X-Cart 5 beta testing

xplorer · #1 09-03-2013, 11:37 AM

Hi guys!

We are happy to announce that today we start the X-Cart 5 beta testing and welcome you all to participate.

It's been several years since we started working on the new e-commerce solution that had to solve all the major problems of the existing X-Cart 4. It has been a long road: LiteCommerce 3 with the basic set of features, X-Cart Next Cloud that introduced several cool improvements, and now we believe that the platform is ready to be called X-Cart 5 and released as the downloadable shopping cart software.

Our CEO, Maxim Vydrin, has just published a detailed post on our website that reveals more information on X-Cart 5 and explains why it is great and why we will continue improving X-Cart 4 at the same time:
http://blog.x-cart.com/x-cart-5-beta-testing-announced.html

We really want to hear your ideas and thoughts on X-Cart 5. If you have any questions or suggestions, face any issues or see any drawbacks, please post them into this forum:
http://forum.x-cart.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55. Or just reply to this my post.

Also, I would like to mention the $15K fund that we will use to award the 30 most active beta-testers with X-Cart 5 licenses.

Thank you in advance for your help and time!

RoeBoeDog · #2 09-03-2013, 11:42 AM

Hello X-Cart

Great work on this but we are on the download version of x-cart and currently spending lots of time and money in development to build a great site we control. I am getting a little nervous with the direction x cart is going. I want to make sure that my downloadable x cart is not going to be discontinued in 5-10 years time. When you put so much work into something you expect to keep growing it and I would hate to see x cart migrate into this cloud solution and force all us users into something we don't want. I hope I am wrong but the above development is great for people just starting out on the web.

tony_sologubov · #3 09-03-2013, 11:50 AM

Hi Gavin!

That is important topic and we are glad you mentioned it. We do plan to release new versions of X-Cart 4 for at least 5 years as we stated in the blog post in the Support of X-Cart 4 section.
http://blog.x-cart.com/x-cart-5-beta-testing-announced.html#A5

Also, I would like to point out that X-Cart 5 beta is downloadable solution, not cloud, so you might want to test it out as well.

xplorer · #4 09-03-2013, 12:13 PM

By the way, do as follows to disable the trial notice for the beta-testing period:

If you are testing XC5 on a local computer, your Curl is likely not configured yet and thus cannot connect to our activation server. As a workaround you can replace the "lib/PEAR2/HTTP/Request/Adapter/Curl.php" file with the attached one (but never do this on a live server as this opens a security hole in your XC5 installation).

RoeBoeDog · #5 09-03-2013, 12:20 PM

Thanks for the reply.

I understand this is the future and got this mixed up with x cart next. I love that you have developed an open API for x cart 5.

A few of my concerns are below.

1. In my opinion the best 3rd party module developers are BCS Engineering and Website CM. Have you got feedback from them on the support for this new venture. We have integrated modules into x cart 4 and would love to have them work on x cart 5 when the release is live.

2. X-Cart Module (4.6) - Will all the modules installed migrate into the new x cart 5? Example : Refine filters, Abandon cart, cloud backup, and all others

3. Migration - I understand you are working on a migration tool but how will you migrate customers onto this platform that have lots of custom work and also product feeds. Will you be offering a service to do this?

I have no problem moving into this when its ready and mature but I want to make sure 3rd party modules will be supported.

Thanks

RoeBoeDog · #6 09-03-2013, 12:29 PM

When you release this new version of x-cart will you be upgrading the support system you currently have.

I think it would be a very good idea to have a support team here in the USA that people can contact and speak to on the phone. If you want to capture the US market and compete with the other platforms you really need to add US support to make it easy for people to ask questions and fix issues.

Just a thought.

xplorer · #7 09-03-2013, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoeBoeDog

1. In my opinion the best 3rd party module developers are BCS Engineering and Website CM. Have you got feedback from them on the support for this new venture. We have integrated modules into x cart 4 and would love to have them work on x cart 5 when the release is live.

We would love to have them work on XC5 too and will definitely contact them and discuss possible options

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoeBoeDog

2. X-Cart Module (4.6) - Will all the modules installed migrate into the new x cart 5? Example : Refine filters, Abandon cart, cloud backup, and all others

I beleive there will be similar modules for X-Cart 5, but it may take some time for their developers to adapt the code to the completely different architecture of XC5.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoeBoeDog

3. Migration - I understand you are working on a migration tool but how will you migrate customers onto this platform that have lots of custom work and also product feeds. Will you be offering a service to do this?

Migrating the website design and custom features will definitly require a manual work. We will offer such a service. Moreover, if you purchase the service from us you you will get the XC4->XC5 license exchange for free.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoeBoeDog

When you release this new version of x-cart will you be upgrading the support system you currently have. I think it would be a very good idea to have a support team here in the USA that people can contact and speak to on the phone. If you want to capture the US market and compete with the other platforms you really need to add US support to make it easy for people to ask questions and fix issues. Just a thought.

Having US support is a good idea. Unfortunately, I can't give you any time frames for this.

It's 2am there, so we need to get some sleep now

But we will surely look through all your messages and will reply tomorrow.

Thanks!

Online Michael · #8 09-03-2013, 04:05 PM

This looks extremely promising... Can't wait for it to be ready!

RoeBoeDog · #9 09-03-2013, 08:55 PM

Thanks for the reply. I am glad to see your supporting x4 for the next 4-5 years because this new version will take that long to get 100%. This is the future and easy upgrades and simple module installs have me excited.

I also think more 3rd party developers will develop for this platform with the API. I will not migrate into this new version until its fully tested and has all the features I have now.

Looking forward to watching this grow.

ADDISON · #10 09-04-2013, 02:20 AM

Finally you've made the first step for a new XC5. Great to hear again the name "X-Cart 5". I could say what Neil Armstrong said when he put his foot on the moon surface. Hope in the next two years to get this version in its best shape to make everybody look behind to XC4 just as a old stage.

I am testing it and I can say it is easy to customize, clean code, good speed (CentOS 6.4). Very difficult for me because I need to understand the API and Fley, but in time I can make this effortless. I do recommend it. The only concern is about missing XC4 modules, custom code, forum heritage. But if you could get them in the next versions, the switch is smooth. Please keep an eye on XC4, its customizations and modules.

Good luck and get testing!

P.S. If I swap Apache for ngix + APC (php) + Varnish(http), can I speed it up more than it is now? Did you test some server configurations for providing a point of view about the best speed we can achieve?