu.
• Customer accounts can be looked up through Admin Panel (this is still just in Web Store, not tied to LightSpeed).
• Checkout uses "address book" for registered users. Logged in users with order history can pick from addresses saved on file, or enter a new address to add. Prior addresses appear as radio button selections.
• Log into your Admin Panel externally from any browser, just by going to your store URL and appending /admin on the end. Accounts are first created as regular customer shopper accounts, then go to Admin Panel and change the security setting to Admin
• Theme support, benefit of Yii, easily modify the look of Web Store by doing simple themes, requires less work than fully building a new template
• Rebuilt Wish List feature, works much better. Create wish lists viewable as public or private (no more password), set priority and add notes.
• All shipping modules now can use product restrictions (previously only available to Free Shipping). When a customer orders a specific product (such as a heavy bicycle) this can be used to exclude shippers (i.e. the US Post office) from showing on checkout.
• Checkout now displays all shipping options in radio button format so customer can see everything at once.
• Livetype search (i.e. live search results as you type in search in Web Store) back after being gone in 2.5. Works much better.
• RELATIVE SEARCH --- search results are returned by a relative score. For example, a search word appearing at the beginning of a title is a higher score than if it appears later in the title, which is higher than if it's in description, which is higher if it's in a tag, etc. Results are ranked by this score. General browsing still uses admin panel setting for desired order (most recent, highest inventory, etc).
• Upload a header image directly in Admin Panel (when accessed directly from a browser). Switch header image easily through admin panel.
• Upload a theme package as a zip file in Admin Panel, automatically extracts and installs in /themes folder
• Many features now using Jquery, including product slider
• New HTML editor in Admin Panel for custom pages
• New photo zoom feature when viewing product details. It's just cooler.
• Much easier to see and customize layout. Checkout is one file -- and formatted in a way (per Yii standards) to make it easy to see what it's doing.

• To access Admin Panel externally by going to the URL http://www.mystoreurl.com/admin in a regular web browser, you must have an account that has this privilege. First sign up as a user in Web Store normally like any other customer. Then in Admin Panel via LightSpeed, go to db->Customers and locate this account. Change the access type to Admin. You can then use this account go log into Admin Panel externally.
• There are upload capabilities for both a header image and a new theme. Due to a restriction of Web Kit, these functions cannot be used when you are viewing Admin Panel inside of LightSpeed. You can use these when accessing Admin Panel externally. (Apparently you can drag an image right on top of the Set File button even inside of LightSpeed and upload will work.)