X-Cart forums

[Stizerg]

Those templates from 7dana aren`t tableless/CSS. They all are old templates, modified for 4.2. What the point to use them.

[Zaja]

Originally Posted by Stizerg

Those templates from 7dana aren`t tableless/CSS. They all are old templates, modified for 4.2. What the point to use them.

Hmm, you saw the 4.2 templates from 7dana.com where?

[Light Speed]

Originally Posted by Zaja

Hmm, you saw the 4.2 templates from 7dana.com where?

Ha

[Zaja]

Originally Posted by Light Speed

Ha

There is no 4.2 demo on this page(or any other 7dana.com page).

btw.Old templates are rebuild from scratch, not modified for 4.2.

[Light Speed]

Originally Posted by Zaja

There is no 4.2 demo on this page(or any other 7dana.com page).

btw.Old templates are rebuild from scratch, not modified for 4.2.

4.2 templates
template upgrade to 4.2
Dear Customers and Partners,

as we receiving many request for more information about new 4.2 version of x-cart templates, we are glad to announce that we already started with upgrades(rebuild from scratch).
We plan to finish upgrade for all templates by the end of January 2009. Also, we will upgrade our demo site at 7danademo.com to x-cart 4.2 soon.


Roadmap

The roadmap shows which tasks are currently being worked on and task that has already completed.
TEMPLATE
X-Cart-Colors
X-Cart-Dynamic-Preview
X-Cart-Velvet
X-Cart-Elegant
X-Cart-Rounded-White
X-Cart-Skater
X-Cart-7dana
X-Cart-Tabs-Menu
X-Cart-Adult-Red
X-Cart-Amazon-Green
X-Cart-Amazon-Blue
X-Cart-Amazon-Red
X-Cart-BlueDream
X-Cart-BlackPhone
X-Cart-Soft-Blue
X-Cart-Soft-Gray
X-Cart-MP3-Shop
X-Cart-Tech-Blue
X-Cart-Techno
X-Cart-7Red
X-Cart-7Blue
X-Cart-7Orange
X-Cart-BrownSugar
X-Cart-Natural
X-Cart-Clean-Look
X-Cart-Kids-Store
X-Cart-Ferrari
X-Cart-Soft-Red
STATUS
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Complete
Complete
Complete
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Complete
Complete
Complete
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress

That page make it look like all those templates are for 4.2 and some are complete and some are in progress.

[Zaja]

Originally Posted by Light Speed

That page make it look like all those templates are for 4.2 and some are complete and some are in progress.

That page make it look like almost all those templates are not ready for 4.2. as well as demo site, but will be updated soon.
All existing templates will be rebuild from scratch, not modified for 4.2.

But, english is not my first language, so maybe I'm wrong.

[SystemSkins]

Originally Posted by balinor

You guys have heard the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" right? I'm always curious as to why people are so eager to jump on the latest release of something, particularly when it is as painful an upgrade as this one will be. If your 4.1.x cart is working well for you and you are happy with it, why upgrade? Honestly unless there is a feature you can't live without (dimensional shipping, pre-auth), upgrading really isn't going to gain you anything you can't achieve with a third-party add-on.

What about the increased SEO for being "mostly" CSS? Doesn't an ALL CSS site rank better in search engines than a mirror site that is like a 4.1.9?

It's obvious that the higher your search engine rankings the more sales you have. How much better is 4.2 over 4.1.9 (along with my current mods in my sig) when it comes to SEO?

[SystemSkins]

Originally Posted by Bill Jones

I don't know how many people are aware of how google ranks the websites it spiders, but I build websites for a living and for those who aren't aware, clean CSS and SEO friendly URL's is the ONLY way to go.
I've just finished converting a friend's website to CSS from tables and used mod_rewrite to make search engine friendly URL's. Within 3 weeks, the site has moved from page 15 on google to page 1 - position 1 for the same search phrases.
This means that anyone who sticks with an older version of x-cart may see their shop slipping down the pages of google and being replaced in the rankings by shops using v4.2 selling the same/similar items.
So in summary, X-Cart 4.1.11 and older versions are now obsolete and the old addage "if it aint broke, don't fix it" doesn't apply because when it comes to google rank, anything that gives the competition an advantage, means your site IS broke so sticking with a pre-4.2 version is a bad idea.
As much as I hate the thought of starting my shop from scratch AGAIN!, It is unfortunately a necessary evil... I just wish I'd been informed that that X-Cart were planning the shift to a CSS based layout before I spent what amounts to thousands of $$$ upgrading to 4.1.11.
Thanks Guys!

Exactly my thinking !!! and obviously I didn't read this before my previous post.

I guess now I just have to look at each one of my mods individually and do the research and see if they are 4.2 compatible, do some necessary modifications, and go from there.

[Jon]

Despite the fact that CSS is a recent SEO buzz word, it seems most SEO gurus tend to feel that the main SEO advantage CSS has is smaller file sizes so that search engines spider quicker, which isn't always needed and with some css implementations that isn't even the case. Search engines are concerned primarily with the keywords and content within a site, not the html code used to create it.

That said, in my opinion the biggest advantage is loading relevant content to the end user quicker. CSS is the way of the future and as CSS adopts better standards and has increased better cross-browser compatibility, it will allow much more flexibility and cleaner code, but in my opinion and experience isn't a large factor in SEO position at this time.

Here's an expert from Jill Whalens, a highly respected SEO consultant from highrankings.com

http://www.highrankings.com/not-important-to-seo
Another myth. CSS doesn’t have any special properties that search engines
like better than tables or any other HTML code. Again, it may make it
easier for you to update your pages, or to use your content for other
things, but it’s not an SEO technique that will increase rankings or relevance.

[taponitrof]

Hi,

I just finished my first site in 4.2 and I have to say that I am very happy with the css based templates. I modified the templates extensively, as I always do, and it was WAY easier to do with the css-based template in 4.2. That said, it's still a big pain to create your own template as x-cart has SO MANY FILES.

Also, the built-in SEO friendly urls and meta info is a great improvement.