osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 Pre-Release Notes
osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 was scheduled for release by the end of February and has been postponed to ensure the quality of the release. It will now be released on Wednesday the 11th of March. This release also brings in a new roadmap and release strategy for the v3.x series.
Our focus has changed with this release from implementing additional features into the core to concentrating on the framework and to add the features to future releases. This allows v3.0 to be released sooner with a stable framework, and allows a much faster release cycle for new features compared to the previous “release every 6 months” release strategy.
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 will be accepting uploads for this release and discussion channels will be available on the community support forums.
The v2.2 -> v3.0 Alpha 5 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.
The roadmap for v3.0 is now:
v3.0 Alpha 5
- Product Attributes Implementation
- Dynamic Table Listings (Administration Tool)
- Live Search (Administration Tool)
- Administration Tool sections now self-contained Applications
- Error Logging; both PHP and MySQL errors and warnings now logged (forced runtime usage of PHP E_ALL and MySQL STRICT_ALL_TABLES)
- Stabilized Framework
- Usage of JSON for RPC calls
- Inclusion of jQuery v1.3.2 and jQuery UI v1.6rc6
v3.0 Beta 1
- HTML E-Mails
- Purchase Without Account
- Frozen Framework
- Updated Frontend/GUI
- Upgrade from v2.2 and v3.0 Alpha 5
v3.0
- Bugfixes
- Finalize Updated Frontend/GUI
- Documentation
- Certified Modules
- Upgrade from v2.2 and v3.0 Beta 1
v3.1
- Backup/Import/Export Features
v3.2
- Gift Vouchers and Coupons
The v3.0 Alpha 5 release will also be the first osCommerce Online Merchant release using Git to attract an even greater wave of developers to help with 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. A discussion channel will be made available on the community support forums to manage the discussions on clones, patches, and keeping up to date with everyones changes.
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 commits leading up to the release. Be ready to show the world your creativity in making osCommerce Online Merchant an even better e-commerce solution 