osCommerce 3.0 Alpha 4 “Lebkuchen” Released
osCommerce 3.0 Alpha 4 “Lebkuchen” is the second release to be made available to the public, where the first two alpha releases were made available to Community Sponsors only.
Alpha releases are made to showcase the new features being worked on and to generalize a version specific for testing to help fix and improve subsequent alpha releases for a final, stable, secure, and production ready 3.0 release.
The framework for 3.0 is still under development and will change in subsequent alpha releases. No upgrade paths will be provided between alpha releases and are therefore not recommended for production use.
Some of the new features that are made available in this release include:
* New object-oriented framework (alpha 1)
* New installation routine (alpha 1)
* register_globals and magic_quotes_gpc compatibility (alpha 1)
* New template structure implementation (alpha 1)
* Search-engine optimizations (alpha 1)
* Service modules (alpha 1)
* Checkout procedure cleanup (alpha 2)
* New language definitions implementation (alpha 2)
* Updated payment modules with post-transaction actions (alpha 3)
* Catalog front-end, administration tool, and installation routine combined (alpha 3)
* XHTML/CSS based default template layout for the catalog side (alpha 3)
* Multiple product images implementation (alpha 3)
* New action modules (alpha 3)
* Administration Tool access levels (alpha 4)
* Administrator Log (alpha 4)
* Administration Tool batch action capabilities (alpha 4)
* HTML Editor for product descriptions (alpha 4)
* Full zone entries for most countries (alpha 4; Anders Pamdal)
* Language injection feature for similar languages (alpha 4)
* GeoIP Modules for the Administration Tool Who’s Online section (alpha 4)
* … and more! (application_top.php has never been so clean!)