3.0.5 to 3.1.x Expected Template Issues?

I'm curious if anyone knows if CS-Cart is going to follow their usual path of causing us all template issues and headaches when we upgrade to 3.1.x from 3.0.5?

I've come to believe that pretty much every shopping cart software out there breaks something every time the developers issue an upgrade. Seems like it goes with the territory.

[quote name='kingsleypress' timestamp='1360264702' post='154695']

I've come to believe that pretty much every shopping cart software out there breaks something every time the developers issue an upgrade. Seems like it goes with the territory.

[/quote]

We were previously using X-C for years and never had this issue with upgrades and templates breaking. X-C's policy seems to be “slow and steady wins the race” and from our past experience and our ongoing observation of their forums; as we still own the license, this seems to be a better approach to developement in terms of less bugs, less issues, etc.



Another thing X-C does that seem to work far better is allow the third-party-vendors to thrive and not try; like CS-Cart, to be all things to all people and jam everything you can into the cart. X-C seems to focus more on the core cart issues and allows the third-party-vendors do their thing. This approach also improves cart stability and community involvement.



CS-Cart seems to have become bloat-ware. Just look at the size of the current 3.0.5 version compared to 1.3.5. Having said all that we've obviously chosen CS-Cart for our reasons and we're generally happy with it but you don't have to read too far in this entire forum to see consistent, ongoing complaints about the same bugs/issues year after year.



Sorry for the rant but upgrades and the issues they cause to templates costs and wastes man hours and money to fix which is not good business. Come up with a stable template system that is tested and reliable and save all us time and money.

[quote name='mayanetwork' timestamp='1360193049' post='154632']

I'm curious if anyone knows if CS-Cart is going to follow their usual path of causing us all template issues and headaches when we upgrade to 3.1.x from 3.0.5?

[/quote]

In answer to our question CS-Cart responded today, “Unfortunately, we cannot tell you exactly if it is possible to transfer your design to version 3.1.1. Most probably, it will be impossible. You will have to have a design created again. Sorry for possible inconveniences.” Wow, just figure it out once and for all like many other carts have done and save us all a lot of hassle and money!

That's very discouraging.



I've recently upgraded my site and am still picking up the pieces. A couple of days ago I discovered that during the upgrade, a bunch of my URLs were changed (any product that had a period as part of the name…which lots of mine do because they are book authors), Google picked them up and is now reporting all kinds of crawl errors and duplicate content. I've spent hours going through my webmasters account and trying to track down and correct all the errors. That's on top of the fact that there is no easy skinning system for v3 like there was for v2.



And according to what you've written here, all of this awaits me again if I would want to upgrade to 3.1.x.

The only thing some may consider easier in Versions 2.x.x was the ability to choose between 15-20 pre-canned skins, creating any design from scratch in later 3.0 versions is much easier. I imagine that CS-Cart will offer a few more canned skin designs after 3.1 is released and stable, although, having 15-20 is nothing more than a bunch of added, un-necessary bloat that I hope they never add back in… Sure, there have a bit too many CS-Cart releases over the last few months, however, my bet is that “things” will stabilize considerably once 3.1 is released, I consider it to be a new, more solid foundation to build the house on top of which should benefit the majority of us.

[quote name=‘Struck’ timestamp=‘1361905530’ post=‘156437’]

I consider it to be a new, more solid foundation to build the house on top of which should benefit the majority of us.

[/quote]



No doubt you thought that about 3.0 also… Maybe it will be 3.2… who knows… :mrgreen:

[quote name=‘kingsleypress’ timestamp=‘1361905708’ post=‘156438’]

No doubt you thought that about 3.0 also… Maybe it will be 3.2… who knows… :mrgreen:

[/quote]



Not really, I actually read about the details of these releases rather than just going in blind which is the approach you obviously took, similar to your Dwolla Payments journey! :grin:

[quote name='mayanetwork' timestamp='1361901255' post='156429']

In answer to our question CS-Cart responded today, “Unfortunately, we cannot tell you exactly if it is possible to transfer your design to version 3.1.1. Most probably, it will be impossible. You will have to have a design created again. Sorry for possible inconveniences.” Wow, just figure it out once and for all like many other carts have done and save us all a lot of hassle and money!

[/quote]



They should simply never have released version 3.0 if all will break again going to 3.11. Why couldn't they have waited 3 more months and launch with what will now be 3.1.1 as 3.



[size=4][color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif] Like many others I have spent countless hours and $$$ upgrading add-ons and making a new skin, only to hear that everything will break again. Cs-cart, this has to stop… please stick to the 3.11 branch and make that the best, stable cs-cart ever. Then stick to it for some time and allow developers to create good add-ons that actually keep working.[/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='Flow' timestamp='1361909624' post='156444']

They should simply never have released version 3.0 if all will break again going to 3.11. Like many others I have spent countless hours and $$$ upgrading add-ons and making a new skin, only to hear that everything will break again. Cs-cart, this has to stop… please stick to the 3.11 branch and make that the best, stable cs-cart ever. Then stick to it for some time and allow developers to create good add-ons that actually keep working.

[/quote]



Exactly!!!