All stores have been upgraded to SolidShops version 1.4

Posted by SolidShops on December 30, 2011 at 07:33 PM

Version 1.4 of the SolidShops application brings a number of improvements to your stores. Here’s what’s new.

Managing products with different combinations or options just got easier

Do you have products that come in different styles or variations such as color, size, fabric, … ?
Then you probably want an easy way to keep track of your stock and pricing for those variants.

Let’s say you are selling T-Shirts in different sizes and colors. That new fancy shirt you’ve got in store comes in the following options:

• color green / size XL: 2 in stock, costs $ 11.99
• color red / size XL: 2 in stock, costs $ 11.99
• color green / size small: 2 in stock, costs $ 9.99
• color red / size small : 3 in stock, costs $ 9.99

You can now easily track these stock and pricing combinations as follows (documentation is right here if you need it)

SolidShops JavaScript framework for better product templates

Let’s take the T-shirt example we discussed above. When a product has multiple product options, you’ll probably want to show them in different select boxes to your users. That’s great, but you’ll also want to print out the correct price for your user. The problem is you can only do that once a user has selected the options he or she wants.

That’s where our Javascript library come in. We’ve created a simple Javascript library that you can use to update pricing and stock info live on your product pages, whenever a users selects an option. The advantage of doing this client-side with Javascript, is that there is no need to submit a form or refresh a page in order to update the price and stock info.

You can even hook in your own functions by using a custom callback, in case you want to e.g. use jQuery or another library to throw in some effects when showing price or stock info to your user.

Documentation for the Solid Javascript library can be found right here. New stores are automatically configured with the new Javascript library. Existing templates don’t need to be updated, unless you want to make use of this new functionality. In that case, simple go over the documentation and get in touch if there would be any problems. We’d love to help out wherever necessary.

Oh, before I forget: your product pages will still work without Javascript as well. If a user blocks or does not have Javascript, he or she will see the following fully working alternative (right side of the screen shot):

Other improvements include:

• google sitemaps are again automatically generated (thanks David)
• you can now use a contact form in any of your theme templates
• we added a json filter so that you can more easily implement AJAX functionality
• the SolidShops application is now responsive and ready for use on tablets or other smaller screens