We are proud to announce the fifth and final alpha release of osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 codenamed "Vanillekipferl". The focus with this release has changed from implementing additional core features to, instead, concentrate on the core framework and to add new features to future releases. This allows v3.0 to be finalized and released much sooner with a stable framework and allows for a much faster release cycle to introduce new features.

This release is a stable production-ready release and will be the first supported release in the v3.x series. This release is still marked as an Alpha release due to framework changes that are still planned. We therefore recommend the installation of this release to those that are performing it themselves, and for hosting and service providers to wait until the final release of v3.0 before making it available to their customers.

The community add-ons site is now accepting uploads for this release and discussion channels are open in the community support forums.

The osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 to v3.0 migration tool will be made available by the end of March for existing installations to use, and is only recommended to those that will be updating their installations leading up to the final v3.0 release.

New Features

Some of the new features in osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 include:

• New object-oriented framework (alpha 1)
• New installation routine (alpha 1)
• register_globals and magic_quotes_gpc compatibility (alpha 1)
• New template structure implementation (alpha 1)
• Search-engine optimizations (alpha 1)
• Service modules (alpha 1)
• Checkout procedure cleanup (alpha 2)
• New language definitions implementation (alpha 2)
• Updated payment modules with post-transaction actions (alpha 3)
• Catalog front-end, administration tool, and installation routine combined (alpha 3)
• XHTML/CSS based default template layout for the catalog side (alpha 3)
• Multiple product images implementation (alpha 3)
• New action modules (alpha 3)
• Administration Tool access levels (alpha 4)
• Administrator Log (alpha 4)
• Administration Tool batch action capabilities (alpha 4)
• HTML Editor for product descriptions (alpha 4)
• Full zone entries for most countries (alpha 4; Anders Pamdal)
• Language injection feature for similar languages (alpha 4)
• GeoIP Modules for the Administration Tool Who's Online section (alpha 4)
• Product Attributes and Product Variants implementation (alpha 5)
• Dynamic Table Listings (Administration Tool) (alpha 5)
• Live Search (Administration Tool) (alpha 5)
• Administration Tool sections now self-contained Applications (alpha 5)
• Error Logging; both PHP and MySQL errors and warnings now logged (alpha 5)
  (forced runtime usage of PHP E_ALL and MySQL STRICT_ALL_TABLES)
• Stabilized Framework (alpha 5)
• Usage of JSON for RPC calls (alpha 5)
• Inclusion of jQuery v1.3.2 and jQuery UI v1.7 (alpha 5)

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Roadmap

The roadmap leading up to the final v3.0 release is defined as:

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Beta 1

• HTML E-Mails
• Purchase Without Account
• Frozen Framework
• Updated Frontend/GUI
• Upgrade from v2.2 and v3.0 Alpha 5

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0

• Finalize Updated Frontend/GUI
• Documentation
• Certified Modules
• Upgrade from v2.2 and v3.0 Beta 1

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.1

• Backup/Import/Export Features

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.2

• Gift Vouchers and Coupons

Social Coding on Github

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 is the first release using Git to attract an even greater wave of developers to help with the development of add-ons and core framework improvements. Git is a distributed version control system which allows developers to clone and create branches on their own local development machines. The Git development repository is hosted at:

http://github.com/osCommerce/oscommerce/

Developers, feel free to fork the git master branch now and keep up to date with the changes leading up to the final v3.0 release. Be ready to show the world your creativity in making osCommerce Online Merchant an even better e-commerce solution!

If you are new to Git, please review the guides available at Github to help get you started:

http://github.com/guides/home

Server Requirements

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 requires the following dependencies:

• PHP v5.2+ (with MySQLi extension)
• MySQL v4.1.13+ or v5.0.7+

Download

Information on downloading osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 can be found here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/downloads

We wish you the best of fun with this release and look forward to your feedback!

Release Errata

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 was released on the 14th March 2009. Since its release the download package has been updated to fix the following problems:

• Show server requirements during the installation routine
• Add a javascript check during the installation routine which is required for the installation routine and Administration Tool
• Fix the Administration Tool language import logic (http://svn.oscommerce.com/jira/browse/OSC-832)

The osCommerce community were extremely busy throughout 2008 with over 700 new add-ons and features being made available for osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2. That includes over 2,500 updates made by over 1,200 community members in 2008 alone!

There are currently over 5,200 add-ons for osCommerce Online Merchant made available for free by the osCommerce community!

Statistics for osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2

New Community Add-On Packages

Uploaded Files to Community Add-On Packages

Most Popular Community Add-Ons for 2008

1. Ultimate SEO URLs
2. Easy Populate & Products Attributes
3. Simple Template System (STS)
4. Register Globals
5. Discount Coupon Codes
6. UltraPics - MS2 Image Addon Pack!
7. Purchase Without Account
8. Order Editor
9. Product Extra Fields
10. osCommerce PayPal IPN Module v1.0 For 2.2MS2
11. "Dynamenu" for osCommerce - Dynamic Fly-Out, Drop-Down, Tree Category Menu
12. Credit Class & Gift Voucher
13. Featured Products
14. More_Pics_6 for 2.2 ms2
15. 'On the Fly' Auto Thumbnailer using GD Library

(view more)

Most Active Contributors for 2008

1. Tod (lildog)
2. Sam (spooks)
3. Scott Olson (olsonsp4c)
4. Seyhun Cavus (faaliyet)
5. Jack (Jack_mcs)
6. Olivier B (delete13)
7. Richard (Deeogee)
8. Olof Larsson (Olof Larsson)
9. Kevin L. Shelton (wdepot)
10. Jan Zonjee (Jan Zonjee)
11. nic (FIMBLE)
12. Nick Carter-Bond (hanuman)
13. Alex. B. (rakimonmic)
14. leirisset (leirisset)
15. Luca (luckyno)

(view more)

Thank You, osCommerce Community!

Thank you, osCommerce Community, for the hard work put in that has extended the feature-set of osCommerce Online Merchant and making it available to the hundreds and thousands of osCommerce store owners worldwide.

2008 has been a great year for osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 and look forward to making 2009 an even better year with osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0, with a production-ready release of the new core engine being made in February.

The complete statistics can be viewed here:

http://addons.oscommerce.com/stats

This is a bugfix release that replaces osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 RC2.

The only changes that have been made include the following 2 bugfixes that were introduced with 2.2 RC2:

• Use of PHP 5 only stripos() function during the database restoration routine on the Administration Tool. A compatibility function has been added to work on PHP <5 servers.
• A PHP warning message is produced on requests where the session has not been started (ie, for search engine spiders). This is due to referencing the $_SESSION superglobal variable in tep_session_is_registered() which does not exist if the session has not started. A check for this variable has been added to this function.

It is strongly recommended that existing v2.2 RC2 installations apply the following changes to correct the above issues:

http://svn.oscommerce.com/fisheye/changelog/osCommerce/?cs=1829
http://svn.oscommerce.com/fisheye/changelog/osCommerce/?cs=1830

osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 Release Candidate 2a can be downloaded here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/redirect.php/go,44

An upgrade guide for existing osCommerce 2.2 Release Candidate 1 installations can be found here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/ext/upgrade-22rc2.html

This announcement can be discussed on the community support forums at:

http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=289553

We wish you the best of fun with this release and look forward to your feedback!

We are proud to announce an advancement of the osCommerce 2.2 release series with the new osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 Release Candidate 2 release. This second release candidate addresses issues introduced in the previous release candidate release and addresses longer termed issues from 2.2 Milestone 2.

No major features have been introduced with this release candidate as our development efforts are focused on our upcoming 3.0 release, but does include the following changes:

• Over 15 bug fixes and improvements.
• Improved register_globals compatibility layer for PHP 4.3+ servers.
• New and updated payment modules that include PayPal Express Checkout, PayPal Direct Payments, PayPal Website Payments Standard, Authorize.net AIM and SIM, WorldPay, and more.
• Introduce the ability for payment modules to show checkout buttons on the shopping cart page.
• Introduce the ability for order shipping and billing addresses to be defined from an external source (ie, payment method).
• Introduce a public status flag on order status levels to show or hide orders from customers depending on the order status level.
• Introduce a download flag on order status levels to allow customers to download virtual products at specific order status levels.
• Introduce version signature strings to payment modules that link to the add-ons site for easier version tracking.

osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 Release Candidate 2 can be downloaded here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/redirect.php/go,43

An upgrade guide for existing osCommerce 2.2 Release Candidate 1 installations can be found here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/ext/upgrade-22rc2.html

This announcement can be discussed on the community support forums at:

http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=289553

We wish you the best of fun with this release and look forward to your feedback!

The PHP Group recently announced that support for PHP 4 will be discontinued at the end of this year to focus on the production-ready PHP 5 and the upcoming PHP 6 releases.

The announcement from the PHP Group can be read here:

http://www.php.net/index.php#2007-07-13-1

This announcement impacts our current v3.0 development roadmap, our vision for the final v3.0 release, and our support policy for released versions, where we have decided to also drop support for PHP 4 in osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 and to optimize it for PHP 5.

This gives us v3.0 Alpha 5 and v3.0 Alpha 6 to remove PHP 4 compatibility coding logic and to optimize the framework with the new features PHP 5 provides. As the current state of the v3.0 framework has already moved to an Object Oriented design, optimizing it for PHP 5 will be a simple task worth doing now to avoid jumping to v4.0 so soon which was planned to be PHP 5 optimized.

Optimizing osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 for PHP 5 now allows us to further improve and strengthen the framework and to pass the high quality level of coding to community developers to base their add-ons on. The performance of the framework will improve by removing the PHP 4 compatibility layer and by taking advantage of the new features PHP 5 provides such as SimpleXML, DateTime, Iterators, and new core functions. The design and security of the Object Oriented framework will also improve by utilizing the new features of the PHP 5 Object Model.

Our support policy for the v3.x release series is to publish a release with new features every 6 months and to support each published release for 2 years. Removing the PHP 4 compatibility layer now for the v3.0 release allows us to focus only on PHP 5 without the need to spend resources on PHP 4 compatibility past its end of life cycle.

Many hosting providers have been supporting PHP 5 in recent years together with PHP 4 where this change will not impact many users. The number of providers supporting PHP 5 will increase by the end of the year to match the end of life support for PHP 4.

The osCommerce Online Merchant v2.x release series will continue to be compatible with PHP 3, PHP 4, and PHP 5 from v2.2 onwards.

We are highly motivated about this change in focus and look forward in making osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 an even better release.

This announcement can be discussed on the community support forums at:

http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=270025