Details

Written by: Max Milbers

Category: Latest News

Published: 29 October 2019

Hits: 19411

With all the improvements that were included in the release of VirtueMart 3.6.0 in late August 2019, we had also introduced new restriction parameters for payment plugins provided by the core. However, the new core introduced a small incompatibility for older payment plugins and some VirtueMart shop owners were unable to update their payment plugins to work with the new core. But the lively VirtueMart community found a way to get the old plugins working again. There was a lot of input in the development forum and many constructive talks. Great community work!

List of new features

• added shared_stock for child products. They can use now the stock of the parent
• added feature "Disable inheriting of customfields to children"
• Added an option for the menu item which allows shoppers to register themselves directly as vendors
• added the possibility to manage shoppers per vendor for multivendor mode "byvendor"
• Enabled routing of different languages within one call (vmLang must be set extra on the VmTable, because the table instance has its own temporarly vmLang var)
• added automatic thumbnailing of the image which indicates that not image is set
• 3.6.6 joomla user activation features work for virtuemart again

Changed behaviour

• edit order items, changing order status of one item does not automatically fire an order update any longer, use "edit ordered products" and store the order.
• checkCaptcha ask a question to vendor uses now vm config ask_captcha
• storing of user data stores now always the data to the cart.
• Cart stores address after confirmOrder
• browse view, it could happen that products did not show products, omitLoaded was not correctly set for the group "products"
• browse view, changed order of loading of product groups to ensure that "featured products" are not already displayed among "products"
• 3.6.6 Invoice download icon is now a button with the invoicenumber
• 3.6.6 Backend order list, search considers order id and order total now (round by 2 digits)

List of fixes

• changed cart so that it works correctly again with old payment/shipment plugins 
• rating replaced old preg_replace filter against FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING
• Important fix for creditcard.php, new php versions threw notice
• Updated js of the cart. There were double binds. The JS now binds only radios and checkboxes
• PayPal fixed product price for overridden price
• calculationHelper, fixed category restriction for rules per billcalculationHelper, fixed category restriction for rules per bill
• edit order items should consider the coupon_code now
• correct order created, modified date
• fix for product browse when legacy mode is enabled
• small fix for ids of calendars
• models product fixed saveorder for storing ordering = 0
• vmLoaderPluginUpdate updated language, xml
• added fallback for reuseorders=1
• changed getTip of config view.html.php it now uses the same fallbacks for rowShopFrontSet and writePriceConfigLine
• getCurrentUrlBy, added mode for returning query as array (not as URI, string)
• added parameter task to function call "manage" in function isSuperVendor
• mordel orderstatus, function getOrderStatusNames set to static and returns more data
• model orders replaced direct sql against static getOrderStatusNames
• vmpsplugin.php, restrictions added empty checks for !is_array
• 3.6.6 (fix for 3.6.4 thumbnail of no image set image was rendered to root folder)

Details

Written by: Max Milbers

Category: Latest News

Published: 25 September 2019

Hits: 16632

Implemented new restriction parameters provided by the VirtueMart core to our native payment plugins PayPal, Amazon Pay, Sofort, Authorize.net, eWay, heidelPay, Klarna, Skrill, 2checkout and Realex The latter also received a general update and has been renamed to 'globalpayments' because it  was acquired by Global Payments Inc. some time ago.. There is a slight change in the handling of pending orders. The new procedure is described here: https://docs.virtuemart.net/manual/general-concepts/215-checkout-process.html

New Features

• Added disabling of inherited related products and related categories
• Customfields for shoppergroups
• External media: Create thumbnails on the fly directly from remote server. Added extra permission for uploading remote media

enhanced or changed behaviour

• Removed automatically selected ‘replace’ when selecting a media for upload
• Removed keeping of customfield search filters when switching categories
• Reconsidered the function deleteOldPendingOrder. The sql now always considers the time. New behaviour described here:
  https://docs.virtuemart.net/manual/general-concepts/215-checkout-process.html
• Added message of missing/not writeable folder to the checkPath function
• The customer_notified function now works only for the emails of the customer, the vendor email is always sent according to the orderstatus

Bugs

• Fixed missing array key in getPayment
• Fixed missing renderShipmentDropdown in shipment view
• Taxes per bill were accidently not added to the shipment tax calculation
• fixed overwrite prices in Paypal Express. Invalid token set the cart paymentmethod always to 0, even when paypal was not selected
• Fixed creation of extra plugin tables of plugins textinput and specification
• The vmplugin onStoreInstallPluginTable had replaced a $name against $this->name
• Fixed breadcrumb for menu item pointing to productdetails. When menu item name and productname is the same, the productname is not written twice.
• Added missing getDbo in state model (thx GJC)
• Invoice view: Fixed foreach loop for the shipment address
• Fixed a new (old) bug in order editing for the case discount before VAT

Completed

• Added missing language
• Updated vmprices.js so that it works also for quantity buttons in the cart (thank you Abhhishek)
• Added country Montenegro
• Safepath config model, added JPath clean before storing of the Path, added more check cases for wrong paths
• Prices replaced init and step against data-init and data-step (the JS has a fallback)
• Customer_notified works now only for the emails of the customer, the vendor email is always sent according to the orderstatus

Of Interest for developers

• Important fix in cart helper function checkAutomaticSelectedPlug, the automaticSelected.type variable is now only set to true, if there is only one method.
• Plugins using the core restriction remove automatically the xml vars with the same name. So we can easily write backward compatible payment/shipment plugins. Please read here http://docs.virtuemart.net/tutorials/development/240-important-adjustments-for-virtuemart-3-6.html
• In the vmdefines function defines, changed default from site to 0, if 0 is used the appId is taken from joomla
• Added resetting of categoryRecursed in router and category model before calling getCategoryRecurse removed unsed code
• For the weight_countries shipment plugin, address type just by STsameAsBT only
• For function getVendorCurrency added a fallback for empty vendorId and a vmTrace to find the problem http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=141856.msg506893#msg506893
• Added function getSafePathFor, which gives and if applicable creates a path for a certain topic. Old function checkSafePath now creates automatically the invoice path

Details

Written by: Max Milbers

Category: Latest News

Published: 27 August 2019

Hits: 28166

More than 10000 commits later

With this version VirtueMart has exceeded the 10 000 code commits mark and approximately 150 commits have been integrated into VirtueMart since we released the last stable version of VirtueMart 3.4.x a while ago. In the meantime we have released some development and release candidate versions. Among the many improvements and small bug fixes, here are some of the more noteworthy changes:

For Shop Owners

Enhancing the edit order feature was a very hard nut to crack and took much longer than expected. We did implement additional attributes like the "is Paid", which allows shop owners to see confirmed but unpaid orders, which is especially of interest for purchases on account and also for paid but refunded orders. There are also some features that will be rarely visible, e.g. an unpaid order for the order status "Refund" shows the message "not recommended" because unpaid and not yet delivered orders should simply be cancelled.

The old function for displaying missing medias in the VirtueMart 'Media List', was just a filter over the loaded list. Previously it was only possible to search within the first 400 medias for missing ones. The problem here obviously was that the job can't be done just by an sql query. It must check the state of a media in the filesystem. So it was ‘impossible’ to list them on pages following the first one. The new function runs the query up to 1000 times, but stops when the first page is filled. Lets assume, the pagination is set to 30 and there are 500 missing medias within the first 30 000 medias, then it just displays the first 30. On the other hand, if the pagination is set to 400 and you have 399 missing media out of 400 000, you would see those missing 399 missing media.

iStraxx donated a simplified version of their ‘Download Plugin’. It allows to download a file once. It is of course working with indirect links, which means the user gets a link pointing to the plugin and the plugin decides if the user gets a file.

For Developers

Since we pay a lot of attention to the desires of plugin developers, shipment/payment methods can now use new restriction parameters provided by the core, which are very simple to implement. See our tutorial link for more details: https://docs.virtuemart.net/tutorials/development/236-update-payment-shipment-plugin-using-new-core-restrictions.html

There is a major change in vmAccess. The new system checks for rights without checking a task only for admin/manager. When a task is given, it checks only for the task. The old system always checked against admin/manager plus given tasks.

There are some new permissions and some have been removed. In the case of backend user input, the "vm.raw" and "vm.html" permission filters have been removed. We now use the Joomla validator for input.

Spyros Petrakis added a nice feature: The category module can now be displayed using the menu seperator of joomla. Just use the desired menu and id as a class, for example mod_virtuemart_category-id.

Future development

There are many ideas in the roadmap for VirtueMart. Currently we are working on a new frontend template with the very famous template developer "Virtueplanet" and a lot more is evolving in the background. At present we also need helping hands for the new backend template. Join our team! Becoming a team member is simple. Just demonstrate in our forum that you know what you are talking about and write a request here  http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?board=139.0

Another idea is to make VirtueMart available for Wordpress users. We also need helping hands here. The idea is to use the Joomla libraries as much as possible, which is why we will also work on Joomla 4.

Further ideas for the VirtueMart core are: Enhanced calculator, enhanced multichilds, enhanced display (more radios with images instead of dropdowns), adapting the joomla customfield system and so forth....

Other changes

Shopowner:

• new hidden config "hideEmptyCustomfields" hides empty customfields
• search customfields, removed options of empty customfields
• new switch "newBackendTemplate". Just add to the virtuemart.cfg newBackendTemplate=1 to try the new backend template. Currently only the configuration view is updated.
• translateable calculation rule names
• vendor mail if order status changed has adjustable text per order status now COM_VIRTUEMART_MAIL_VENDOR_CONTENT_
• removed storing of cart to table for normal cart calls
• enhanced snippets.php for Searchengines
• enhanced coupon listing,
• added published to coupons
• delivery address get automatically named with the zip and a random number
• buttons for the add-to-cart popup
• removed the second button group on top to avoid problems with captchas.
• validateUserData, validation of the country/state works now also when the state is unpublished
• fixed custom model, in case of wrong extension_id, updating now to the correct extension_id
• attachment for emails: Very important fix, views are instances and so attached medias must be set to an empty array to prevent sending wrong attachments

Major updates for the cart

• loading an old cart does not override already entered values
• defaults are now correctly loaded not only into the fields but also into the cart address arrays
• automatic selected ship/payment works now loading all available methods. Before it was only working if there was only one method left.
• Fixed Paypal Smartbuttons
• product added popup (padded.php) displays now actually added product amount (set in the cart helper)
• product model, loading price should now consider the time offset correctly
• removed dragndrop ordering for products, if there is more than one page (the js is not prepared for)
• removed print view popup of invoices. It produced a different print, than by pdf.

Developer

• new loading of Plugins to ensure correct execution sequence. In case of site, they are loaded directly in loadConfig. replaced JPluginHelper::importPlugin against VmConfig::importVMPlugins
• Important fix for 404 handling to prevent loop when an unpublished category is browsed
• fixed 404 in case controller was not found
• moved the classes vmAccess, vmUri in extra files
• moved Reporting/echo function in an own file
• product model enhanced sql for omitted products
• fixed json view for customplugins in edit customs, dropdowns were not correctly loaded and got stored with wrong default values
• which lead to wrong default order status for some 3rd party plugins, therefor also a fix for the field orderstatus to load comma seperated default values correctly
• new function getStrByAcl to get Strings from the Request by ACL
• moved the price display of plugins in an own sublayout.
• added new permission vm.user.editvendor, IMPORTANT the permission vm.user.editshop should be set for the shop owner respectivly the super admin only!
• enhanced setStoreOwner function, which considers the multivendor configuration of the shop now
• changed the initialising of the cart so, that it always loads the userfields with the default values first. Function prepareAddressFieldsInCart is now deprecated
• extra checks in the table vmusers for user/vendor relation
• replaced a continue in a switch against break for php7.3 compatibility
• disabled loading of the jQuery framework from joomla completly if jQuery is disabled in the vm config (by Abhishek)
• disabled loading of popup fancybox/facebox if jQuery is disabled (by Abhishek)
• final update for TcPdf,
  a) updated paths,
  b) added an hint why there are no images and removed breaking rendering for missing images
  c) VmPdf got more error messages and should load the defines by itself, class VmVendorPDF is not anylonger wrapped in if(class_exists('TCPDF')){
• replaced the file_get_contents against the modern JHttpFactory::getHttp
• product details, fixed canonical URL of the parent product
• address fields in the cart can now be initialized filled only with default values but without rendered html and js scripts
• added variable to the cart, which keeps the values set by defaults to determine if a value is set by the user or the system
• addJScript uses now the defer and async correctly again.
• Important fix, related to svn 10005 and forum post http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=141797.0- Important fix, related to svn 10005 and forum post http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=141797.0This time, a missing customfield is directly added as array to the variantmods array

For Templaters

• Invoice view, the address fields are now directly accessible, for example with echo $this->userfields['BT']['email']

Performance optimisations

• userfield model country field, replaced direct sql by VmTableCountry (getTable,...)
• payment/shipment methods, added cache and own function for getting shoppergroups. This prevents one call per plugin n the cart.
• VmPlugin, added important cache for function selectedThisByMethodId
• getPluginMethods is cached
• router is now using the same parameters as used for product browsing, which saves again a lot sql (products are not extra loaded for router!).
• product model added cached function getCurrentUserShopperGrps, function getProduct finds the CurrentUserShopperGrps itself before it needed to be called before the getProduct function. Same function used in getProductSingle and getProducts!
• enhanced the checkIfCached function, so the router can most time find an already loaded product
• model customfields, enhanced also the cache of the function getCustomEmbeddedProductCustomFields
• optimization for the functions getCountryByID and getCountryIDByName and the country model, loading a country creates directly multiple keys for the cached entry.
• added important improvement, removed random in sql, the randomizing of products is done by loading more than needed an array_shuffle
• router uses now also the cached Table class (reduced sql drastically)
• added autohashing of tables (if set in the constructor)
• model userfields replaced single requests in function getIfRequired against one but cached request.
• Fixed caching in customfields model, loading a product twice with different quantities loaded the customfields plus the cached ones
• Caching in model state functions getStates and testStateCountry
• Caching in mediahandler function getIcon
• getVmPluginMethod set false as default for parameter cache

...and many other minor features, fixes, corrections. See the complete list of commits at http://dev.virtuemart.net/projects/virtuemart/repository

Details

Written by: Max Milbers

Category: Latest News

Published: 08 October 2018

Hits: 27827

This release primarily fixes a bug which affected some users when they updated their shop to VirtueMart 3.4.0. Third party developers should update their systemplugins loading the VirtueMartConfig class analogue to the virtuemart system plug-in. For details please use this link to the forum thread

Also VirtueMart 3.4.2 gives users the oppportunity to test PayPal Smart Buttons. PayPal Smart Buttons offer several style options to customize the look and feel of your smart payment button. You can also use options to display multiple funding sources to the buyer, when appropriate. It is very easy to configure and deprecates the simple "PayPal Exress" and "PayPal Credit" options.

Please read here for the complete news Virtuemart 3.4 prepare for the future and here for the concrete list of changes from vm3.4.0 to vm3.4.1 List of fixes