Try Version 4.15.1 Before Release

We have released version 4.15.1 Beta. It will be useful to:

  • add-on and theme developers—they can test their products in advance to prepare for 4.15.1;
  • the merchants who are interested to see how the new version will work, and what they’ll have to do during the upgrade.

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The full list of changes is very long, so we left it in the changelog and in the post-upgrade notifications. We also have an article about technical changes for developers.

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The best way to try 4.15.1 Beta is to upgrade from the previous version:

1. Make sure that your store runs on 4.14.3.SP1

2. Create a dev copy of your store. Make sure to close the storefront. It is a requirement for a dev copy, while you are still using your own key.

Don’t upgrade your live store to 4.15.1 Beta—there won’t be an upgrade from the 4.15.1 Beta to the final 4.15.1 release.

3. In your test copy, go to Settings → Licensing mode and change the key to the one that matches your product:


CS-Cart: CS-BETA-F1DS-B4B2-7QHS-YQW0

Multi-Vendor: MV-ULT-BETA-E621-LG57-4DB3-ZTG8

These keys will only have one upgrade: from 4.14.3.SP1 to 4.15.1. Once the testing is over, we will disable these keys. When you enter and save them, you’ll no longer need to keep the storefront closed. But it’s best to open in after step 4.

4. Install the upgrade. After the upgrade you’ll see notifications about the changes. They’ll tell you what to do and check next.

If you can’t upgrade a test copy for any reason, you’ll still be able to try 4.15.1 as a new installation. Just download CS-Cart 4.15.1 Beta or Multi-Vendor 4.15.1 Beta and use the corresponding keys provided above.

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Feel free to discuss 4.15.1 Beta and everything related to it in this topic.

????
Functionality Changes

[*] Add-ons: Suppliers: Add-on marked as deprecated.

what on earth were you thinking?
Any shop owner who dropships or outsources MUST have suppliers.
This is THE reason for using CS-Cart

What is the planned replacement functionality then?

1 Like

????
Functionality Changes

Add-ons: Suppliers: Add-on marked as deprecated.


what on earth were you thinking?
Any shop owner who dropships or outsources MUST have suppliers.
This is THE reason for using CS-Cart

What is the planned replacement functionality then?


Just to clarify, "Suppliers" aren't removed yet. There are no issues that prevent their use in 4.15.1. For now, the only change is the "Deprecated" mark. So, you'll be safe to upgrade to any 4.15.x version. What happens in 4.16.x depends on the feedback we get. But even then, the add-on will most likely remain in your installation if you upgrade. We use this approach to make sure that you can upgrade without any obstacles.

As for the reasons of that decision, "Suppliers" is one of those add-ons that is:

- rarely used (according to our statistics);

- high-maintenance.

Our idea was to find out who was using "Suppliers" and how. If you use "Suppliers" and upgrade to 4.15.1, you'll be prompted to share your thoughts on the deprecation after the upgrade. That will allow us to decide how to proceed.

Speaking of dropshipping, it could help us a lot if you provided a few more details.

- How exactly you use "Suppliers" now?

- Is there anything in particular that you (dis)like about the current add-on?

P.S. As for a possible replacement, we were considering to extend the "Warehouses" functionality. But again, a lot depends on the feedback we get.

1 Like

Speaking of dropshipping, it could help us a lot if you provided a few more details.

- How exactly you use "Suppliers" now?

- Is there anything in particular that you (dis)like about the current add-on?

P.S. As for a possible replacement, we were considering to extend the "Warehouses" functionality. But again, a lot depends on the feedback we get.

I use suppliers to dropship orders placed on my sites, I personally do not stock any items myself, but have an assortment of companies that ship products for me. There is no API or plug in with any of them so not at all like Alibaba or the other conglomerate drop shippers that you can plug and play with an addon, these are small to midsized companies that supply me with goods shipped direct to my customers from their locations.

I have been using this business model since 1999 on other platforms and after much investigation, trial and errors with other carts, CS-Cart seemed to be the closest fit to enable a modern platform to continue on.

As it is, I have had to invest several thousands on additional custom coding and add-ons to get basic things like supplier price and supplier sku added to CS-Cart as well as adding those variables to the supplier notifications.

Warehouses implies that you have your own stock in several locations, suppliers implies that you have external companies shipping your goods for you. Expanding suppliers functionality would further open up the doors to many additional customers in the fast growing business segment.

Perhaps the reason your existing suppliers add-on is not used much is because it lacks the 2 most important aspects of using external companies to fulfill orders, their prices and item numbers need to be in the product data. As it is I had to buy 2 addons to get that info as well as spend thousands on custom coding to get those variables included into the supplier notification / invoice

On a separate note I am very happy to see Zapier being integrated as well as price per unit

First of all, thanks a lot for your feedback! We’ll definitely look into it (and any other feedback about “Suppliers” that we’ll get). But at a first glance, it looks like CS-Cart Multi-Vendor might more suited for this sort of business. Although it is designed with a vendor’s back-office in mind, its settings might allow to customize it for back-office-less workflow with suppliers.

P.S. Glad to hear that you like “Price per unit” and Zapier. Speaking of the latter, we’re hoping to get the “Beta” status with Zapier shortly before the proper 4.15.1 release. Hopefully, enough CS-Cart users adopt Zapier, and we’ll be able to add more triggers and actions in future versions.

I took a deep look into Multi Vendor at the beginning of my CS-Cart journey almost 2 years ago and found that it is not suitable for a single company using various drop shippers that do not have access to the admin end or of managing any products or prices sold on my store.

As opposed to a marketplace with separate vendors (like a shopping mall) who sell their own goods independently under 1 roof, a store using drop shippers is more like a mail order catalog that buys goods from various suppliers and has the goods shipped direct to the customer. In this scenario the customer is shopping from 1 catalog but receiving goods from several locations as opposed to going to the virtual mall and shopping from various stores under 1 roof.

In contrast to getting a commission on sales of the Vendors products, I buy at a discount and make my own markups to keep the difference. Suppliers have no say in how the items are sold. To use Multivendor would require multiple user logins on my part and just make things all the more complicated.

Speaking of integrations, would LOVE to see BlueCheck and Avalara integrations in the future :idea:

I'm in the same boat with Suppliers/Warehouse. Same scenario as thecigarhut.

I have tested the current version and the Warehouse add on actually works nicely with a couple of exceptions. There is no ability to use Real Time shipping rates (has to be a flat rate setup) and currently CSC doesn't allow the install of the Warehouse add on in a standard license install.

I too have add ons to make my version (4.9.3) function like I need for suppliers. So if Suppliers is deprecated and I am not allowed to install the Warehouses add on, I will probably have to move on because 4.9.3 won't be sustainable for much longer.

We look forward to it, when the regular version will be released.

There is no stable version, every time a new version is released, it fixes a bunch of bugs of the previous version

V4.15.1 PHP 7.4.29 works fine.

Php 8 and 8.1 are also causing problems.

Functional Change

Core: The Smarty library was updated to version 4.1.0

This version adds PHP 8.1 compatibility.

As far as I understand, version 4.16.1 will be full php 8 compatibility.

We look forward to it, when the regular version will be released.

I'm expecting June 27th, 2022.

P.S. Might also be June 29th.

There is no stable version, every time a new version is released, it fixes a bunch of bugs of the previous version

Well, yeah; but that's the drawback of us trying to deliver as many new features as we can in big updates like 4.15.1. We try to release at least a couple of patch releases like 4.15.2 or 4.15.3, with the focus on bug fixes and smaller improvements.

V4.15.1 PHP 7.4.29 works fine.

Php 8 and 8.1 are also causing problems.

Functional Change

Core: The Smarty library was updated to version 4.1.0

This version adds PHP 8.1 compatibility.

As far as I understand, version 4.16.1 will be full php 8 compatibility.

We know for a fact about problems with PHP 8.1. That's something that we'll try to address in future big releases like 4.16.1.

But PHP 8 should already work ok. If it doesn't, and if you run into any issues with PHP 8.0 (especially on CS-Cart 4.15.1), please let us know.

Yes it works fine in PHP 8.