Speed Boost In Cs-Cart 4.3.1 Beta

[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hi everybody,[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Today, we’re proud to present CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta.[/font][/color]







[center]Join beta testing now[/center]



[center][size=6]DOWNLOAD BETA[/size][/center]





[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Our team has been working hard to make CS-Cart faster and more feature-rich. We have fixed many bugs and added new cool features, but the main perk of CS-Cart 4.3.1 is speed.[/font][/color]



Server Side Optimizations



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On the same hardware, CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta works faster than CS-Cart 4.2.4. We optimized SQL queries to achieve speed boost. Take a look:[/font][/color]



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[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][color=gray]During the tests, we used a relatively slow machine with 50,000 products. We do not recommend using this configuration for a live store of this size[/color].[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Every time a customer opens a page in your store or uses the search or filtering features, a database query is executed. A query tells the store what information the customer wants to see. For example, “women apparel under $100” is represented by a certain query. The more items to load and the more complicated the conditions, the heavier the query. In a store with 50,000 products, a heavy query takes minutes to run, depending on the server.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In CS-Cart 4.3.1, we focused on the heaviest queries: product sorting and filtering. By breaking these queries into smaller chunks, we achieved massive speed boost; the same data that would take over a minute to load in CS-Cart 4.2.4, loads in 5.5 seconds in CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta.[/font][/color]



Caching Optimization



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Product search means executing heavy SQL queries. Repeat the same search twice, and you have two identical heavy SQL queries to execute. Though we’ve made heavy SQL queries much faster in CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta, it would still be nice to eliminate the need to run duplicate queries.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This is why we’ve introduced product ID caching. During a search, CS-Cart 4.3.1 stores, (caches) the IDs of the found products. If the same search is called, CS-Cart 4.3.1 takes the results from the cache and does not run the heavy SQL query again.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Caching is useful not only for search optimization. CS-Cart 4.3.1 caches most blocks on the storefront. This makes for faster page loading on the second visit.[/font][/color]



Storefront Optimizations



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Here are the improvements we’ve made on the storefront:[/font][/color][list]

[]Lazy image loading. That is, an image is loaded only when it’s visible. For example, images in sliders are loaded only when a customer clicks the arrow:

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[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Lazy loading reduces bandwidth usage on the homepage by 30 percent. This feature also reduces the number of HTTP requests to the server.[/font][/color][list]

[
]JavaScript code at the bottom of a page. In CS-Cart 4.2.4 and older, a page was invisible to a visitor until all its JavaScript code was loaded. In CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta, non-crucial JavaScript code is loaded last. As a result, during page loading, a visitor sees the content sooner.

[/list]

[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Take a look at the results from Google PageSpeed and WebPagetest:[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The First Byte cell indicates time before the page starts loading.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Start Render cell indicates time before the page content starts rendering.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You are welcome to download CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta and test drive it. We created a special bug tracker for CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta, so please report the issues you find. We plan to fix them quickly and roll out upgrades (Beta 2, Beta 3, etc.) once or twice a week. You will be able to upgrade from CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta to Beta 2, Beta 3, etc. using Upgrade Center.[/font][/color]















[center][color=#555555][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=6]DOWNLOAD BETA[/size][/font][/color][/center]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]We will activate Store Import within a week after the first beta release. Anyone who feels like testing CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta with his or her live store will be able to use the store import feature.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Important:[/font][/color][list]

[]CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta is not production-ready software, so do not use it for selling products.

[
]A direct upgrade from CS-Cart 4.3.1 Beta to CS-Cart 4.3.1 Final will not be available.

[*]You will be able to upgrade from CS-Cart 4.2.4 to CS-Cart 4.3.1 Final via Upgrade Center.

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[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You are very welcome to join beta testing. We are eagerly waiting for your thoughts about the new release. Please post your comments here or in our blog.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Don’t forget to report bugs—we greatly appreciate it.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Stay tuned to our blog for articles about the new features of CS-Cart 4.3.1.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay in touch with the latest CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor news.[/font][/color]



[color=#333333][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]P.S. Online demo of 4.3.1 Beta is available at http://bullet.demo.cs-cart.com [/font][/color]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][color=#333333]P.P.S February 19: [/color][/font][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][color=#333333]We released Beta2. It includes Store Import. The link for download is the same.[/color][/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][color=#333333]P.P.P.S March 2: [/color][/font][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][color=#333333]We released Beta3. Also Multi-Vendor Beta3 is available: Download link.[/color][/font]

P.P.P.P.S April 1: We released CS-Cart RC1 & Multi-Vendor RC1.

Great job!

it Really Looks good. Lets See the Result.



Thanks,

Mithilesh

I Installed Beta Version with no changes thereafter.



First Result Test :


  1. “Defer Parsing of JavaScript” has been solved. Which is the Requirement of everyone to speed up CS-Cart.











    [color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]Users can test the demo at : [/font][/color][url=“http://beta.kartpay.com/admin.php”]http://beta.kartpay.com/admin.php[/url]

    [color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]username - demo@kartpay.com[/font][/color]

    [color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]password - testing [/font][/color]

This is very nice to see. I would really enjoy seeing page load data on normal servers. It's strange to see a comparison of more than a minute of page load. Most browsers stop loading long before that.



People start leaving your site if page load is over a second and the number of people leaving your site about doubles with every consequent second. 5500 ms is still a massive page load time. See the digital behavior reports on www.nielsen.com for information about user behavior and page load.



I have just tried the demo listed in the post above and it seems faster than 4.2 That is awesome. 2.5 seconds for categories. Hopefully this can be further improved.

Great stuff, very much needed! How long do BETA stages usually run for?

[quote name='P-Pharma' timestamp='1423672317' post='205050']

This is very nice to see. I would really enjoy seeing page load data on normal servers. It's strange to see a comparison of more than a minute of page load. Most browsers stop loading long before that.

[/quote]

P-Pharma. It is not the page load time but SQL query execution time (in fact it is even worse). But please keep in mind that we used not very good server. It has CPU Celeron. In other words we would not recommend such server for a big store with 50 000 products. The reasons why we used it are:

  1. We have this server:)
  2. We wanted to show how much did we optimized SQL heavy queries. Just the proportion of old and new query in the same environment. Because query execution time can vary significantly from server to server.



    [quote name='amdowney' timestamp='1423675294' post='205053']

    Great stuff, very much needed! How long do BETA stages usually run for?

    [/quote]

    Usually it is 1-2 months.

WOW.

looks amazing, congrats for your great job!

I will appreciate if someone can give me a link via PM with the beta installed to take a drive.

Thanks.

how is it looking for addons made for 4.2.x? will they be somewhat compatible or will significant changes need to be made?

[quote name='Kayokoko Swimwear' timestamp='1423682865' post='205067']

how is it looking for addons made for 4.2.x? will they be somewhat compatible or will significant changes need to be made?

[/quote]



Probably there could be some incompatibilities. We have refactored the filters functionality and products selection function. But we tried to make it backward compatible. So during beta testing we will try to bring the incompatibility to zero.

Great news! As far as we know from roadmap you've wanted to change checkout steps, will it be implemented?

Very exciting stuff :grin:

Excellent news! We will test it!



Best regards, Alt-team.

Glad to see speed is being addressed. Please post some of the other features or a changelog. I just hope a lot fo bugs and UI issues are being addressed, rtaher than more features that are tacked on…



Jack

[quote name='CS-Market' timestamp='1423686819' post='205078']

Great news! As far as we know from roadmap you've wanted to change checkout steps, will it be implemented?

[/quote]



Hi!

Yes, we improved checkout. Stay tuned to our blog as we are going to post about new features of CS-Cart 4.3.1. Improved checkout is one of them.

Where is the Multi-Vendor 4.3.1 Beta download link? Thanks.

[quote name='cscartrocks' timestamp='1423728024' post='205106']

Where is the Multi-Vendor 4.3.1 Beta download link? Thanks.

[/quote]



Multi-Vendor is not ready yet, will publish it next week.

[quote name=‘imac’ timestamp=‘1423729458’ post=‘205118’]

Multi-Vendor is not ready yet, will publish it next week.

[/quote]



Thanks imac, really look forward to it. :)

CS-Cart, nice work!



CS-Cart users, we have created a demo store for you:



[url=“http://dedic.ecom-labs.com/v431/admin.php”]http://dedic.ecom-labs.com/v431/admin.php[/url]



admin@test.com / admin



It will be available for few days. Feel free to play with it and find bugs

[quote name='imac' timestamp='1423683382' post='205070']

Probably there could be some incompatibilities. We have refactored the filters functionality and products selection function. But we tried to make it backward compatible. So during beta testing we will try to bring the incompatibility to zero.

[/quote]



That will be appreciated! Thank you for the support to your customers!