New Features, Module Fixes and Latest News. iSenseLabs Weekly #26

We’re back with another weekly update on the progress the team is making. I’m eager to show you one of the biggest updates we’ve ever made to an OpenCart extension - AbandonedCarts. There is a healthy dose of updates both for store owners as well as OpenCart developers - check it out!

AbandonedCarts 5.0 (OC 2.0.x to 2.2.x)

✮ What's new for the customers?

New feature: Added compatibility with CloudFlare;

New feature: Added "Free shipping" as an option for the generated coupons from the module. The default value is 'No';

New feature: Added "Customer login" option as a requirement for the generated coupon to be valid. The default value is 'No';

New feature: Added "Third-party checkout fix" - This feature is useful for checkout modules, which have special success pages. Those pages do not contain full information about the orders and they prevent AbandonedCarts from removing the abandoned record from the module, which can result in some of your customers receiving emails for abandoned carts, even if they have placed their order. Setting this feature to "Enabled" should resolve those issues;

New feature: Added "Show Widget in the Shop's Dashboard" - Shows a widget, similar to the default ones in the dashboard page, displaying the number of the abandoned carts in your store;

New feature: Added "Show Link in the OpenCart's Main Menu" - Shows a link to the module in the main OpenCart admin menu. It also displays the number of the abandoned carts in your store. This feature was already available, however, it was always enabled. Now you have the ability to disable it;

New feature: Added "Total" (quantity and price) fields for each abandoned cart record in the listing view;

New feature: Added "Receive Notification Email" - This feature sends an email to the store admin email every time when the CRON is executed, notifying the store owners how many emails were sent during the given execution of the CRON;

New feature: Added information on how to manually set the CRON to be executed more than once;

New feature: Added CRON FAQ section - Now you can get answers on your most asked questions directly in the module;

Improvement: Redesigned admin panel;

Improvement: Better compatibility with OpenCart 2.2.0.0;

Improvement: Better multi-store compatibility;

Improvement: Changed the wording on some of the settings for better understanding;

Bug fix: Fixes for the statistics tab;

Bug fix: Fixed CRON job auto adding feature which was not working on some servers;

Bug fix: Fixed "Apply Taxes" not working on OpenCart 2.2.0.0;

Bug fix: Fixed the following issue - "When somebody already ordered, it does not create new abandoned cart record for the same session".

⬢ What's new for the developers?

• All text string are now put in a language file. This makes the module fully translatable to different languages;

• 95% of the inline javascript is collected in a single JS file for better maintaining of the code & debugging;

• Code refactoring;

• Refactored OCMod methods;

• Removed unused/repeated code.

FacebookStore 2.4 (OC 2.0.x to 2.2.x)

New Feature: Product limit settings

New Feature: Image width and height settings

New Feature: MultiStore

Bug fix: Custom payment methods now open in new tab

TieredGifts 2.1 (OC 2.0.x to 2.2.x)

New feature: Tax setting

Improvement: SEO links

AskForQuote 2.4.1 (OC 2.0.x to 2.2.x)

Bug fix: Prevention of empty/null comment record in the database.

Bug fix: Repeated errors in the popup when they occur.

Bonus Section: Our Favorite Articles of the Week

How to Build a Brand from Nothing

By Hitenism

Branding tips coming from the co-founder of Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics are always welcome if you ask me. Hiten believes that building a brand means you have carved out a place for yourself in people’s minds. Without having a strong brand influence, it’s very hard to spread your name and product. Novelty doesn’t only mean something is new, it means something is also original and unusual.

5 Psychological Techniques To Use On Instagram

By AdEspresso

According to AdEspresso, there are 5 vital parts of building a strong following and engaging people on Instagram. Eye-contact, strong colors, symmetry, audience involvement, and being “inclusively exclusive” as they put it. The examples also paint a good picture of what the leading brands do on Instagram and how they reap the benefits of visual content.

7 Best Practices for Improving Website Usability

By Constant Content

There are some very interesting points about website usability in this article. Apart from the expected standards for content quality, social integrations and overall simplicity, there’s something you might have missed so far - MVE (minimum viable experience).

OpenCart Extensions - When to Buy, and When to Download Free

By iSenseLabs

The latest guest post we had was from Jason Daszkewicz. He contributed with a lot of insights on how to decide when is the right moment to download a free extension or chip in for the software you are about to use. As with all purchasing decisions, there are quite a few things to consider, but since buying software is a long-term deal, it’s worth to think about it for a minute, consider the factors and make the right decision then. We will leave that to you.

Pick of the Week

Put your web store to the ultimate stress test and find all of the weaknesses it might have. LoadFlood is a smart way to determine how much load your server can take before it starts crashing.