Padloper 009 Released

[kongondo]

Padloper 009

I am pleased to announce the release of Padloper 009! It has been a minute! I apologise for the delay. 

Padloper 009 introduces a number of new features, bug fixes (especially in Multilingual sites) and improves overall code efficiency.

Credits

Before I get into the details, I would like to say massive thanks for all who have contributed to this release in various ways. You have contacted me via the forums, via PM and via email to report bugs, test Padloper and suggest and sponsor new features. In particular, I would like to thank (in no specific order) @Spinbox, @alexm, @joe_g, @ank, @csaggo.com, @Jan Fromm, @Pete, @Sonia Margollé and @kalimati. Whilst I will not name those who contacted me privately, please accept my gratitude for your help. Apologies if I forgot to give anyone a mention! Massive thanks to @ryan for ProcessWire.

Padloper 009 is the most battle-tested Padloper yet! It has been tested and developed on high volume sites, sites that require lots of customisations and multilingual sites whose default language is not English. This robust development has helped fix bugs that I would not have been aware of otherwise as well as new ideas and features to improve the API, workflow and GUI of Padloper. Many of the suggested features have made it into this version. A few others are planned for the future.

There is a lot to talk about in this version. Below I’ll just give a summary of the changes and where necessary, create separate topics to discuss some of the new features.

Although Padloper 009 has undergone thorough testing, there might, inevitably, be some bugs. If you find one, please let me know in the forums under a separate topic. Thanks!

Changes

Features

Home

1. Customisable dashboard. You can render your own dashboard by creating a template partial named ‘padloper-process-render-shop-home.php’ and placing it at ’/site/templates/padloper/backend/padloper-process-render-shop-home.php’. Please see this thread for more details.

Orders

1. Customisable single order view. You can render your own dashboard by creating a template partial named ‘padloper-process-render-orders.php’ and placing it at ’/site/templates/padloper/backend/padloper-process-render-orders.php’. Please see this thread for more details.

2. Order status actions: Can be applied manually for order, payment and shipping status.

3. Quick filters e.g. ‘open’, ‘cancelled’, ‘abandoned’, etc. 

Products

1. Configurable pricing fields. Sales and Normal Price (e..g WooCommerce) vs Price and Compare Price (e.g. Shopify). Please see this topic for more details.

2. Categories can optionally be named ‘Collections’. Configurable via ‘/admin/shop/configure-padloper/’.

3. Bulk clone existing products.

4. Allow duplicate titles for products. 

Discounts (new)

1. 4 discount types: Orders, products, free shipping and BOGO (Buy One/Get One - unfinished; see below). Can be applied manually or automatically at checkout. Please see this thread for more details.

2. Add/remove via  ‘/admin/shop/configure-padloper/’. 

3. Part sponsored by Nifty Solutions. Thanks @Pete!

Customers and Customer Groups (new)

1. Customer creation and management. Please see this thread for more details.

2. Customer Groups. This feature will be expanded in the future. Please see the above thread for more info.

3. Add/remove via  ‘/admin/shop/configure-padloper/’. 

General Settings

1. Redone interface

2. Add ‘from email’ settings..

3. Add bank details settings..

4. Add order ‘least and most’ sales thresholds for orders’ quick filters.

5. Settings for ‘low stock’ and ‘price fields’ for products.

6. Add tab ‘user interface’ with settings for shop navigation (can have side menu and/or dropdown navigation) and search features (can use quick filters and/or advanced filter).

 

Other Backend

1. Quick filters on various dashboards.

2. Custom Dashboards for Home and Orders. More to be added in future.

Frontend

1. Custom shop root page. This allows you to move product-related pages and legal pages to live under a frontend-accessible page. Configurable via /admin/shop/configure-padloper/. Please see this topic for more details. For instance, /myshop/products/, /collections/, /products/, etc. This means you can directly access products on the frontend using their real paths/urls instead of using URL segments. This setting can be changed anytime via configuring Padloper at /admin/shop/configure-padloper/.

2. Custom URL segments for checkout out. E.g. instead of /checkout/success/, /checkout/confirmation/, etc., you can have custom, multilingual segments, e.g. /checkout/order-success/, /checkout/tilaus-menestys/, etc.

Miscellaneous

1. Various UI improvements.

2. Dashboards tables sorted by title by default.

Breaking Changes

1. Template partials for the frontend have been moved from /site/templates/padloper/ to /site/templates/padloper/frontend/.

Deprecated

1. ‘Search Feature’ on the home dashboard has been removed. Use ProcessWire in-built search instead. Padloper hooks into it to group padloper related results. 

2. PadloperProcessOrder::orderSaved now becomes PadloperProcessOrder::orderSavedHook.The new approach is to have all hooks in one please for easier maintenance and usage.

Bug Fixes

Please see the bug fixes topic.

How to Get It

Padloper 009 is available at https://processwireshop.pw/products/padloper/. For those renewing subscriptions, you will have to wait a bit, apologies. I am finalising work on renewal codes. I am hoping this will be ready by tomorrow. Any issues with the (revamped ?) site please let me know 😀.

Upgrading

This is a major upgrade. Lots of code has been moved around. Best way to upgrade files is to empty the contents of the root Padloper folder and upload the contents of the new version there. There are no data model changes affecting existing features but as always, back up your site(s) first!

Next Steps

In addition to fixing any bugs that show in 009, these are the plans for the next 3-6 months, possibly more, in order of priority. No new features will be introduced until these are completed.

Documentation

Documentation will cover all topics including installation, backend and frontend use and the API. ‘How to guides’ will consist of short videos with corresponding textual content on a dedicated Padloper site.

Discounts

Finish work on the Buy One Get One (BOGO) Discount and automatic discounts.

Gift Cards

Finish work on Gift Cards.

Road Map

I will talk about this when the ‘next steps’ tasks have been completed.

 

Thanks!

[kongondo]

If you have an active subscription and are getting 404s when trying to download, please PM me. I made a slight tweak to the URLs. Sorry.

[Spinbox]

Great stuff 🙂 Can't wait to use it!

[kongondo]

Renewals and Resend Download Code are ready! Apologies it too longer than expected. Forms should be straightforward. Any issues, please let me know. Might need to hard reload the site for the new CSS to catch.

Thanks!

[kongondo]

Looks like there are some CSS issues on the new site! Some people are seeing white text on white background! Sorry for this. Trying to debug.

[kongondo]

Forgot to mention; There were a few other new features I forgot to highlight. I have updated the first post. Please see 'frontend' and 'products' sections. Thanks.

[k07n]

18 hours ago, kongondo said:

Looks like there are some CSS issues on the new site! Some people are seeing white text on white background! Sorry for this. Trying to debug.

quickfix

[kongondo]

5 hours ago, k07n said:

quickfix

Brilliant, thanks! I'll test here.

[kongondo]

Thanks to all who have reported bugs so far. These are:

1. Side menu icon not showing: I don't have a fix for this yet but a work around. Please go to /your-processwire-admin/shop/general-settings/. Have a look at the settings under User Interface, select your option then save. If you select any with the 'dropdown menu', you will need a couple of module refresh + logout + login. 
2. Error: calling get() on null errors in relation to discounts: This will happen in case you don't have discounts feature installed. The errors are now fixed. If you downloaded Padloper before yesterday, please download again, thanks. Version stays at 009.
3. CSS issues: White on white text as mentioned above. These are not related to Padloper but my site. I am working on a fix.
4. Confirmation emails not arriving after you complete your order: These are not related to Padloper but my shop. I am working on a fix on my server, etc.
5. Language page names not getting changed when their titles change: When you edit any Padloper page and change the title (including variants), the names of the pages should also change. I am investigating.

Thanks.

 

[kongondo]

Quick demo of the 'custom shop root page' feature.

Note:

1. The option 'Hide the parent pages and their children in the page tree' will do just that. The pages will still be visible in the frontend and in the Products Dashboard. 
2. The options 'Limited page tree actions and redirect to Padloper dashboards' will display the pages in the page tree with actions that point to the pages in their respective Padloper Dashboards. E.g. 'edit' will edit the page in Padloper.

Thanks.

[Spinbox]

After updating I can't simply save an existing product. Is it possible to keep the compare price empty? Looks like it's not possible and it resets to 0. Probably because of the database type.

[kongondo]

8 minutes ago, Spinbox said:

After updating I can't simply save an existing product.

Yes you can 😀 (I have just tested to confirm). That error is misleading and I need to rethink it. I wanted a $field->warning() but there isn't one (as far as I can tell). $field->error() is misleading since it suggest and error. I'll have a think, perhaps use $session->warning() instead or make it configurable via settings. For now, please ignore the error. Product should save just fine. Will sort ASAP.

[kongondo]

19 hours ago, kongondo said:

Quick demo of the 'custom shop root page' feature.

Please note that these and other config settings can be changed anytime. They are not a 'once-then-set-in-stone' settings. 

[Spinbox]

I phrased it wrong. I can save it, but I'd rather not have my client confused 😄 thanks!

[kongondo]

8 minutes ago, Spinbox said:

I phrased it wrong. I can save it, but I'd rather not have my client confused 😄 thanks!

That's what I thought! 😁. I think for now I'll make it show the 'error' only if there is a non-zero value in 'compare price' and that value is less than the  'price'. Ideally though, it should be a warning, not an error. Would this work for you? I can still consider a setting in future but this is the easier fix for now 🙂.

[kongondo]

 

5 minutes ago, kongondo said:

I'll make it show the 'error' only if there is a non-zero value in 'compare price' and that value is less than the  'price'.

And the 'error' should show on the compare price side; not the price since there is 'nothing wrong' with the price, presumably.

[Spinbox]

Works for me!

[kongondo]

Hello,

I have updated the 009 release. In summary:

1. Fix for a customers issue that did not play nicely with ProcessWire users. Thanks @alexm. I hope to write a bit about the customers feature later today.
2. Compare price field now only shows an error if there is a non-zero value in it and that value is less than the 'price' field. Thanks @Spinbox.
3. Activated a 'Live Stock Checker' feature I was working on with @Pete. I will create a new thread for this to explain how it works. The Live Stock Checker allows you to check certain specified products stock levels' before allowing them to be added to the basket. It checks both available amounts since last completed order (inventory) and also the quantities currently held in baskets across sessions on your site.

ps: Emails now work on the shop. Thanks @alexm

Have a nice day!

[kongondo]

Hi,

I have updated the 009 release. In summary:

1. Add method to PadloperDiscounts Class to remove all discounts applied to an (in session) order  - removeDiscounts(). Thanks @alexm for the suggestion.
2. Fix for missing 'padloper-customer' role that is given to Padloper customers for easier identification, etc. Thanks @alexmfor catching this.
3. Fix for missing 'other optional settings' in the installer modal in list of actions to be applied when configuring Padloper. Thanks @alexm for catching this.

Thanks.

Edited May 26 by kongondo

[alexm]

@kongondo great work as always! Loving how easy it is to use the new customers and customer groups to create a custom dashboard for them. I've made an address book so that customers can create/update/delete addresses with ease and view/manage their orders. Next up will be to integrate the address book into the customer information form at checkout, rather than set the default address. This will be fun to work on 😃

Likewise, it was straightforward to get the discount codes feature integrated and this is working very well indeed.

Really can't applaud your work on this big update enough!!! 👏🏻👊🏻

[kongondo]

2 hours ago, alexm said:

great work as always!

Thanks man!

Finally, I did a brief write-up about Customers and Customer Groups.

[alexm]

@kongondo I hadn't even noticed the email customer option!! That's wicked 🤙🏻