SmartStoreNET v4.1.0 Release Notes

Release Date: 2020-11-09 // over 3 years ago
  • Highlights

    • 🌐 Web API: now supports the widely extended version 4 of OData. New endpoints for uploading and managing media files have been added to the API.
    • (NEW) Delivery dates: product info now shows estimated delivery date (exact date, range, Not before, Not later than). Merchant can enter optional Min/Max delivery days and also specify business hours.
    • 🔌 (DEV) VS Extension to create plugins. Helps developing plugins for Smartstore by creating the basic structure of a Smartstore plugin with all the required files.
    • OCI provides connection to e-procurement systems via industry standard OCI (commercial plugin)
    • cXmlPunchout provides connection to e-procurement systems via industry standard cXmlPunchout (commercial plugin)
    • Video support in product media gallery.
    • Media Gallery displays a multitude of media files in various styles as Page Builder block.
    • (PERF) ~10% faster page rendering speed thanks to better eager loading & caching strategies

    💥 Breaking changes

    • The Glimpse plugin is obsolete and has been removed! Does not work with .NET 4.7+ and hasn't been maintained for 7 years now.
    • 🌐 (DEV) Web API : porting to OData v4 has minor incompatibilities with v3. See this blog post for details.
    • 🔊 Blogs\News : the direct language association has been removed. Localized content is now entered using the localization editor.
      🔀 Merging the contents of different languages must be done manually (migration is not possible).
    • PostFinance : plugin has been extended and renamed. Users of this payment method must activate PostFinance e-Commerce in backend and enter the API access data again.

    🆕 New Features

    • 📱 Theming: responsive font-sizing and spacing
    • 🏗 Page Builder
      • #2042 Added gallery block to display a multitude of media files in various styles.
      • #2036 Added block to display content slider.
      • #2035 Added block to display news.
      • #1729 Added option for title and intro inline background color.
    • #1644 Graying out unavailable attribute combinations.
    • #1744 Added 'Orders' tab to the product editor to display all orders in which the product has been purchased.
    • #1735 Added a setting to open a product directly if the search term matches a SKU, MPN or GTIN.
    • 🔧 #1239 Added configurability for password strength.
    • #1678 Determine initial working currency based on IP/country.
    • #1697 Added picture and color options to checkout attribute values.
    • #1788 Added setting to restrict order amount in general and for customer roles in specific.
    • #1978 Added minimum and maximum days to delivery times to show a specific delivery date.
    • #1715 Added product attributes selected by customer to RFQ and ask question message.
    • 👍 (DEV) Full localization support for properties of setting classes.
    • #2012 Added paging and sorting for bestsellers report.
    • #2014 Added paging and sorting for top customers report.
    • #2092 Added meta properties for social media sharing to category, manufacturer, news and blog pages.
    • ➕ Added option for SameSite mode property of cookies
    • #1307 Add 'apple-touch-icon' meta with all common sizes
    • #213 Allow special title and meta tags for home

    👌 Improvements

    • 👍 (PERF) 10% faster page rendering speed thanks to better eager loading & caching strategies
    • #1981 Added grouping for cart rules.
    • #1407 Added menu to set order and payment status for orders checked in backend grid.
    • #1778 Back button closes offcanvas menu/cart.
    • #2069 MegaSearch: product order is applied to all categories in which a product appears.
    • ⚡️ #2052 When editing a product, the stock quantity is only updated if it has not changed since the page was loaded.
    • #213 Added options for special title and meta tags on home page.
    • 🏗 #1977 CMS Menu Builder: added new builder types for blogs and news.
    • 🌲 Search Log: added option to hide top search terms in instant search.
    • CookieManager: Admin area for user defined cookie information
    • CookieManager: More compact frontend layout for mobile devices
    • Seo optimization for News, Blog & Boards
    • (Admin) More filter options for news & blog items
    • 🔧 #1901 News: Made CreatedOn configurable
    • #2078 Hidden news items should be rendered opaque if current user is in admin role.
    • #1902 Form registration clears values when switching between site languages
    • #1984 Render breadcrumb for pages that are part of the main menu.
    • 👍 #2121 Media Manager: implement direct file "replace" support.
    • #1338 Display 'PanGV' in OffCanvas cart
    • #1988 Preconnect all external resources and load them async
    • #1968 Dropzone: upload the folder structure when a folder is dropped.
    • 🏗 #1996 Page Builder: Added 'Loading behaviour' option to picture block
    • 🔊 #2100 Improved schema for news, blogs and products

    🛠 Bugfixes

    • Media Manager
      • The file date should be displayed in local time and not in UTC.
    • 🏗 Page Builder
      • Reveal effect on story block conflicted with nested block reveal effects.
      • #2068 Fixed RTL display issues with dropdown menus and slider.
    • Export
      • An empty export file was created at the end of an export when using the batch-size option.
      • The offset option skipped one record too much.
      • The XML export of CountryOfOrigin caused an error.
    • Message template attachments were not attached to the email.
    • Shipment templates showed all products of the order instead of only those of the shipment.
    • ⚡️ EasyCredit: fixed "Could not convert setting 'EasyCreditSettings.LastPurchaseLimitUpdatedOn' to type 'DateTime'".
    • #2076 Attributes were not pre-selected for all associated products of a grouped product.
    • Customer tab on customer role edit page showed deleted customers.
    • 🆓 #2041 Product with call for price did show as free in product list and grid view.
    • ⚡️ #2079 Order item editing: order total was not updated when both unit and item price were changed.
    • RSS feeds: relative URLs of objects embedded in HTML are replaced by absolute URLs.
    • ⚡️ Rules: automatic category assignments of products were not taken into account in a search index updates.
    • Campaign preview did not work if there are no newsletter subscribers.
    • 🛠 Many alt & title attribute fixes for pictures
    • #2000 Escape toxic chars in meta attributes
    • 📈 Google Analytics: Fixed script error in conjunction with CookieManager
    • #2085 RTL: searchbar button wasn't aligned correctly
    • 🏗 #2068 RTL: Fixed Page Builder slider positioning, dropdown and other alignments
    • #2019 OffCancas compare: hide horizontal scrollbar

Previous changes from v4.0.1

  • 🆕 New Features

    • 🔌 Check on app startup whether any plugin has changed and refresh all plugin locale resources.

    👌 Improvements

    • Theming: minimal but effective tweaks (rounding, shadows, typo)
    • 🔍 (SEO) (PERF) Preload logo to prevent flashing and web fonts to avoid FOUT on slow internet connection
    • 🏗 Rule Builder :
      • #1969 The preview grid is now displayed in a modal dialog.
      • Added more cart rules: weekday, total quantity of products in cart.
      • Added list with example values for browser, operating system and device family rule.
    • #1995 The localized ALT text of media files is now respected for all frontend images.
    • 🔍 SEO: most images in frontend now carry loading="lazy" attribute which loads images only when they enter visible viewport.
    • Media Manager :
      • Improved image lazy loading behavior.
      • The reference table of a file now remains open if its data has been loaded.
      • Migration: detect duplicate file names.
    • 👌 Improved handling of customer roles, e.g. paging for customer role grid.
    • (PERF) Use direct SQL to delete guest customers.
    • Blog & News items: Unpublished items are visible for shop admins now

    🛠 Bugfixes

    • Order placement validation now also checks whether the selected payment method has been filtered out.
    • #1976 The button to cancel recurring payments in my-account was out of function.
    • (pb) Flat Box did not invert text color if concrete colors were specified for text parts
    • (mm) Store logo is handled by "content" album, not "file"
    • (mm) Tracker tracks only the last media file property
    • (mm) Migration: Download entity was teared down too early in the migration process.
    • 🚀 (perf) Plugin hash calculation was broken in a way that every plugin was redeployed on each app startup
    • A cart rule was not applied if more than one cart rule was assigned to an object.
    • 🛠 MegaSearch: fixed the incorrect featured sorting.
    • ➕ Added missing paging for shipment list.
    • #2009 "Show all" link in top brands list is always rendered in new line but should be last item in last row.