X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Hello, X-Carters!

We would like to announce beta testing of X-Cart v4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6). Feel free to download it from your personal HelpDesk account -> File area.

Note: we do not recommend using beta versions for running live stores. If you want to use 4.5.0 for a live shop you▓d better wait till the official version is released.

Should you find any issues related to the new functionality please post them to our open bugtracker at https://bugtracker.qtmsoft.com/

We decided to release new X-Cart version as 4.5.0 and not as 4.4.6 because we added several new major features and did a few serious changes to the existing ones. Here is the list:

• All background/on-site/merchant hosted credit card payment methods removed due to PCI-DSS requirements (see the list of removed methods below). You can still use them via X-Payments software.
• Two new built-in skins
• New demo products and related data.
• USPS module completely revised and updated to meet the latest USPS APIs requirements.
• UTF-8 is now supported
• TaxCloud module integration for better and more accurate tax calculation.
• Updated shipping methods. Weight limits corrected for the USPS First Class methods
• Protection from SQL injection attacks has been improved.
• Completely removed the subscriptions module.
• Updated a bundle of CA Root Certificates.
• Below payment gateway integrations updated: PSiGate, DIBS (cc_dibs.php), Authorize.Net SIM, Paypal, Checkout by Amazon, ProxyPay3
• Removed some unused CSS classes and obsolete language labels
• International product descriptions are now stored in separate tables (Multi-language stores performance optimization).
• Socialize module update - Pinterest available.

X-Cart 4.4.x users are welcome to contact us for a patch to cut all the background methods off from their shopping carts in order to meet the PCI-DSS requirements.

PAYMENT MODULES REMOVED FROM X-Cart (AVAILABLE VIA X-Payments)
----------------
- PayPal WPP Direct Payment
- GoEmerchant - EZ Payment Gateway Direct
- Virtual Merchant - Merchant Provided Form
- USA ePay
- SkipJack
- SecurePay - Non-Recurring Interface
- PSiGate - XML Direct
- Sage Pay Go - Direct protocol
- iTransact (Process USA) - XML scheme
- PlugnPay - Remote Auth method
- PayFlow - Pro
- Ogone - Direct
- NetRegistry e-commerce
- Netbilling gateway - Direct
- First Data Global Gateway - LinkPoint
- Innovative E-Commerce
- DIBS (cc_ideb.php)
- HeidelPay
- GoEmerchant - XML Gateway API
- eWAY Merchant Hosted Payment
- eSelect Plus - Direct Post
- eSec - Direct
- eSec - ReDirect
- eProcessingNetwork - Transparent Database Engine
- ePDQ - MPI XML
- HSBC - XML API integration
- ECHOnline
- DirectOne - Direct Interface
- CyberSource - SOAP Toolkit API
- Caledon
- BluePay
- RBS WorldPay - Global Gateway
- Bean Stream
- ANZ eGate - Merchant-Hosted
- AuthorizeNet - AIM

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Here are some screenshots of new X-Cart 4.5.0 look:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/home%20page.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/Your%20Company%20Name%20%20%20%20Apparel%20%...nary%20Mom.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/Your%20Company%20Name%20%20%20%20iGoods.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/Your%20Company%20Name%20%20%20%20Your%20shopping%2 0cart.png

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Another new built-in skin:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/Skin2/01_home.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/Skin2/02_category.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/Skin2/03_product.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32617685/X-Cart%204.5.0%20screenshots/Skin2/04_product_minicart.png

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Installing X-Cart database

Updating config.php file... ... [OK]

Creating tables...
[FAILED] You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '-4.5.0 CHARACTER SET=utf8' at line 1

Fatal error: A fatal error occurred during the installation of the database. Make sure all the conditions required for the installation of the database are met and try again..

Please correct the error(s) before proceeding to the next step.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

This is a the second time of my installation. I downloaded again the file, extracted. Same thing. For the error message, you can find the screenshot as attachment.

Update: Zip archive is working fine. Something is wrong with tgz archive.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Judging by the error message you've used dots (".") in MySQL database name which is not permitted according to MySQL Schema Object Names:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/identifiers.html

please try to use another database name which corresponds to MySQL rules

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Please tell me you don't need to start over to upgrade from 4.4 to 4.5 with a completely new set of files.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

My question too - did you decide to just name this release 4.5.x or it will be like a new branch? Will there be aregular normal upgrade for 4.4.x carts or again just a database uprgade?

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Please either make this patch available via Help Desk files area or post it here

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

I tried to install on a lazy workstation. I got the following error:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded in D:\WAMP\www\xcart\include\install.php on line 958

Then I changed in php.ini max_execution_time from 3000 to 10000. Same results, so I searched inside your script for set_time_limit. I found it @set_time_limit(300) in /include/install.php. You almost killed me with this setting.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

I would like to report a few issues but in Bugtracker there is no option to choose v4.5.0 beta.

1) Go to product page and click [Add to cart] button. It says Added, then after a few second Socialize bar disappears and appears (actually blinks). Please separate Socialize behavior from [Add to cart] button or do something making it not blink. It is annoying this behavior.

2) If Out of stock you should let Socialize bar on its position, not hiding it. Let's say I would like to show it on my Facebook even it is out of stock. You can create an option in Appearance if you want hiding it if out of stock.

3) Too much sharp on thumbnails. Unsharp Mask should not be hard coded. I offered you a solution which still waits to be implemented here: http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=57296. Please do our jobs working with images better. Shall I remember you this is voted by a lot of users?

4) set_time_limit in include/install.php should be increased. on a lazy computer to install XC it took me almost 10 minutes. 300 is not a good idea for people who don't know how to deal with an error a maximum limit

5) I would like to update my quantity in cart page to a value which creates out of stock. After click on Update the quantity remains the same, but you should show a popup message that there are no more items in stock to be added. Same like when the coupon is not OK.

6) It should be elegant to group those Sort by options in one like in Lite Commerce. Also page number should be improved with View All.

7) In my Debugging Console it is not working when putting the mouse pointer on a file and see in window a border around the element.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

The bug tracker does have 4.4.6 I believe

One think I saw in the files - this release uses jQuery 1.6.4. Current version 4.4.5 comes with 1.7.1 and I reported XC having problems with it.

So next XC version goes back to 1.6.x - meaning QT agreed 1.7.1 and XC don't work good together? Will you guys change 4.4.5 installation packs or they will continue using 1.7.1 even though there are issues with it? XC 4.4.5 is still the current version and I assume it will be for another 2-3 months at least

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Please tell me that there will be an upgrade pack from 4.4.5 . I can not imagine that we will do all the development again.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

X2

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

OK, thank you for the suggestion, we will take it into consideration.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Thank you for noticing it, we have added 4.5.0 beta to the list

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Indeed 1.6.x version is used now for 4.5.0. I've forwarded your suggestion to our maintenance team.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

We will prepare a comprehensive answer on this question and post it here very soon.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

I had no problems installing this beta release on my test server. No hickups, no errors, the whole installation and post-logins worked just fine.

Didn't test anything else but looking in admin I can't see anything new from 4.4.5. I guess most of the improvements are in the background and how XC works which is hopefully improved. I did see some bugs I reported long time ago finally being fixed in this release (they were not in 4.4.4 or 4.4.5) so this is also an improvement. Most items from the list in the first post and some other improvements / bug fixes will probably make this a good upgrade release - hopefully there will be 4.4.x-4.5.x full upgrade not just database.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Ecwid and LC3 are dealing great with the images. Thumbnails are not sharp on edges. You should think about improving XC working with images.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Thank you for the suggested improvement. I've read your post in X-Cart Customization > Completed Custom Mods & Templates thread and found it very useful.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

It seems Ecwid and LC3 are promoting new features. XC4 is left behind, especially in design and features. Personally I prefer no new themes, but more "must have" small features. These 2 new themes did not impress me at all.

Images sell, that's why sites with attractive design and images are having good traffic. In the past there was a great module for Detailed Product Images, made by TelaFirma. Unfortunately he disappeared. That was a great mod for dealing with images.

Another thing I don't like XC renaming my uploaded images. For example, the poor results for thumbnails and product images resized by XC made me find a way to replace those images in one step - directly in images folder. Replacing them with good resized images made by me. For the moment I cannot do this, XC is renaming images with numbers, not leaving intact the original image name to make my life easier.

In 4.5.0 beta I see you didn't find a solution to fill that large gap in the source code, when CSS/JS Speed Tool is not used. In fact when I look over the source code I don't like how it is formated/arranged.

For the new versions I would like you take in consideration advices coming from the community. Not only asking us to grab the code for bugs. I am pretty sure you did not see what we saw in those years. I want to see XC improved because LC3 is far away being consider a switch from XC to a new modern cart. Who knows how many years it will take to see it close as functionality and feature with popular free open source carts.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Another annoying issue is about Product Tabs behavior.

1) Please go in any product detail page and click on a tab (e.g. Customer Feedback)

2) Now scroll the page with your mouse wheel down (no scroll). You still have access to click on the other tabs. Just click on one of them (e.g. Send to Friend)

3) The layout scrolls and the tab is not activated. Mouse pointer is positioned up than the tab. Very, very annoying.

This is happening for the very beginning when you added this feature in XC.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

I never experienced this. So I tired again after your post in Chrome, Opera, Safari, FF and IE in 4.4.5 on Win systems - all works just fine. I tried the demo site as well - all works there too.
This has to be something specific to your system then or maybe the jQuery version?

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Steve, I am using Opera latest version. 3 systems same results, and no matter about resolution. This issue is related to Opera only. Chrome and Firefox latest versions, no issue.

1) Go here: http://demo.x-cart.com/demo/Three-Stone-Princess-Cut-Diamond-Ring.html

2) Click on "Customer also bought" tab. Now scroll the page down with your mouse wheel. Look at the bottom, a white space appears bellow footer.

3) Now click on Customer feedback. Scroll again, the white space bellow footer is still there. Try click on Send to Friend, the layout moves a little bit up, mouse pointer also, but Send to Friend tab is not active

The key of finding this issue is scrolling down the page at maximum with different tabs. You can see the screenshot for mysterious appearing/disappearing white space bellow the footer as attachment. If you did not find this issue, I will make a movie for this behavior.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Nope. All works just fine for me. No white space below footer and all tabs activate just fine

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Just look at that image, it is showing the facts. In my case it is not fine at all. Three operating systems, Opera 11.62, QT demo not mine, same results. Looking for other testers to confirm.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Regarding the 4.4.5 -> 4.5.0 upgrade.

4.5.0 is a major release due to significant changes and improvements implemented in the new version (please refer to the first post in this thread for more details about these changes and improvements). That is the reason to release the database upgrade only, as it always used to be for the upgrades within major X-Cart branches.

The thing is that you should separate two different entities:

1. Current X-Cart 4.4.5 version which can be adjusted to meet PCI requirements. For this case we will prepare a special patch which will cut all the background methods off your site
2. X-Cart 4.5.0 with its new features and skins. It has always been so that only database upgrade is released because of the major changes between the two branches.

Fortunately, most development implemented on 4.4.5 can be seamlessly applied to 4.5.0 store. Here are some tips for upgrading your X-Cart from 4.4.5 to 4.5.0 as painlessly as possible:

1) Upgrade your X-Cart database from 4.4.5 to 4.5.0 using a special database upgrade script, and set up a fresh X-Cart 4.5.0 installation with the upgraded database.

2) If your customization or add-on module for 4.4.5 was implemented as a set of new files, diff files and SQL queries - you should be able to install your customization/module on 4.5.0.

3) If you implemented a custom skin for your X-Cart 4.4.5, and it was implemented as a separate templates set in skin directory - you should be able to install your custom skin on 4.5.0.

4) If there are any customizations applied to templates/css files in common_files folder, you can create a diff between your customized and default template files, then apply the diff on 4.4.5.

Be aware of the fact that if your customization or add-on module for 4.4.5 was implemented using SQL queries to xcart_products and xcart_products_lng tables, you will have to re-implement those queries to meet the improved data structure for 4.5.0 (Multi-language stores performance optimization). We will provide a detailed developer instruction concerning this improvement in our Knowledge Base soon.

Please also note that if you are not confident on how to upgrade your store we can always offer you the Upgrade service. Our professional engineers will apply the necessary changes and update your store to the most recent version for you.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

I've just installed Xcart 4.5.0 beta 1 in our developing server and it looks very cool! I appreciate support for UTF8 that helps me with multilanguage shops.

By the way... What about multilanguage support for meta-fields? It would be very useful to set meta-fields in "international descriptions" so I can perform SEO optimizations depending on the language...

Anyway thank you very much for your work!

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Thank you for the positive feedback, much appreciated!



The current X-Cart architecture doesn't allow to specify multi-language meta fields so that search bots could index it correctly unfortunately, but we will definitely take your suggestion into consideration.

Thank you very much once again.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

I have a question about upgrading from XC 4.2.3 to 4.5.
Our current store has many custom mods, none of which we need any longer. Because of these mods, our database has been modified when they were implemented. Therefore, I fear that an upgrade would be a long and maybe expensive process. To simplify matters, can I just export the key fields from our current database (products, categories, orders, customer info) into a CSV file, then import it directly into a new 4.5 store? Would that work?
D

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

These mods probably just added new fields to existing tables and/or new tables. Neither will prevent an upgrade. You will be better off doing the database upgrade instead of trying to export/import. Not everything can be exported and/or imported. After the database upgrade you go through each table and delete the extra fields added for mods and tables as well. Just make sure you have backups before doing that. You can compare table fields with original XC tables from the distribution pack

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

I did mine using the built in x-cart database backup feature.

The only tables backed up were xcart tables, It did not back up the files from the installed mods that I had.

Remember to backup before you do anything.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

QT will not do this, understandable, but here is how to make XC admin to backuop all tables

http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=52535&highlight=backup+tables

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

One other thing I have to do, which I forgot to mention, is to get rid of all our detailed product images, which XC does not do in bulk. So, my scheme was to export everything into a CSV file, minus the said images. QT told me that would work. I just want to know if the rest of it will too.
Also, I don't think we need to export everything, just the main stuff (products, customers, orders).
D

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Please consider making this default XC - http://forum.x-cart.com/showpost.php?p=337755&postcount=85.

Re: X-Cart 4.5.0 (ex 4.4.6) is available for beta testing
 

Thank you for your suggestion, we will take it into consideration.

X-Cart v4.5.0 released
 

Good news!
http://www.x-cart.com/news/xcart-4.5.0-released.html

I will install it at my local machine first.

Re: X-Cart v4.5.0 released
 

Hope it is bug free and final version, then we can hire people to design plug-in.

Re: X-Cart v4.5.0 released
 

The final version is available in Heldesk. I am just curious how QT released it so fast. A couple weeks ago it was offered as a Release Candidate. It is the fastest testing I ever seen.

I would like to know what is going on with 4.4 branch. v4.4.5 is the last one?

What bugs and features are planned to be fixed or offered in 4.5 branch?

Please note that updating every version is like a pain in the ass for those who made custom work.