[iSenseLabs Weekly 58] New OpenCart Features & Fixes, Video Tutorials and Latest E-Commerce News

If you haven’t already heard of the new ProductBundles 4.0 release, we’ll show you all the new features and improvements the extension has to offer now.

The other major updates we released are for SEO Backpack and ExcelPort.

We’re trying to make big progress with those extensions lately as we see the big impact they are making for a lot of OpenCart stores out there.

If you have been using some of those extensions and think something might be missing, feel free to share in the comments down below!

ProductBundles 4.0 (OC 2.0.x to 2.3.x)

New Feature: Redesigned admin panel. Now with new views for adding/editing bundles, with more flexibility and easier management

New Feature: Refactored bundle creation. Now works independently from OpenCart settings table, which provide us the opportunity to add more features without sacrificing the number of bundles that can be stored in the store at once

New Feature: Migrator - Can import your bundles from older versions of ProductBundles to the new release

New Feature: "Discount Type" - Now you can choose between setting discounts by fixed value or by percentage

New Feature: Added "Date Availability" option for each bundle. From now on you can decide on a date, from which the bundle discount to be active

New Feature: Added "Status" option for each bundle. You can enable/disable the bundles, just like the regular products in OpenCart

New Feature: Added "Description" option for each bundle. The option has multi-lingual support

New Feature: Added "Sort Order" field for each bundle

New Feature: Added "Quantity" field when adding a product in a bundle in the admin panel, allowing for easier bundle creation if the given bundle combo contains more than one quantity of the product you are trying to add

New Feature: Added SEO slug field for each bundle. Useful if you use SEO URLs and want the single bundle to have SEO-friendly accessible URL address

New Feature: The module is fully translated and each string is placed in the corresponding language files in `admin` and `catalog` folders for easier translation on any language

New Feature: Shows the name of the bundles which were added in the cart in the total info displayed in the shopping cart

New F​eature: A warning in the admin panel which will be displayed if you did not enabled the order total extension, which is responsible for the discount applying in the cart

New Feature: The order total module now shows the name of the bundle(s) if there are such in the shopping cart

New Feature: Added option to show/hide the description of the bundle in the widget

New Feature: Added option to show/hide the description of the bundle in the listing page

New Feature: Added option to show/hide the description of the bundle in the single bundle view page

Improvement: The order total module now has a check for multi-store websites

Improvement: Refactored the helpers in the admin panel for better understanding of the features of the module

Improvement: The "Show Random Bundles" option is now moved to the "Widget" settings, since it is applicable only for the widget on the front-end part of the store

Bug fix: The "Display Type" option in for the widget settings is now working correctly

Bug fix: "Show Random Bundles" feature is working again

Bug fix: When there are 2 widgets on 1 page, two click events occurred

Bug fix: Multi-store-link issue in the admin panel

Bug fix: SEO links compatibility fix for OpenCart 2.3.x

Bug fix: Fixed small issue with the support/activate license page

Bug fix: Minor fixes in the installation instructions

ProductBundles 4.1 (OC 2.0.x to 2.3.x)

New Feature: Added filter in the admin panel for the bundles. You can search by name, products in bundle, discount value or status

Bug fix: Fixed the checking query for the bundle display in the category pages in the front-end

Bug fix: Fixed Summernote (the new ckeditor) description saving for the bundles in the admin panel

SEO Backpack 2.1 (OC 2.0.1.x - 3.x)

New feature: Added new tab, called "Advanced Editor". You can use this to edit all SEO fields (meta title, meta description, meta keywords, SEO keyword) right on the spot. There are also filters included in the page, which you can use to simplify the process

New feature: Added [lang] short-code for the SEO URL generation. Now you can add "en", "fr", "de", "ru" or the code name of your language to the URL string of your products, categories, manufacturers and information pages

New feature: Added ".html" string support in the SEO URLs for the products, categories, manufacturers and information pages

Improvement: The database tables, which SEO Backpack needs, will now be created right after the "Install" button is clicked

Improvement: The module now remembers the current opened tab in the module, so when you refresh the page you will be taken to the same place you were before the refresh action

Improvement: Added checks for when the products are corrupted or are with  missing names or descriptions

Improvement: Modified the installation instructions file, which now includes information that you should not use this product alongside other SEO modules

Improvement: Modified the installation instructions file, which now includes information about .htaccess and how you should set it up prior to the installation of the module

Improvement: Small design changes in the admin panel

Bug fix: Fixed minor issue with the percentage calculation for the SEO Score

Bug fix: Added checks for the "Fix"/"Generate" buttons if the store does not have any information pages, manufacturers, categories or products

ExcelPort 2.5.3 (OC 2.0.x to 2.3.x)

Improvement: Invalid product attributes no longer exported.

Improvement: Better option name detection during product import.

Improvement: Better detection of OpenStock product option value names during product import.

Improvement: Better OpenStock option combination detection.

Improvement: Better compatibility with OpenStock.

Improvement: Faster product option import in Bulk mode.

Bug fix: Affiliate ID filter in Orders export is now working.

Bug fix: Meta sheet in product bulk export is no longer mixed up.

ExcelPort 1.11.3 (OC 1.5.1.3 - 1.5.6.4)

Improvement: Invalid product attributes no longer exported.

Improvement: Better option name detection during product import.

Improvement: Better detection of OpenStock product option value names during product import.

Improvement: Faster product option import in Bulk mode.

Bug fix: Affiliate ID filter in Orders export is now working.

Bug fix: Meta sheet in product bulk export is no longer mixed up.

ProductManager 3.1.1 (OC 2.0.x - 2.3.x)

Bug fix: Licensing

WhatsAppShare 2.3.4 (OC 2.x)

Improvement: Escaped the WhatsApp message content.

Bug fix: Added check if the function is_device_mobile exists.

​CustomerPhotos 3.3.5 (OC 2.0.x - 2.3.x)

Bug fix: Fixed missing modulePath variable in ocmod file.

Bug fix: FIxed wrong url routes applicable for OpenCart 2.3

CustomPageBackground 2.3 (OC 2.0.x - 2.3.x)

New Feature: Apply backgrounds also on pages where part of their URL matches

Bonus Section: Our Favorite Articles of the Week

Constant Content: The Silver Bullet for Failing Content Marketing Strategy

By Moz

Producing engaging content constantly is what all agencies and companies are struggling with. Being on top all the time requires an endless flow of creativity and unique techniques, which is the marketer’s Utopia. Still, it’s not something we should consider impossible. Moz dig deep into some different ways to establish a constant content strategy that stimulates variety, which is what all consumers want.

Homepage SEO Best Practices (with 16 Examples)

By Green Flag Digital

One of the first things that probably come to your mind when someone says SEO and homepage in one sentence are keywords. Well, it should actually be speed. What users want is to see the website load fast at first, not a bunch of words stuffed together. With that said, we don’t diminish the importance of keywords. View this article to see the smartest practices for using them in your homepage.

How to Use Customer Testimonials to Generate 62% More Revenue From Every Customer, Every Visit

By Bigcommerce

Receiving a positive customer testimonial for one of your products is always a happy moment and you want to experience that as often as possible. Well, there’s a way you can do that by actually using every great review you get to stimulate other customers to purchase more and thus share their positive experiences as well.

iSenseLabs Videos

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Trello is one of the most popular project management applications named “one of the coolest startups you haven’t heard of yet” by Wired magazine. It’s web-based and extremely easy to use.

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