X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Hello, X-Carters!

X-Cart v4.6.1 has been officially released. Fore more info please refer to the following X-Cart blog post:

http://blog.x-cart.com/4-6-1-released.html

You are welcome to download the updated software from our official web site and your personal HelpDesk accounts.

4.6.0 -> 4.6.1 upgrade packs are also available for downloading.

4.6.1 compatible Extensions will be ready within a week.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Will the changelog be updated to reflect changes and bug fixes?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

You can find CHANGELOG inside the distributive pack.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Hi Rocky,

We are currently using the Braintree Payment Module (for 4.5.5) which we purchased in June 2013 for $395.00 from X-cart.com directly

I noticed the module is no longer available for purchase.. Is this currently planned to be supported in the latest release?

Thanks,
Ryan

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

really good news. is it a stable version?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

how about this version's running speed? faster than v2 series?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

i have to modify the old version's templates again. hope this version runs faster than the old one. also hope it runs faster than zen-cart.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

We just upgraded to 4.6 and the module was requested and they sold to us but informed us of some issues. It wont work with vault turned on for mobile. But other then that we have had no issues with 4.6 braintree payments.

Just open a ticket and they will give you the updated files.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

There are several improvements in 4.6.1 that were not announced in the blog post, because they mostly target developers and advanced users, so I'll write about them here.

1) We've moved the demo data images (for products, categories, etc.) from database to filesystem by default, so you don't need to select corresponding option during installation and wait until it will be finished.
At the same time we've reduced amount of demo products and their images correspondingly which significantly decreased the distributive size (from 18 Mb to 10 Mb for TGZ archive)

2) You all remember the "top messages" - these flyout messages in blue/yellow/red blocks at the top right corner of a screen. Because sometimes such way of displaying errors makes them invisible to store customers we've redesigned this feature and now they are much more noticeable.
For example, error message is now displayed in all-red block in the top middle of a screen which will not close automatically - customers wil have to close it manually to disappear.
Of course, this behavior can be changed - now in the General settings there are 3 options to define delay for deisplaying messages, separate for information, warnings and errors. If you define 0 as delay - message can be closed only manually.

And that's not all - we've improved the way these messages are shown and now it is possible to display these messages just calling JS function
without reloading page.
Note: only "message" is required parameter.
Also, If you want to use default title that corresponds to message type - just leave it empty.
And you can specify jqueryui dialog options, if needed.

This also allow developers to easily change from "flyout" behaviour of messages to displaying modal pop-up instead.
When you define top message from PHP code you can now just add
and the message will appear in popup after page is loaded.

Also, there is a way to make all error message appear in modal popups,
just edit the template file skin/common_files/main/top_message.tpl
instead of line
write
where E is for error, so for warnings use W instead.
Or if you want to keep only information message in "flyout" then write

We haven't implemented this by default because always showing popups may be annoying for some customers.

We are open for your feedback on which messages should be converted to popups and which should stay "flyout", so please post your thoughts here or in bugtracker system.
We'll may consider to implement your suggestions in the next release.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Definitely! Even 4.6.0 is a stable version (I guess our community can confirm that). Whereas, 4.6.1 was aimed on reported issues troubleshooting, thus it's more stable by definition.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

As it has been already noticed here, I'd better recommend you to contact our Sales department regarding this qeustion.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Speaking of the speed, please read 4.6 release blog post:

http://blog.x-cart.com/x-cart-v-4-6-released.html

4.6.x versions of X-Cart are the fastest ever (up to almost 5 times faster than previous ones).

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

OPC again has issues with jquery and updates. Go to demo site, add to cart, go to checkout, login. Click on change address. Select new one form the list. Everything refreshes and the "please wait" tab shows but never goes away. The only way to continue on the page is to refresh it

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

I just visited the 4.6.1. gold demo site...

Is it just me, or is the registration page just as dysfunctional in 4.6.1 as it's been for the past few years?

Please, someone tell me that I am doing something terribly wrong:

1. Go to x-cart 4.6.1 demo
http://demo.x-cart.com/demo/home.php

2. Click on register.
http://demo.x-cart.com/demo/register.php

Fill in name, email password. Submit.

3. We are taken to
http://demo.x-cart.com/demo/address_book.php

Now what should i do? Add new address? Why? Why didn't the store ask for my address before I "registered" ?

All I want to do is buy something...

Ok, let's go buy something... as I'm registered... I didn't enter my address because I don't understand why I need to do this to "register" (I'm playing dumb customer right now).

I added an item to the cart and proceeded to checkout.

I'm now in checkout. I'm offered a checkbox, "Save as a new address " -- but it's asking for my name AGAIN!? I already told you my name. How can I spend money at your store if your cart doesn't remember my name? Abandoned cart.

You see where I'm going with this...

PERSONAL INFORMATION fields are useless and should be BILLING NAME. Yes, I did this on my production store.

Registration should have the EXACT SAME FIELDS as checkout, including billing name and address. Anything less is just a newsletter signup with a password.

What am I missing?
I KNOW this is not the "XC5 checkout thread" but if 4.6.1 is the flagship (as of today), I have to ask why this "registration" UX has not been EVER dealt with....

Ok, customer profiles in the admin:
http://demo.x-cart.com/demo/admin/configuration.php?option=User_Profiles
WHAT is the difference between "Customer" and "Customer at checkout"
IT USED to be that "Customer" was for registration, and "Customer at checkout" was for, well, exactly as it sounds.

"Customer" is no longer, right?

SO what is "Personal Information" and why is this different than "Billing" info? In what circumstances will a customer's "personal information" name not their "billing name?

SO -- for many years, I have disabled "personal information". I simply don't collect it. But HOW can a customer register without multiple steps prior to checkout?

Currently, we are asking the customer to click on Add New Address when they submit registration. Then they get a popup. "But I already gave my name".

A temporary fix proposal:

Customer clicks "Submit" and then is redirected to address_book.php
AND THEN automatically, the "add new address" popup appears with the customer's name already pre-filled. (this is assuming you are not using the personal info name and using billing name instead)

Is the code to call a popup on a pageload something that we can do without great effort?

I hope this does not sound like a rant. It's a cry for a registration process that's just like the other kids and not oozing geek. We are leaving SO much business on the street and our conversion rates are down substantially since migrating to xcart 4.5.x (from 4.1) -- I know that this broken address book design and dysfunctional registration process are contributors to the overall lower customer experience.

I'm surprised X-Cart has permitted this to remain broken as long as it has.

I didn't permit customers to register for a very long time (except at checkout) - so I didn't feel the pain. I just recently started permitting customer registrations at any time -- and this has been a total downer.

MAYBE - the short term solution is to popup the "add new address" immediately upon entering address_book.php ?? Can we get away with this?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Upgraded from 4.6.0 and found the previous official patches cause the upgrade to fail on those patched files. Please tell me that someday in the future (even if it's years away) official patches will be supported by the upgrade process. If func.core.php can't patch this throws a wrench in the process.

Also found that modules/Discount_Coupons/add_coupon.tpl now has the following:
This is not quite right and causes Firefox to render this element in the wrong place in the DOM. View source and it also shows there is an error with this line. You can see it in the demo. This is better:

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

@ carpeperdiem - You definitely fell into one of the problems we saw as well. In terms of some of the usability with X-Cart, we've had to custom develop different UX methods for our site (still in development).

I'd say in total so far we've spent about 80 hours just changing the standard/default X-Cart code to follow more standard pathways for users (following both non-technical and technical users), so they can better proceed throughout the site.

As of today, we are currently working on editing some of the UX/UI default information within the Checkout and View Cart Page... to be on par with most standard eCommerce procedure.

Also .. you are 100% correct on the naming convention.. the terminology used on online shopping is CRUCIAL .. If you call a form "Personal Information" even though you might be politically correct, this is not the correct format to name a processing form for eCommerce carts (speaking as a user from the United States). When I see "Personal Information" it makes me think (as a user) that I'm at the Bank or a the Doctors Office.. not at an Online Shop trying to buy something.

It should be called : Billing or Billing Information ..

As for the My Account.. we completely gutted the default system and implemented our own custom design and redid the complete UX for the My Account area. Its VERY important to get this right, which is why we are spending so much time and resources to nail this perfectly :)

My Suggestions (based on our UI/UX changes)
- Upon Checkout, autofill the Name/Address fields based on previously entered information. Think of it this way.. the shopping site should be sophisticated enough to reduce the customer's time processing on the checkout page to complete their order.

- Automatically pre-select the country based on Geolocation (Rule Logic: Unless however the default payment method / billing address was preselected within the address area, than use the default, and do not geolocate the user).

- When the user signs up, by default the membership boxes should not be there (we removed them). The default boxes should be: First Name, Last Name, Email, Password, Confirm Password, Sign Up for newsletter. Upon finishing registration they should be sent to the Home Page of the site ready to purchase (Except for)>
> Rule Logic 1: If they click "Register" from the home page or product page, they should complete the process and be sent to the previous screen. This means if the customer was looking at a Product, they should register and be sent back to the product page.
> Rule Logic 2: Following on #1, if the user is on the home page, and they register for a new account, they should be sent back to the home page so they can start to purchase.
> Rule Logic 3: If they click out of the Shopping Cart to register (VERY RARE), but it does happen.. ensure the Shopping Cart is cookied, and return the user to the shopping cart page so they can continue their order.
> Rule Logic 4: Remove the confirmation code from the Checkout page.. this is a big NO, even though I know the purpose is to reduce spam accounts, but it is completely not necessary to have this.

- The "Save Address" area should be changed from the top of the page to be more inline towards the bottom. If the user hasn't entered in an address yet, why are you asking them to Click to Save the Address? The placement doesn't make any sense.
Rule Logic 1: From our testing, even if we were using a saved address, the system automatically told us to Save as New.. which didn't make any sense.. again it is redundant to show this additional checkbox if I'm using an address that is already saved within the system.

- The Fax number box should be smaller.. even though I know you are making it the same to have the UI uniform with the Email box below, however it doesn't make sense to have a box this long when the actual number isn't that long. I always believe in making boxes the correct length based on the expected entry by the customer. For instance, you wouldn't make a credit card number form 60 characters long, when the expected value is between 14 - 16 digits.

- From a UI prospective, I would reduce the margin on the right side of the "Name and Address" box to have it consistent with the left side. Right now it just looks like this massive amount of extra margin when it doesn't need to be there.. This might go unnoticed by some.. but it's all about GOOD PRESENTATION to users.. having sloppy UI is not a sign of a professional eCommerce shop.

- By default on the checkout page, you have shown 2 links (View Profile and Sign Out).. again redundant, you want to discourage the user from clicking off the page, so why would you show two links to cause the user to abandon their cart? We completely removed these items from our cart and instead kept them in the header area.

- Checkout Page:Not sure if its just us, but if we are on the check out page, and we click off to go back to the catalog, we are automatically logged out? Why? The user should be cookied.. again it could be just us in testing :/






- Ryan

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

+1 for the above. Building a new site for some time now and all from the above has been stripped out or changed from default XC code. Thanks Ryan for your post, although you are not the first one, all this has been said for years by many XC devs or users and yet it still remains.

Since XC5 is following the same model and already coded that way what are the chances QT will completely scrap address book/checkout/register process and re-build it as it should have been done in the first place? We have been asking for this since v.4.4.x.

The problem is - before that there was no address book, it has been asked for millions of time and finally coded in 4.4.x but coded wrong.... Since then even so asked millions of times to get it done right nothing has changed - the address book and checkout gets patched, yes patched, here or there with something and it just makes the code even more bloated and hard to follow or correct...

With every new version XC users/devs hope that this will get fixed.... I keep my hope for many years now :) But seeing same in XC5 is a little bit of disappointment...

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Not sure whats going on...

during the attempted upgrade frfom 4.6 to 4.6.1 getting the following:

http://i555.photobucket.com/albums/jj480/durableman/screenofxcart_zps5476771b.png

The screen before this I get all green checkboxes. I have chmodded everything to 777 and chowned all of the files to ensure it wasn't a permissions issue...

any ideas?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

@ Steve,

We are still new to X-Cart (Paid on May 2013), so we have a fair bit of learning to do ourselves.. though that is quite disappointing to know that the UX has been the same (broken) for that long without being fixed.

I've been working in enterprise ecommerce for years, and when I see things like this (which are regarded as standard items) not working correctly.. It just causes a lot of time and resources on our end to resolve.. which we shouldn't be.

As of tonight, we are clocking close to 85 hours just on UX custom changes we've made to the site. These UX changes include the Account Area, Checkout, Product Page, Ratings Area and Admin Backend area.

I'm not sure if its OCD or just extensive years spent QAing projects I've managed, but I always tend to test every case scenario and flow possible before launching a project.. just to get it crystal clear..

Normally what I do is also pay for a small focus group of users to go through a site and tell me their reactions.. sometimes seeing how potential customers might see or say when they visit your site is very important.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Thanks for reporting this issue, we have fixed it.


This issue also has been fixed.

We've also decided to re-upload the distributive package including these fixes.
Anyone, who already downloaded it can use the attached patches.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

I am having a problem, but I am getting multiple sql error for the patch not being applied.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

What file do you edit to remove the sql lines that are giving an error. I beleive this is happening because I applied some patches provide by xcart.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Problem saving "Bill me later financing" module settings.
I did not want the banners on home page or category pages, so i selected the disable option, but after clicking the apply changes button, the settings defaults back to "at the top of page"

There is also a change in product management
In prior version, clicking on 'related product' links would open that product for editing, now when you click on 'related product' the product is previewed in browser. The option to quickly edit related products is gone and the only way to edit them is to begin a new search. I'm I missing a setting to disable this preview option?

Thanks.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Thanks for reporting this issue.
Please apply the attached patch file (bml_disable_fix.diff) through Patch/Upgrade center in back-end.


Sorry, there are no such option, but we'll consider to add "Modify this product" button to a new preview page in the next release.
Meanwhile, you can apply the patch (related_allow_edit.diff) which adds link to edit next to preview link.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Bill me later module is still not working properly. After applying the patch i was able to set and save the options including "disable", however if i edit and save the setting for any other module, Bill me later settings defaults back to "top of page"

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Sorry, haven't tested well the workaround patch.
Here is the new one - you can revert previous or just keep it as is - there should be no conflicts.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

The new patch did the trick.

Thank you.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Just curious, why is a second file being patched just to add a function with a single line in it and being called just once? Why not just add the single line in place of the function call? Maybe you have future plans for this new function to be called elsewhere?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

No, I don't think it will be called anywhere, but it's just a part of modular program logic. No module code should be directly in the core - just calls of module functions (i.e. entrypoints).

Anyway, this is just a 5-minute workaround fix, there is also one note on it - once module is disabled, these settings also will be reset. This isn't a very big deal to bring them back, but still not good :-)
To fix this we'll need to modify the database which I wanted to avoid in the WA patch, but this will be done in the next release.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

This is due to permissions on your site files. The installation process is trying to open patch_pre.php first and delete file and sets a variable if the installation can continue or not. For some reason probably permissions it cannot do this.

Open

/admin/upgrade.php

and find

$prepatch_errorcode = 0;

and change it to

$prepatch_errorcode = 1;

After the upgrade finishes make sure to reverse it back

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

It seems 4.6.1 has issues with recognizing https. In admin security settings page the

Warning! HTTPS/SSL check failed. Please make sure that HTTPS is configured properly.

is up again. Happens to me on 2 sites right now. Both 4.6.1 installed in a subdirectory while in development. Main site SSL works just fine.

Anyone else have this? QT?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

This may happen if you have .htaccess authorization set up for these test folders on server.
Let me know if temporarely removing it helps.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Hm. Possible. I have not tried to remove it and see if it works. The one site is on internal networks server and has no SSL installed on though so my bad there saying "2 sites". I will see if taking out the directory password protection helps. Thanks

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

disabling the module removes that option in admin (payments), but "bill me later" remains as an option on checkout page.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Does this in my store also.

QT, got a fix for this?

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Here is the patch for this issue.
After applying, enable and then re-disable module for changes to take effect.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

About Ideal Responsive layout.

1) I do recommend using a CSS Framework. Very easy to move the blocks and change the layout you provide by default just using a css class. I suggest Skeleton, Zurb or Bootstrap. Skeleton is so easy to implement.

2) What about responsive newsletters? I am pretty sure many of you are sending newsletters periodically. Even you provide a responsive template for your front-end, you should take this in consideration: responsive newsletters. For this case of study I do recommend this one which makes your lives better (tested already): http://zurb.com/playground/responsive-email-templates

I will post this into ideas too.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Not sure if its my install, or the patch, but once I ran this, after adding a product to the cart and clicking checkout, all I could get was a blank page.
I had cleared the cache before trying it, so that wasn't it.
I then over-wrote the Bill me later .func file with the original 4.6.1 version file and it started working again- So test this out after installing the patch.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

Just checked the patch again and haven't faced with such an issue.
I've attached the module func.php that already patched, try it.

Re: X-Cart 4.6.1 released
 

That appears to have worked. Thank you.
Anyone else that uses this, remember to enable, then disable the module after uploading or it will not apply until after you do that.