3.3.1 Sneak Peek

It’s time for the sneak peek at upcoming features and changes in version 3.3.1. We’ve been working hard – very excited about some of these new features!

  • Emails – Ability to define any number of email templates in the Administrator as Velocity templates, and to create emails based on the templates.
  • Emails – Support for storing emails sent by the application in the database.
  • Emails – Ability to send emails through the SendGrid email service.
  • Emails – Tabs under each Customer, Order, and Template display all sent emails for the customer, order, or template. Global Emails area to view all emails sent by the system.
  • Emails – Porting of JSP order shipped and order follow up emails to use new Email object.
  • Emails – Ability to send Template based emails from the order control screen.
  • Emails – Order confimation and gift certificate notification JSP emails sent through new system.
  • Jobs scheduling – Ability to define Quartz jobs and schedules in quartz.properties (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Jobs scheduling – Built-in job for reindexing Lucene (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Jobs scheduling – Built-in job for sending follow up emails to customers (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Jobs scheduling – Built-in job for sending ‘your order has been shipped’ emails to customers (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Administrator security – Change password form for admins to change their own password independently from the Administrator administrative area.
  • Administrator security – Implementation of a new setting, oneWayEncryptionAlgorithm, support for legacy md5 or sha256.
  • Administrator security – Ability to lock an Administrator out after a certain number of failed login attempts (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Administrator security – Ability to force Administrators to change their password every x days (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Administrator security – Ability to enforce password rules: minimum password length, and that each password contains both a letter and number (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Administrator security – Ability to enforce that new Administrator passwords do not repeat any one of that admin’s previous x passwords (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Administrator security – Ability to restrict each Administrator’s logins by IP address (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Events and Triggers – automatically register any method with a Subscribe annotation, and log event registrations.
  • Events and Triggers – ChangingOrderEvent is posted as any order is changed; ChangedOrderEvent posted after the change.
  • Events and Triggers – CapturePaymentTrigger responds to orders whose status changes to a defined status such as Shipped.
  • Events and Triggers – Authorize.net CIM support for capturing payments upon an order’s status change.
  • Events and Triggers – Error, success, and warning messages can be passed from triggers to calling Struts actions for display to users.
  • Events and Triggers – ChangingSettingEvent is posted when any existing setting is changed.
  • Events and Triggers – ChangingRequestLogEvent is posted when a request log is added.
  • Events and Triggers – AvaTaxTrigger can take action (Save, Post, or Commit) upon flipping an order to Shipped or some other defined status (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Events and Triggers – preventStatusChangeIfPaymentCaptureFails setting and enforcement.
  • API Support – Support for remotely viewing and editing various entities via API calls (Enterprise Edition only).
  • API Support – New Administrator field isApiUser flags the admin user as able to make API calls to api.do (Enterprise Edition only).
  • API Support – Support for viewing and editing Order information via API calls (Enterprise Edition only).
  • Ability to define a contingency shipping method on the Shipping Configuration -> Shipping Settings screen, in case FedEx, UPS, or USPS ratings service fails.
  • Site Map displaying a list of header links, the expanded category tree, anda list of footer links, accessible via SiteMap.do.
  • USPS setting to optionally strip the estimated delivery days from the new USPS shipping method names, to avoid confusion with customers.
  • Including productFacets.jsp on the product page – a listing of product facets as ‘specifications’.
  • Ability to specify multiple license keys in a single running instance.
  • Authorize.net CIM API integration – User interface tweaks; Display the add payment pop up if no methods already exist in the customer’s account.
  • On the Checkout Addresses screen, prepopulate the billing email with the customer account’s user name for new customers.
  • Setting to default advanced search to return categories and manufacturers in addition to products, or just products.
  • Interface for business objects’ ‘editDelete*’ methods so they now return a type of Map rather than void.
  • Adding scopes to Guice initialization.
  • Initializing Guice (minus the Event Bus) in CommandLineSupport, outside of the servlet.
  • SoftSlate Extender – Tweaks to the Extender for boilerplate Processor code; Adding Event creation to Extender; Fix syntax issues in sample extender-custom.properties.
  • Type safe object creation in BusinessObjectFactory and DAOFactory.
  • Change return value of Settings.getValue from Object to String.
  • Ajax billing edit action updates Order.lastModified and posts change events.

About David Tobey

I'm a web developer and consultant based in lovely Schenectady, NY, where I run SoftSlate, LLC. In my twenties I worked in book publishing, where I met my wife. In my thirties I switched careers and became a computer programmer. I am still in the brainstorming phase for what to do in my forties, and I am quickly running out of time to make a decision. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. UPDATE: I have run out of time and received no (realistic) suggestions. I guess it's programming for another decade.
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