AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

With the degree of changes within the file structure, I really feel that AC should have listed 7.0.7 (or where ever those changes took place, as I upgraded from 7.0.2) as v8.0. It was not really just an upgrade, but a change in versions, and these changes left our customized files completely useless as many were straight ASPX files in the previous version, but in the new version those files have been split into two, with an ASPX file and a CS file. We have managed to codger together most of our previous customizations, but there are still a few that we desperately need help with. We spent a lot of money previously on some customizations, and want to avoid paying a second time for the same work on the new files.

• When an order is printed, our old version updated the status to Order Printed (from Payment Pending, etc.). This way you did not have to keep track of what orders you just printed, and risk errors by having a second manual step changing the status. I would have thought that AC would have built this into their software by this time, as 'lesser' shopping carts have it. This customization was originally in viewtopic.php?f=42&t=8681&p=39324&hilit ... ted#p39324, but it no longer works. Can anyone help here?
  
  The new invoice layout also lends itself to customer confusion. Listing all of the products ordered with the shipping included in that list, followed by a subtotal that does not include the shipping cost and then listing the shipping a second time could easily confuse customers into thinking that they have been double-charged shipping. I had to add the products in a test order to confirm that it was correct and not double-charging in the invoice totals. Previously the shipping method was shown in the header area of the invoice, with the shipping amount shown below the subtotal (and not listed with the products). How can we remove the shipping from the itemized list of products, and show the method in the heading area (as it is for the Packing List)? We have tried to copy part of the Packing List layout to get the shipping method to show in the heading, but just get an error when we do so.
  
  When we mark orders shipped (in batch mode) a routine runs to move any tracking numbers from one table into our tracking numbers table. UPS Worldship writes the tracking numbers to a table when we ship the orders, but due to table formatting it cannot write directly to the TrackingNumbers table. Instead we have the information written to the same fields (same field names) in a table named TrackingNumbersTest. When we mark the orders shipped, the Orders/Default.aspx currently transfers the information (if any) to the same fields (exluding the TrackingNumberID field) in the TrackingNumbers table, deletes the information from the TrackingNumbersTest table, and notes on the webpage that X number of tracking numbers were updated. This avoids both the time and risk of errors associated with manually entering or copying and pasting the tracking numbers from Worldship to AC.

Those are our only remaining customizations that we cannot get working. We have spent hours getting our other customizations back into working order on the new version, but require these in order to go live with the new version. I hate to waste the cost of our upgrade by simply tossing it to the side, especially when there are some useful improvements, but we are nearly to that point!

Brewhaus wrote: I really feel that AC should have listed 7.0.7 (or where ever those changes took place, as I upgraded from 7.0.2) as v8.0

You sound frustrated, and I don't blame you. Upgrades are a pain no matter how well they are planned and executed.

But this isn't Able's fault. You leap-frogged 5 complete version releases and a number of service packs. There were bound to be some issues. The important thing to remember from your experience is to keep your software current. As you've recently learned the hard way, it's painful when you don't. Had minor upgrades been done incrementally over the last 3 years, your most recent move to 7.0.7 would have been far less painful.

Brewhaus wrote:We spent a lot of money previously on some customizations, and want to avoid paying a second time for the same work on the new files.

I'm sorry, but that's not how it works. The moment you customize something in any software, you have to be aware that this customization could be overwritten by a future update. There's just no way to avoid it. That's the price you pay for customizing software written by someone else. You get exactly what you want, but your upgrade path gets more complicated down the road.

Brewhaus wrote:The new invoice layout also lends itself to customer confusion.

I couldn't agree more. Clearly Able doesn't use their own invoice layout. Or packing slips for that matter. Both layouts are inadequate for most businesses. Invoices and Pack Slips are probably the single most common customization request I get on www.AbleMods.com.

Rick I've been where you are and I know you are a long-time AbleCommerce customer. My http://www.Solunar.com site is still 7.0.5 solely because of the effort it will take to migrate customizations. So even an expert developer in AC7 gets stung by the customized-site upgrade. It's just the nature of modifying something written by someone else. You just have to plan for that additional expense and manage your software version in a more proactive manner.

I'd be happy to help you with your remaining customizations, but that's going to mean you will be paying a second time for the same customization. Customizations are rarely cheap, but they can have a huge impact on how your business operates on a daily basis.

But this isn't Able's fault. You leap-frogged 5 complete version releases and a number of service packs. There were bound to be some issues. The important thing to remember from your experience is to keep your software current. As you've recently learned the hard way, it's painful when you don't. Had minor upgrades been done incrementally over the last 3 years, your most recent move to 7.0.7 would have been far less painful.

The issue is not that customizations were overwritten. The issue is that within what should be the same file structure (if changing file structure, they should also change the version number, in this case to version so that old files cannot be use. Even if we had kept up with each update, the change in file structure took place on only one of those steps- we could not have avoided this by upgrading with each new version. Such a substantial change should have come with some warning so that people were not blind sided. Changing to version 8 would have helped by letting people know we were not on the exact same path (7.0.1, 7.0.2, etc., suggests minor changes, not a complete overhaul of some underlying code).

I'd be happy to help you with your remaining customizations, but that's going to mean you will be paying a second time for the same customization. Customizations are rarely cheap, but they can have a huge impact on how your business operates on a daily basis.

I will contact you off list on this. One of the customizations was previously discussed and handled on these forums, but we have not seen any reply to the revival of that thread (viewtopic.php?f=42&t=8681). The previous customization no longer works, so I was hoping that Mazhar would update it, as I am sure that a lot of people have a need for this (status change to Order Printed when you print the order).

No problem, I'm sure it's been frustrating for you.

There are two file formats that page files can use for a .Net website.

First is what we call "inline", which is what you were used to seeing. The HTML portion and the programming code (C-Sharp) were both in the same single file. This made certain things simple, especially when it was a small file. But when you got into larger pages (like OnePageCheckout), this made the file incredibly huge and time-consuming to debug. You were constantly scrolling past all the HTML whenever you wanted to view/troubleshoot the programming itself.

Second is called "Code-Behind". Code-Behind separates the HTML from the programming code itself. The HTML portion of a page sits in one file ending in .ASPX (or .ASCX if a user control). The programming code sits in a different file ending in .CS (or .VB if Visual Basic). This is how practically all pages are written in AC7 as of version 7.0.7.

Code-behind has it's advantages as well. It allows multiple developers to work on the same page at the same time. One guy can be editing the HTML file while the other is working on code. Neither interferes with the other. Another advantage is logical separation. It makes sense to (physically) separate the HTML from the programming code. The two are completely different beasts.

In early versions of AC7, Able used a mix of both formats. That resulted in a less-than-desired consistency to the programming environment. As AC7 matured, Able slowly cleaned this consistency issue up so that all pages had the same consistent programming format.

An unanticipated side effect of this cleanup was that many of the older forum posts that included code snippets no longer worked unless you knew enough about the code-behind format to adapt.

Once you get the hang of the code-behind format, you won't have to worry about it any more. Code-behind is far more standard in the industry than inline. We shouldn't be seeing any more inline pages from Able.

Unfortunately you leap-frogged so many version updates in one swoop, so you got bit by it several times over