How to find out which OpenCart version am I using
Have you ever thought about making any changes in your OpenCart store, install new theme or modules? If so, before starting to look for a module or a theme, you need to know the specifications of your own store in order to find the compatible extensions you may need.
In this short article we will show you the first step in recognizing your store specifications, knowing the OpenCart version you are running.
Currently, there are 13 OpenCart versions available, since the first version OpenCart 1.5.4 released on August 16, 2012. Typically, OpenCart timeline is separated in two milestones, first one includes OpenCart 1.5.x versions starting from OpenCart 1.5.4 till 1.5.6.4, and the second milestone with versions from OpenCart 2.0.0.0 till 2.0.3.1. Between two major versions there is a big difference in the admin panel interface. Therefore, the OpenCart interface itself can help you distinguish between versions 1.5.x and 2.0.x.
OpenCart 1.5.x
Let’s start with finding out the version of an OpenCart 1.5.x store by accessing the data from the store admin panel. When opening your store admin panel, if you are using the default admin theme of OpenCart, you may have the following view :
Focus on the footer of the page, and there you will see the version of this store.
In the current example, the running OpenCart version is OpenCart 1.5.6.4. If you are in Admin Panel, in the footer of each page you will see the used version of OpenCart.
Another way to check the version of your current OpenCart store, is to access this information from your index.php file.
Open your OpenCart installation in your server. By default, your OpenCart installation should be located in the public_html directory. Locate the file index.php.
Open this file and in the third line of code you will find the current OpenCart version used in your store.
<?php
// Version
define('VERSION', '1.5.6.4');
OpenCart 2.0.x
A big difference in the admin interface of the OpenCart versions was in the transition from OpenCart 1.5.x to 2.0.x in October 1, 2014. As you can see in the picture below, different from OC 1.5.x in the login admin page of OpenCart 2.0.x the version of the OpenCart is not shown.
But how to find out which exact version is it?
As shown in the previous section for OpenCart 1.5.x, there are two ways to access this information. You can either check your store admin panel or open file index.php.
At first, login to your account and scroll down in the end of the page, there you will find the required information.
The exact version in the example shown in the image is OpenCart 2.0.3.1, the newest released version of OpenCart in May 29, 2015.
As explained in the previous section for OpenCart 1.5.x, you can access the same information by opening index.php file. For this example the OpenCart version is shown in the third line of the code below.
<?php
// Version
define('VERSION', '2.0.3.1');
Knowing your OpenCart version not only helps you choose plugins for your store easier, but it also helps you to keep your store up-to-date and bug free. When you experience a bug in your store, you can easily search for a version specific fix. Plus, you can also look if there is a newer OpenCart version and go through the changelog to check if a known bug is already fixed or any new cool feature is implemented.
