A Roadmap and lot's to do!

Written by Soeren Eberhardt-Biermann

Friday, 27 June 2008 12:19

In the last time the VirtueMart Team has had their heads together and thought about how VirtueMart will evolve and how it will position itself in the area of Open Source Shopping Carts. The good message is that VirtueMart Development will be enforced!

With VirtueMart 1.1.2, the first "real" maintenance release will come out soon (probably in 2 weeks).

After that we will focus on working for VirtueMart 1.2, which will still support Joomla! 1.0.x (and of course Joomla! 1.5). You can expect a first alpha release in August 2008 and the final release around November 2008.

VirtueMart 1.1.x now is in maintenance mode, which means there will be no exciting new Features in upcoming Versions. VirtueMart 1.1 and VirtueMart 1.2 will be branched from the current SVN trunk - so the trunk can be used to develop VirtueMart 2.0.

This next "big thing" will be a complete rewrite. We plan the rearrange the current Code Structure to make it more flexible and extensible. Joomla! 1.0/Legacy Functions will be dropped and we will make use of the Joomla! 1.5 framework.

VirtueMart 2.0 will be compatible to Joomla! >= 1.5 and PHP 5 only.

We have published the Roadmap, but please: it's still a work in progress. The process of targeting features for VM 1.2 and 2.0 has just begun and I'm sure that not all features will find their way into upcoming VirtueMart Versions.

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Brian Shaughnessy: Backend/POS orders

Please consider adding backend admin/point of sale order capabilities. This is a huge hole that makes VM virtually useless for organizations that accept website and phone/mail orders.

June 27, 2008
Votes: +11

Rich M: How do "officially" I put in a feature request?

Where can I make a 1.2 or 2.0 feature request? I did not see what I was looking for specifically stated in the roadmap. Is your "payment plugins" feature going to allow users to add conversion tracking code without hacking source code?

June 28, 2008
Votes: +0

TomC: ...

I truly believe that some additional features that should be STRONGLY considered for the 1.2 release are:

- Configurable Products
- Shop-By-Price Range navigation

June 30, 2008
Votes: +5

John D: IT Manager http://in development

I agree with a back end point of sale for telephone orders.. This would make our lives a lot easier. I's also like to see ashake up of the Parent and Child products structure.. at the moment it is relatively complex and quirky. Also UK VAT calculations, with VAT being added to the total inc. delivery, instead of at present on each item and then also delivery.

Nontheless, great job so far!

June 30, 2008
Votes: +3

Ara Garabedian: Multimedia Designer http://folio.ifky.com.au

Hey guys.

I am SO glad to hear about the plans for the next releases. My biggest and only gripe with Virtuemart at present is that there needs to be a much clearer difference in the presentation layer. I made 1 eCommerce site with Virtuemart, by the time it took me to track down and remove styling elements from little bits and pieces of code in Virtuemart, I was ready to kill someone. Please keep the next version extremely generic in terms of visual style... use divs with id's and classes, not tables and inline styles.

When that happens, I will be a very very happy virtuemart user.

July 03, 2008
Votes: +11

unleash.it: Glad to hear it's moving

I have to agree with Ara. From a designer's point of view, themeing might have improved in version 1.1 but there's still a lot to be desired. In many screens (not to mention modules) there's still a lot of buried markup, tables, inline styles, tags, etc. Not at all easy to find and it can be amazingly time consuming to do things that could be much easier.

Ara, try turning on debugging and hovering over the blue icons for clues of where to find stuff. Also, Firebug helps with the css.

This is one area Joomla 1.5 has it really down on IMO. If VM can get there, that would be quite a winning combo for a designer. As long as I didn't need specific features, I wouldn't even bother with options like Magento. Magento looks cool, but seems like a pig to theme.

July 03, 2008
Votes: +0

TomC: Stepping Up

Magento IS a pig to theme - which is exactly why I haven't made the leap. Nevertheless, I keep crossing my fingers and hoping that VirtueMart will take note of Magento's out-of-the-box features and finally wake-up/realize that they could potentially lose a great deal of market share if they do not take the initiative to develop/add the kind of features that people have been wanting/requesting for quite some time (i.e. Wishlist, Configurable Products, Compare Items, More/Better Product Page/Display Templates, Purchasing Services, Quote System, etc.)

Here's hoping that the VirtueMart Team HAS finally gotten the message - and is working diligently to close the gap.

July 06, 2008
Votes: +1

NameName: TITLE http://MyWebsite.com

BIGGREENFUZZYYYYYY

July 07, 2008
Votes: -1

Taoufik Aboudia: Multi Stores with different Configs - http://www.neptis.info http://www.neptis.info

Hi,

I have to admit that my teamwork and I have just enjoyed the VM Experience. I would first applause the VM core team for all the work done till PhpShop.

Now if i can advise to spend more time on the Vendors unfinished chapter of VirtueMart. I guess it's a very powerfull tool. To sell the same products in different websites, sharing categories of products with partners, is something that can make VirtueMart more popular, and more marketing efficient. this can help the VM community get larger, and developpment go faster.

July 08, 2008
Votes: +1

Leord: Estimated time of release 1.1.2?

Do we know when the 1.1.2 will be released?

Thanks

July 11, 2008
Votes: +2

Crazy: Support Support Support http://www.crazprices.net

I think while Virtuemart is making great strides to be one of the best Ecommerce solutions before you start working on Virtuemart 1.2, and 2.0 you should really think about your level of support. Virtuemart is a great package but when someone requests support on the forums it would be nice for an admin to respond instead of the posting being ignored because no one wants to tackle the problem. Specifically the GoDaddy Proxy issue that is still plaguing Virtuemart though it was supposed to be fixed in version 1.1. You can't simply say change hosts because that isn't possible for some users, and is not a specific solution to the problem.

July 12, 2008
Votes: +1

Khan Kardam: Why not 2.0 directly?

VM 1.1.x supports J1.0 and J1.5

Why there is a need for 1.2? Go directly for 2.0?

Just my opinion.

August 08, 2008
Votes: +0

Billy Beaumont: Support is dire

HAve to agree with Crazy. VirtueMart support is utter crap.

There are far too many unanswered posts in the forum.

This is the area you need to improve more than anything.

Take a leaf out of Rocket Themes book. Their support is friendly and prompt.

August 13, 2008
Votes: +1

arana: ...

rocketheme sell commercial templates , thats some income there, and templates are one thing

which other support for a sohppng cart would be better?
oscommerce? zencart? magento(well they at least answer questions but that is because there are so few users/questions)

i really hope something good for VM 2.0 , specially the ability to have some sort of global filter (yo know like year/make/model for automotive industry smilies/tongue.gif

or search results that give search in the category names) those are a must i can think of and no real solution so far, at least for 1.1.2 nothing is good at those points.

the thing i see wrong (maybe i am wrong) is to keep developing new versions under new apis, and the original product is still very buggy, i hope not to get all the same bugs again , but this time in a new api :S.

any way best of luck, and i really hope the best for VM

August 28, 2008
Votes: +0

WebExcitible: 1.2 release date? http://www.falconcopiers.co.uk

Hi Guys,

The more I play with Virtuemart the more I love it. Although one feature I'm really looking forward to is the comparison. When do you think 1.2 will be ready for beta testing? I would be more that happy to beta test and supply feedback too.

VirtueMart - Open Source eCommerce Software

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