New Features

Downloadable Products

OXID eShop 4.6.0 comes with a new type of product in standard delivery without the need to install a module for it: downloadable products. The shop owner, with downloadable products, can offer for example software, photographs, MP3s or document templates. A client purchasing such a type of downloadable product, obtains the associated files. Once the checkout process is done, an email will link to the place where the files can be downloaded, alternatively this links can be found in “My Account”. To allow many different business models (e.g. download platforms or App-stores), the shop owner can adjust these if the download of the product is possible

• without receiving the payment,
• only after the product has been paid and
• dependent on the payment method.

The usage of downloadable products has to be activated globally in your store. In the admin panel -> core settings you can adjust the global settings for downloadable products such as the path to the files, maximum download count or expiration date of the links.

Additionally, you can adjust these values differently from the global options for each downloadable product and for each file.

We greatfully received a good portion of this feature as a contribution from our partner agency marmalade.de who needed it for their own project – we fine tuned this feature and made it mature for the standard delivery of OXID eShop.

Please find more information about downloadable products and how to adjust them on this page:
https://oxidforge.org/en/downloadable-products.html

OXID eShop goes semantic web with RDFa and GoodRelations

With Rich Snippets, based on the Resource Description Framework (RDFa) and the according vocabulary GoodRelations, developed and optimized for use with e-commerce websites, data on pages will be allocated in a well-structured format for machines such as search engine robots. So, for example search engines can compute the data such as the company name, payment and delivery methods, and product item details more efficiently. We are concerned with the fact that search engines should appreciate it – maybe with a better ranking? 🙂

This feature is only available in the Azure theme. To use this feature, you have to activate it in the core settings first. In this tab, you are also requested to assign company related data, payment and delivery methods as well as special information about the product items you offer in your online store. For a standardized wording, a logical linking to pre-defined values in GoodRelations will be established.

Most of the code for this feature has been contributed by Bundeswehr University Munich, powered by Prof. Dr. Martin Hepp.

Please find more information about adjusting this feature on this page:
https://oxidforge.org/en/rdfa-goodrelations.html

Module-Handling

For installed modules, there is now an extended menu called “Extensions” containing themes and modules. OXID eShop automatically lists all installed modules here as far as each module is copied to the /modules/ folder. A standardized meta file will provide all relevant details and options of the modules. You can change the order of the modules with drag & drop. Also, you can activate and deactivate these modules.

Please read more about this changes on these pages:
https://oxidforge.org/en/extension-gui.html
https://oxidforge.org/en/extension-metadata-file.html

Scheduled update of product prices

Product prices can be scheduled for a defined time, either by PHP action or cron job. This might be important when you are absent for a certain amount of time.

Read more about this feature on this page:
https://oxidforge.org/en/feature-in-oxid-eshop-from-4-6-product-price-updates-on-user-defined-time.html

Improvements

Increased Perfomance

The performance of OXID eShop could be increased significantly in high load scenarios by reducing SQL queries, fine tuning of the caching mechanism and other code optimizations.

Activate SEO cache in Core settings -> Perform. to store SEO queries in your /tmp/ folder. This will increase your performance but will require more storage dependent of the number of your product items.

Order state NOT_FINISHED

A new order state, NOT_FINISHED, has been added. It will be set at the beginning of an order process and will be changed to OK if the order has been finished successfully.

Revamped layout in order management

The layout in the main tab of order management has been revamped to show all payment and delivery information clearly arranged.

Facebook feature “Live Stream” removed

After a poll in our forums, the Facebook feature “Live Stream” has been removed as it is not neccessary.

Please read more about this decision:
https://oxidforge.org/en/oxid-eshop-version-4-6-0.html#General_hints_for_this_package