Did you know...

You can now download a 7-day free trial of the Blueprint skin. No payment is required and you can start using the skin immediately. We are currently the only CubeCart skin developers that offer free trials. Furthermore, we're so sure that you'll love our CubeCart skins that we offer a comprehensive 14-day money-back satisfaction guarantee. If you are not completely delighted with the skin, we'll refund 100% of your money - no questions asked!

Blueprint is different.

Blueprint has been purpose built to take full advantage of the new architecture and additional features incorporated into CubeCart V5. It is not a port of an older skin developed for CubeCart V4 or a modified version of the stock skins already included. Every single file has been carefully written from scratch to ensure a consistent quality that is unmatched by anything currently available.

Built on top of a powerful framework.

Blueprint is built right on top of our Fusion framework, enabling what was once impossible. Fusion gives you a Theme Configuration Panel which allows you to configure a wide array of settings at the click of a button - no developer required. You can change the number of products displayed per row, select a different layout for the homepage or other sections of the store, rearrange widgets, add a content slider, toggle a myriad of different features and so much more!

One theme supporting multiple devices.

With mobile browsing accounting for an ever increasing share of the market, you'll want to accomodate a range of different devices across a bunch of platforms and browsers. Blueprint uses responsive layouts to adapt to the screen sizes your visitors' devices. You won't need to maintain multiple themes and your customers will appreciate the consistent design.

Microformats - you're missing out!

Search engines are embracing microformats and you should too. Google uses microformats to display star ratings and other useful metadata along with the search listing. Importantly for you, they set your listing apart from all the other thus driving more visitors to your site. Blueprint is the only CubeCart theme that uses microformats in its template markup.

Progressive checkout.

Instead of overwhelming visitors with a confusing mess of fields to complete, Blueprint guides your customers step-by-step through the checkout page. Timesaving client-side field validation is performed at each step.

Stable or unstable?

I wouldn't say that the initial "stable" release of CubeCart V5 is, as it claims to be, stable. Having said this, it's certainly in far better shape than than the initial release of V4. For me, there is only a single critical issue that remains. This being the mystery of the lost settings, though this only appears to manifest itself after upgrading a V4 store. Nevertheless, recent comments from Devellion employees questioning the wisdom of their customers does little for consumer perception of the company as a whole!

Ready for production?

After the first maintenance release (V5.0.1), which promises to fix the aforementioned issue, I doubt that I will have many qualms recommending CubeCart V5. This is assuming that no additional bugs are introduced. If you are upgrading from CubeCart V4, please do perform the update locally (or on a staging server) prior to migrating over to your production server. This will provide you with the opportunity to thoroughly test your installation. Always remember to take a full backup prior to migration!

Code Quality

In short, it's generally very good. There has been a galactic shift in the standard of the code since Devellion took on Technocrat (who now appears to be the lead developer). Class methods were suddenly reasonably documented and the architecture was vastly improved. This means a faster, more maintainable, piece of software.

Mods are Evil, Plugins are Good!

I will never cease to emphasize the importance of the code hooks. Anyone that has ever had to update a heavily modified CubeCart store will surely appreciate that the painful procedure this task entailed should be a thing of the past. For the average CubeCart user, adding additional features to the software suddenly becomes a drag and drop procedure. It is rather unfortunate that the Installer feature, which was included in the beta release of V5, has subsequently been removed. I hope that the developers reconsider this decision.

Some CubeCart users seem to have misunderstood the benefits of code hooks. Rest assured that they are advantageous for both ordinary CubeCart users and experienced developers alike.

Included Themes

It seems that every time Devellion release a new version, theme developers complain about how awful the included offering is. And why wouldn't they? Circulating this sentiment surely sells more themes. I'm not suggesting that the themes included with CubeCart V5 are a magnificent work of art. Instead, I think that they will meet the requirements for a considerable portion of the company's target market. Developers should also be pleased when they are greeted with some considered markup - rather than the usual mess of nested tables that we have come to expect.

Worth the license price?

Cost is always one of the biggest influencing factors when considering whether to jump aboard. Devellion have historically priced CubeCart for the small business market to which they cater. If you own a CubeCart V4 license, you might be pleased to hear that upgrading to V5 only costs £40.00. However, for those without existing CubeCart V4 licenses, I fear that the standard cost for a license may now price Devellion out of the market. A few years ago, £120 represented good value. Competition today is fierce with ever more open-source alternatives springing up which, generally speaking, boast equal or better features. For this reason, Devellion might see a declining market share over its entire product range. Only you can decide whether CubeCart V5 makes economical sense.

Overall Perception

Overall, a cautious thumbs up. There's always room for improvement, but CubeCart V5 is the definitive choice over previous versions.

Download Alpha 0.1

What does it do?

The Visual Editor provides an intuitive interface for altering any CSS property. You'll no longer need to look-up any selectors. The inspector reads all the CSS properties applied to the selected element in realtime. Then, at the stroke of a key, you can alter these properties and receive instant gratification through the preview window.

What's the installation procedure?

Step 1:
Download the zipped plugin and extract the DNA_Themer folder to your computer.

Step 2:
Upload the DNA_Themer folder to the following directory on your server: /modules/plugins/

Step 3:
Login to the administration panel and select "Plugins" from the left-hand navigation menu.

Step 4:
Click the "DNA Themer" icon and ensure that the plugin is enabled. The status icon should show a tick. Enter any series of numbers into the license key field provided and hit the "Save" button. A "DNA Themer" link should now be shown in the left-hand navigation menu (under "Advanced"). If you do not see this link, please clear CubeCart's cache using the option under "Maintenance".

Step 5:
OPEN: /js/common.js

FIND:

/* Break out of iframe - mainly used for iFrame payment gateways to stop confirmed page showing within CC */
if (top.location.href!=self.location.href) {
	top.location = self.location.href;
}

REPLACE WITH:

/* Break out of iframe - mainly used for iFrame payment gateways to stop confirmed page showing within CC */
/* if (top.location.href!=self.location.href) {
	top.location = self.location.href;
} */

Step 6:
FOR EACH SKIN, OPEN: /skins/{SKIN_NAME}/templates/main.php

BEFORE THE <head> TAG, INSERT:

{if isset($DNA_THEMER)}{$DNA_THEMER}{/if}

We need your feedback!

Did you find any bugs? Is it too difficult to use? Do you have any suggestions? Please do let us know! You can post any general feedback in the comments section below. Alternatively, you can open a support ticket via the Client Panel. If you would like to report any issues or have a feature request, please use the bug tracker.

So... What's different about this one?

We have taken a completely different approach in terms of implementation. Our "Visual Editor" reads through all the stylesheets, recognizes inheritance and presents the applicable properties in a tabular format for the selected element. These properties can then be edited freely at the click of a button. You're not limited in terms of the elements that can be selected, properties that can be edited or values that can be entered. This means that we can support literally every CubeCart theme. Furthermore, since we don't rely on the browser's ability to read the CSS properties, we can theoretically support all current and future CSS specifications (yep, that includes CSS3).

How does it work?

We put out a short video some time ago as a proof of concept to demonstrate how the Visual Editor will work. Please note that significant architectural changes have been made since this video was released in order to integrate the Visual Editor into the wider suite of tools. We are also now making full use of the jQuery UI library. The appearance has therefore changed somewhat.

The roadmap

We're ultimately aiming to include three tools in the suite:

• Visual Editor (~80% Complete)
• Code Editor (~50% Complete)
• A/B Test Suite (~10% Complete)

As you might imagine, each of these tools constitutes a rather extensive project. We therefore want to start pushing out a beta version in the near future. The initial beta release will not include the A/B test suite and may or may not include the Code Editor. The entire suite will be packaged as an easily installable CubeCart V5 plugin. If you are interested in beta testing this, please watch out for further announcements in the coming week(s).

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and will be working diligently to clear the backlog of support requests.

Update

Responses by email are not getting intercepted by our Help Desk. We are now working on the backlog of tickets which have accumulated.

Improved Licensing

We have made significant improvements to our licensing system. First and foremost, skins running Standard Licenses should continue to function indefinitely should our website go offline for whatever reason. We did previously build in some level of contingency, but this did not account for domain issues on our end. The new licensing code built into our new skin releases (more on this later) now scrutinizes the response it receives from our server. If the response from our licensing server is not known, it is discarded and the skin will continue the function indefinitely.

License Reissue

You can now reissue any of your licenses at any time. This allows you to use the skin on a completely different domain than where it was previously installed. You no longer need to ask us to update your license. License reissue requests are immediate and performed at the click of a button through the new Client Panel.

Authorize Additional Domains

You may now authorize up to 10 addon domains on a single Standard License. This is useful if you want your store to be accessible through a number of different domain names. If you're using a shared SSL certificate, you should now be able to authorize the secure domain. The only requirement is that the addon domain points to the same CubeCart store as your primary domain (as per our licensing agreement). Domain authorizations can be made through the Client Panel.

If your licenses have been migrated from our old Client Panel, you may find that you are unable to authorize additional domains initially. If this is the case, you will need to reissue your license and visit your store in your browser (having updated the skin by following the instructions at the end of this post). You should then be able to authorize additional domains.

New Help Desk

The Help Desk is now completely integrated into the Client Panel. You can open technical, sales and pre-sales support tickets as before.

Instant Order Processing

Orders are now processed immediately pending an automated transaction fraud review.

Skin Updates & Accessing the Client Panel

We have released updates for all of our CubeCart V4 skins. The new releases use our new licensing and can be downloaded through the new Client Panel. We have migrated all the existing Standard license orders made through our old Client Panel. To login to the new Client Panel, you will need to reset your password. If you find that any of your standard licenses have not been carried over, please open a support ticket so that we may manually add them to your account.

Unfortunately, we were unable to migrate over any Rebranding Licenses. If you have purchased any rebranding licenses, please open a support ticket so that we may manually add them to your account.

Updating Your Skin

We highly recommend that you update your skin to the latest release. You should not loose any changes made to the skin if you follow the procedure described below:

Download: the latest version of your purchased skins through http://my.shopdev.co.uk

Extract: the skin directory from the downloaded .zip archive

Upload: the /php/ directory from within the extracted skin to your server (overwriting the old /php/ directory)

Find: your new license key by logging into the new Client Panel and selecting "My Licenses" from the navigation at the top of the screen

Insert: your new license key into the designated area in the skins/SKIN_NAME/php/license_key.php file on your server

What's so great about CubeCart V5

In previous releases, skins were mostly comprised of static assets. That is to say that the template files were pure XHTML & CSS. Any dynamics were achieved using JavaScript. Interactions (through extensions) with the CubeCart core was achieved using a complicated system of JavaScript and PHP files, where the output of a PHP file was loaded in through AJAX. In some cases, such as with the AJAX shopping cart, this was a logical development path. It made perfect sense. However, this is not a viable option for implementing small additions such as table zebra-striping, conditional content and general enhancements.

Such additions were implemented through modifications to CubeCart's core PHP files. This made updating CubeCart a long, tedious and rather complex process. CubeCart V5 tackles this problem on two fronts:

• Code Hooks (that's plug-ins to me and you)
• PHP template files

These two "features" allow us to implement enhancements in a way that was just not possible previously.

Have your say...

As always, we will be forging a number of nifty enhancements into our skins. We hope to include some of the old favorites (AJAX Add To Cart, Speed Optimization etc.), along with a number of additional tools/features:

• Dynamic Search Suggestion
• Color Theme Builder (more on this later)
• AJAX Pagination & Sorting
• Flexible Product Grids (more on this later)
• Super Category Navigation
• Content Slideshows

We are also considering dropping IE6 support. Do you think that this is a bad idea? Do you have any feedback, suggestions or recommendations for us? Please do let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below or opening a support ticket through our Help Desk.

If your free trial was in any way affected by the down time, please open a support ticket through the Help Desk. We will then extend your trial period for a further week. Full "single usage license" versions should not have been affected. If you operate a single usage license and did experience some downtime, please ensure that you performed a full upgrade when changing from a free trial version.

Our ordering system was also hit, with one file becoming corrupted in the process. This has now been recovered and all parts of the website (incl. ordering system and skin demos) are now online.

Deleting the local license key file

If you are operating a free trial license and experience an "unable to communicate with licensing server" error message, please delete the following file on your server:

• /includes/extra/shopdev_local_key.php

This file will be regenerated automatically shortly after. You do not need to delete it again.

• Improved administration panel interface
• Action Hooks: Easy Plug-In installation
• Scriptaculous replaced with jQuery library
• Skin configuration files
• Traditional SpamBot replaced with ReCpatcha /w customizable theme
• Importers for transferring from CC4 and possibly other shopping carts (e.g. Magento)
• FCKeditor replaced with something less irritating (possibly TinyMCE or CKEditor)
• Utilization of AJAX
• Improved caching
• Support for multiple databases (e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite etc.)
• Improved search engine friendly URLs
• Continuation of the dreaded xTemplate library
• Dynamic image scaling
• Improved postage/shipping
• Support for all the gateways present in CC4 (and possibly one or two more)
• Customer sign in with OpenID
• Product image zooming and lightbox support
• Product options with stock levels
• Customizable pagination links - finally!
• Product reviews on the same page as the product - no duplicate content penalties

It should be said that some of these predictions are based on comments by the developers. I'm also hesitant to say that the stock skins may not support IE6.

ShopDev Upgrade Policy

We provide updates free of charge across a major release (i.e. V4.x - V4.y). There will be an upgrade license fee between major releases (i.e. V4.x - V5.y). Please note that we will not release any CC5 skins until we deem the software to be as stable as reasonably possible. This does not mean that you'll have to wait until CC5 is production ready.