CMS Made Simple Forums

Today I released a bunch of modules. Marking most of the parts of my Ecommerce suite. This is a major upgrade from the previous series. For some people using the Products module there will be compatibility issues. I will try to outline the changes.

Products
The biggest changes here are related to 'attributes'. That functionality has been completely removed and replaced with something I called 'options'. The big difference here is that there is a single flat list of options per product. rather than numerous different 'attribute sets'.

Options have a SKU (optional), a text field, an adjustment, and a quantity on hand field. (IIRC QOH should be automatically adjusted when an order is completed.). When options are entered for a product the options will show up in a single list when adding the item to the cart.

On upgrade the system will try to convert simple attributes to options. However, because of the (flawed) way that Attributes worked, if you had multiple attribute sets for a single product upgrading will not work well. You will need to test each of the products to adjust each of the options.

The SKU field becomes more important in this release, particularly when using promotions, or when wanting to use the QOH functionality. The SKU for a product or for product options must be unique across all products and product options.

Cart2
The Cart2 module is a replacement for the Cart module and is specifically designed to work with options. The Cart module has been upgraded and should work fine, but is officially deprecated now.

Promotions
The Promotions module has had significant modifications and enhancements. It now includes "instant" promotions that are applied when an item is added to the cart. The promotions calculation engine has been rebuilt from scratch. There are also a couple of new promotion types to allow you to discount or offer products (or product options) based on SKU.

This module has also received numerous bug fixes and enhancements including the form for building promotions. However, the JQueryTools module (v1.2.x) is required.
You should check all of your promotions for validity (and get rid of old ones) when upgrading.

Orders
The Orders module has been improved to work with the New promotions module and has had numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements

Others
Other modules have received some attention, including CGEcommerceBase, PaypalGateway, CGMyOrders, PriceBasedShipping, etc.

Upgrading
To upgrade I recommend that you do test upgrades and significant testing on a staging site (a copy of the site created with a separate database, and in a subdirectory is recommended).

Versions
These modules all require PHP 5.3 (5.3.5 or better is recommended). And CMSMS 1.11.4 or greater.

Thanks for your time and patience.

Amazing work and a big step forward. A few bugs are popping up which I have posted. Will do some more testing tomorrow. Nice work though.

Callguy1000:

I was just reading up on your ecommerce suite as a potential solution for a new site. Wondered if there is the option of selling digital products? or do you recommend that download masking and management be handled through paypal?

I posted a lengthy questions here: http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/viewtopi ... =7&t=66275 and was looking for a comprehensive solution. I knew you had created an ecommerce suite and so had duketown, however it appears his documentation is for sale. so before i make unnecessary purchases, i just wanted to get a sense of what solution would work.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

You can use the Uploads module for hidden downloads that expire etc...

Great work!

I'm extensively testing it on a website in development...and posting found bugs
Hope it all will run smoothly soon!
Have a nice day.

Just a question about the change from attributes to options.

With attributes I could have
color: red-white-blue
length: s-m-l

How does one do that with options?
I do not seem to grasp the concept.

Kind regards,
Jan

You need to provide an 'option' for each combination

i.e: small+red small+green small+blue, medium+red medium+blue
etc. etc.

The advantage is if you don't offer a 'medium green' product you don't add the option for that. And also, when using sku's the QOH stuff works so that when a user purchases a small+green product the quantity will be decremented.

Thanks,

I understand, a simplification that makes sense and is even better for the presentation.

Kind regards,
Jan

Hi Robert,
I've just returned to a shop that i started building before your major upgrade. I have upgraded all the commerce modules and replaced cart with cart2 (and selected it as the cart) but i am still not seeing anything about product options in the interface. Is there something i've missed?

Hi,

I wanted to ask the same question, I have build a complete shop that I can copy in 3 languages but "cart2" does not do what it should.
I have put "cart" in and then it is working.

I do not grasp the following idea:
- an article-number (SKU) for a product
- an extra article-number (SKU) for each option

There is one more small thing, the "Price adjustment" does not show, I only get "option name (€)". I have not yet figured out where this can be corrected (the template I can find, but what to put there?).

The example I made is http://neu.karin-schmuck.net
3 products with "Mode"

I still must put in the right email-templates, those are already made.

Kind regards,
Jan

Dramatic wrote:Hi Robert,
I've just returned to a shop that i started building before your major upgrade. I have upgraded all the commerce modules and replaced cart with cart2 (and selected it as the cart) but i am still not seeing anything about product options in the interface. Is there something i've missed?

Sorry, I posted this from mobile and didn't provide a lot of information: CMS Made Simple™ 1.11.7, CGEcommerceBase 1.4.3
CGExtensions 1.37.2
Cart2 1.0.5
Products 2.19.6

I just tested Cart, and Cart2

Cart2 works fine... however IT WILL ONLY WORK WITH PRODUCTS THAT HAVE A SKU.

i.e: in my Products detail template I have: {cms_module module=Cart2 sku=$entry->sku}

Robert is right, the module does work absolutely fine, however throughout the documentation it says to use the tag {Cart2}, however you need to use {cms_module module='Cart2'} along with any parameters you want at the moment. Also the Promotions module must be installed for product options to work in Cart2. It is not listed as a dependant module. I have posted a bug report about it so sure Robert is aware.

CMSMS is a very capable ecommerce package once you get all these working how you want.

Hi,

thanks, I will soon try

sku=$entry->sku
{cms_module module='Cart2'}

I used {Cart2}.

Kind regards,
Jan

To clarify, for me Cart2 is there and works, but I am (as administrator) not seeing any interface (I would expect it to be a tab in Content->Products) for creating/managing options. So I can add a pack of coffee to my cart, but can't select the grind.

Installing the promotions module as suggested made no difference.

1) Can you confirm that the code to manage options is part of the products module?
I've just downloaded all the site's modules. The changelog file is a 2.19.x version, and I can see some option-related class files in lib, but there are still action files relating to attributes instead, and none for options. (I don't know whether the Module manager/xml update process removes deprecated parts of a module or not.)
So my current theory is that my products module is not properly up to date.

Going to the forge, one thing that stands out is that there are two .tar.gz versions of 2.19.7 and no xml file. This would explain why module manager says I am up to date with 2.19.6

Q2) What changes to the database schema were involved with the transition from attributes to options. Would the 2.19.6 xml installer have implemented these if I came straight from 2.18?

Q3) If I delete the module and upload/unpack the 2.19.7 tar.gz, is there an install script that I have to run manually?