Version 3.9.5 - Released 12-15-2006
1) For the My Account customer log in and order display, the order selection list will now initially display ALL of the customer's orders (regardless of order status).
2) Order confirmation emails now conform to the new Truncation Laws regarding the number of credit card digits not being X'd out. The store will only show the last 4 digits of the CC number. The expiration date and CVV2 are not displayed.
3) Once an order has been completed (thank you page displayed), the store will require that the customer enter their email address and store password again before they may place another order. This was changed to conform to new credit card security requirements.
4) Fixed display of substitute price text in the product's associated items list.
5) Fixed view order display of PayPal refunded orders.
Version 3.9.4 - Released 4-21-2006
1) In the Product Power Edit Section of the store, added ability to change the Free Shipping flag for each product or all products
2) Added the "Display_Control" field to the export/import text file for Categories
3) Added the "Display_Control" field to the export/import text file for Sub-Categories
4) When Advanced Store Setting "Use SSL During Customer Checkout" is "YES", the store will automatically switch to SSL mode when the customer starts the checkout process. Previously, the store required that the "LOCAL SSL" field also be active but this is NO LONGER required.
*** CRITICAL NOTICE ***
The usage of this field has changed from earlier versions.
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
For stores previously running on a domain WITHOUT a valid SSL certificate installed but who are using REMOTE SSL for credit card acceptance, this field usage change will cause the store to FAIL DURING CHECKOUT. Since a valid SSL certificate is not installed, when the store tries to switch to SSL during checkout, the server will display a page not found.
To fix this, you will need to access your store's Advanced Store Settings and change the "Use SSL During Customer Checkout" to NO. Previously, it was required that this field be set to YES in order to use the REMOTE CREDIT CARD SSL page.
This field change now allows stores to mix and match the use of local checkout SSL and/or the REMOTE Credit Card SSL page. This change was required for maximum security during customer checkout.
5) The Static Page Build feature has been changed for better search engine utilization.
The store no longer (by default) creates a single Master Product List page with all the products listed. Instead, store managers have the ability to control how many product links are on each Master Product List Page. When multiple Master Product List Pages are generated, the store links each master page to the next for search engines to follow. The default is 50 links per page.
Also, the store no longer creates static product pages by default. Instead, the store manager has to explicitly select that option. When selected, the store generates a static product page with a static link from the Master Product List Page. When not selected, the store generates the Master Product List Page with links to the store database engine (dynamic product page links).
6) The product record now supports a new reference only field called "Supplier Name". This field is used to track which vendor or supplier you order a product from and is located on the Product Edit Page with the Inventory Tracking Fields.
7) Supplier Name for a product has been added to the low inventory report.
8) Supplier Name field has been added to the Product Export/Import section of the store.
9) Supplier Name field has been added to the Product Power Edit Section of the store.
10) Extra Shipping Charges Per Product: the store now allows you to setup a flat extra shipping charge for any product. When this new product field is used, the store will add the extra shipping charge for each unit (of that product) ordered. This charge will be added on top of the normal shipping charges calculated by the store (internal or realtime shipping charges). This feature allows you to charge extra for products that require special handling or are extra large.
11) Extra Shipping Charge field has been added to the Product Export/Import section of the store.
12) Extra Shipping Charge field has been added to the Product Power Edit Section of the store.
Version 3.9.3e - Released 11-11-2005
1) Added 5 new skin templates (# 41 through # 45) to the standard set that is included as part of Shopping-Q.
2) Fixed problem with additional field data on Credit Cards Accepted administration page.
3) Fixed error message problem with Advanced Administration Page when the display order of the store links were changed.
4) Changed Master Product List Static page to also include each product's SKU number, Short Description and Price. The store's Global Meta Tags are now also included in the page's HTML.
5) New Store Preferences now exist to allow store managers to control the size of the dotted and dashed lines inserted in between entries in the list for Department Lists, Category Lists, and Sub-Category Lists.
6) Fixed problem with Firefox Browsers on the Export Store Inventory Page.
7) Fixed problem with double product names appears in the product links (when this feature is active).
8) Fixed data re-display issue with the Qstore_remote_ssl.cgi program.
9) Fixed View Cart page's summary display of the number of items in the cart.
10) Fixed "option field required" problem with the auto-copy of the default product's options.
Version 3.9.3 - Released 7-31-2005
1) !! Products can now EXIST IN MORE THAN ONE AREA IN THE STORE !! Through the use of creating "Duplicate Product Records", the store now allows you to duplicate a product and place the "duplicate" into 20 different areas of the store. Duplicate Products are automatically updated by the store whenever the Master Product Record (that created it) is changed. When a customer clicks to display a Duplicate Product Record, the store will know to show the Master Product Record that was used to create it!
NOTE: Duplicate Product Records will NOT be shown in the Featured Products List, Specials Page, Associated Products List, or Search Results. There is no need to show Duplicate Products in these areas since the Master Product Record will already be shown.
2) Add a new feature to aid in the search engine indexing of a store's products. The new Main Menu Item allows the store manager to run a "background job" to build "STATIC" Add To Cart pages for all active products in the store. Each active product will receive its own static web page which will be linked to from a static "Master Product List" page that the store will also create. The Master Product List page can be submitted to the search engines to allow for easier indexing of all your static product pages.
Be advised that static product pages will still contain dynamic links to the rest of the store but will be indexable by the search engines from the Master Product List page (since the product links will be static). Also note that static product pages will NOT contain accurate information as far as inventory and individual customer discounts since that information was generated at the time the static product pages were created.
Depending on the number of products in your store, this feature can take some time to run. Therefore, the store will run the program in the "background". When the process has completed, the store will notify the store manager via email that the process has completed.
3) The ability to include Product "names" as part of a product's hyperlink has been added. A Store Preferences option has been added to control whether or not this feature is active. The default setting is "NO" (not active). When active, this will aid in the indexing of products by some search engines.
4) 4 VCR style buttons have been added to various areas of the store to allow you to quickly change the "List Position" of items shown on the page. Items can be moved up or down the list one position at a time or quickly moved to the top or bottom of the list.
5) Store support for 2checkout.com has been rewritten to support Version 2 of their gateway.
6) Added the ability for individual products to be flagged for "FREE SHIPPING". When a product is ordered by a customer and its FREE SHIPPING flag has been set to YES, the store will ignore the product's quantity, amount, and weight when calculating shipping for the order (both store based and real-time calculations).
7) Added display of shipping "Pieces" and "Weight" to the View New and View Processed Orders Page (both local and remote).
8) Added display of shipping "Pieces" and "Weight" to the Packing List Print Page (both local and remote).
9) Added inclusion of shipping "Pieces" and "Weight" to the Order Confirmation Emails sent out by the store.
10) Added inclusion of shipping "Pieces" and "Weight" to the Shipping Notification Emails sent out by the store.
11) Added a "Free Shipping on This Item" footnote for any items in the customer's order that are to receive free shipping. This appears on the View New and View Processed Orders Page (both local and remote).
12) Added a "Free Shipping on This Item" footnote for any items in the customer's order that are to receive free shipping. This appears on the Packing List Print Page (both local and remote).
13) Added a "Free Shipping on This Item" footnote on Add to Cart pages for products that are to receive free shipping.
14) Added a "Free Shipping on This Item" footnote on the View Cart page for products being ordered that are to receive free shipping.
15) Included a "Free Shipping on This Item" footnote as part of the Order Confirmation Email for any items in the customer's order that are to receive free shipping.
16) Included a "Free Shipping on This Item" footnote as part of the Shipping Notification Email for any items in the customer's order that are to receive free shipping.
17) Enhanced the Store Preferences section to allow for Store Manager control of whether or not the shipping "Pieces" information is displayed for orders, packing lists, or included in the order confirmation / shipping notification emails.
18) Enhanced the Store Preferences section to allow for Store Manager control of whether or not the shipping "weight" total is displayed for orders, packing lists, or included in the order confirmation / shipping notification emails.
19) Enhanced the Store Preferences section to allow for Store Manager control of whether or not the free shipping items are footnoted on the view order pages, packing list print pages, add to cart product pages, view shopping cart page, or included in the order confirmation / shipping notification emails.
20) The Import/Export feature for Product has been changed to support the new Free Shipping Flag as well as 2 new fields for controlling Duplicate Product Records. PLEASE READ THE ONLINE HELP CAREFULLY for special notes regarding the record numbers for Duplicate Product Records.
21) The EXPORT STORE DATA feature has been enhanced to let you select any combination of inventory files to export. Previously, the export function exported ALL the files every time the feature was run(departments, categories, sub-categories, products, and product options). Now you can select which of the 5 files you would like exported (one or more).
22) A new Main Menu item has been added which allows you to EXPORT CUSTOMER DATA for download to your computer for offline processing.
23) When editing categories, store managers now have the ability to control whether or not the category (and its contents) is displayed. This allows store mangers to temporarily hide a category.
24) When editing subcategories, store managers now have the ability to control whether or not the subcategory (and its contents) is displayed. This allows store mangers to temporarily hide a subcategory.
25) To aid in better Search Engine Indexing, the store now automatically inserts ALT image tags for various images displayed within the store. This includes product images and thumbnails, department images, category images, and sub-category images. The name of the product/dept/cat/sub-cat will be used automatically as the ALT image tag's text.
26) A new "store link" has been added. It is called "Affiliates" and takes customers to the Affiliates Signup Page from anywhere in your store. This link will be inactive by default. Therefore, store managers must access the Advanced Store Administration section of the Main Menu and activate this link (so it is displayed during customer shopping).
NOTE: you must also setup and activate the Affiliates System on the Main Menu in order for this link to work properly. Otherwise, an error message will display to your customers stating "The Affiliate System is not active for this store."
Version 3.9.2b - Released 6-15-2005
Added all new support for PayPal's secure IPN Payment System and Auto Post (back to store) feature. Added ability for store to run PayPal integration in live or test mode as well as specify PayPal currency basis. Also added feature to allow for store manager editing of PayPal payment method title (shown during checkout). Also added new field to control whether or not PayPal requires the customer's shipping address during PayPal payment processing.
Fixed problem with legacy text field product options displaying incorrectly as "a required field" just after upgrading to V3.9.0.
Fixed problem with form data posting incorrectly with the Firefox, Macintosh, and Netscape browser engines. Fixed IE problem with special character posting during CC gateway setup.
Recompiled store's Secure Socket Layer integration with rebuild / remake of OpenSSL v0.9.7b. This is used during real-time shipping calculations for UPS and FedEx.NOTE: This may require SymLink adjustment to your server's /usr/lib directory to allow the store's Qshipping.cgi program to find the proper OpenSSL runtime libraries.
Version 3.9.0 - Released 12-31-2004
All stores should upgrade to this version (especially if they are having database index or lock issues).
1) Increased database capacity for larger, very busy stores. The session files, order files, and customer files have had their record numbers redesigned to allow for more capacity with less repetition. Customer numbers and order numbers have been redesigned to accommodate busier stores and to track the IP address of the customer. Their redesign required more digits so dashes were added to make them easier to read and track. The redesign was required to properly handle the very large stores using our software. This should also help with the occasional session and order file lock problems experienced by a couple of our clients.
2) When adding/updating products, the selection list now displays each products' record number for reference. This eliminates the need to view the product record in order to obtain the product's record number.
3) The IP address of the customer placing the order is now shown on the VIEW ORDERS screen below the reference number.
4) The IP address of the customer placing the order is now included as part of order.dat file used when downloading order data.
5) The order reference number (for new orders placed with this version or later) has been changed to display less numbers.
6) A new store preference setting has been added called "SHOW SALE EXPIRATION DATE". When active (set to YES), the store will display a product's sale expiration date underneath of its sale price. This is shown on the product's ADD TO CART page, and will only appear if the product is currently on sale AND the sale price is configured to be shown to the customer (e.g. no substitute price text).
7) When adding or updating products from the main menu, you now have the ability to enter a product's ID number (SKU number) to quickly locate the record in the store and edit it. This new feature eliminates the need to locate the product first using the department and categories drop down lists in order to edit it.
8) The store now logs records that fail during the inventory import feature on the Main Menu. When importing departments, categories, sub-categories, or products into the store, the store records bad data records into a new text file called "Qstore/Qtemp/failed_import_records.txt". This file can also be viewed from the IMPORT RESULTS screen via a hyperlink.
9) When sending bulk email from within the store, the results page now shows a clickable link that lets the store manager view a list of bulk email addresses that were processed successfully.
10) When viewing the detail for a customer's order, the store now shows the Customer's Number. The customer number will appear as a clickable link which will take you to the View Processed Orders section of the store so you may easily view all processed orders for the customer.
11) When building a new store, the DISPLAY SKINS function is now available on the Basic Store Admin before the store is complete.
12) When browsing product listings in the store... for products being shown that have "Substitute Price Text" field enabled, the store now shows the actual Substitute Price Text instead of only "N/A".
13) When viewing search results... for products being shown that have "Substitute Price Text" field enabled, the store now shows the actual Substitute Price Text instead of only "N/A".
14) When browsing the listing of products currently on sale (specials pages)... for products being shown that have "Substitute Price Text" field enabled, the store now shows the actual Substitute Price Text instead of the sale price.
15) A new flag has been added to the products database. It's called "Hide Product". When this checkbox is active (checked) for a given product, the store will hide the product from customers shopping in the store. This means the product cannot be displayed, searched for, shown as a featured product, shown as an associated product, or added to the cart.
16) The new "hide product flag" for product records has been added to the IMPORT/EXPORT section of the Main Menu (e.g. for product importing/exporting).
17) The Product Power Edit feature has been enhanced to allow you to edit the new "hide product flag" for product records.
18) The Product Power Edit feature has been enhanced to allow you to edit the "Meta Tags" field for product records.
19) Product options of type "Radio Button" can now be configured to be OPTIONAL as well as REQUIRED.
20) Product options of type "Drop Down List" can now be configured to be OPTIONAL as well as REQUIRED.
21) Product options of type "Check Box" can now be configured to be OPTIONAL as well as REQUIRED.
22) The new "product option required flag" has been added to the IMPORT/EXPORT section of the Main Menu (e.g. for product option importing/exporting). NOTE: The old product option import/export field called "text_field_required" is now obsolete (field name also changed to reflect same) and is ignored during import. It has been replaced by the new "option_required" field.
23) The store preferences section has a new flag called "Add Products By Item Number". This new option allows you to control whether the VIEW CART page displays an additional field whereby the customer may add products to their cart by product item number (SKU number). This field will be shown just above the list of items in the customer's shopping cart. When active, the customer may enter an item number and quickly view the product's Add To Cart page. The store must show the Add to Cart page so the customer may select and complete any product options associated with it. In addition, the customer will most likely want to review the product's description, price, sale info, quantity, etc.. before ordering. NOTE: The format of the embedded table that contains this field can be edited by changing the HTML contained in the text file called "view_cart_item_add_table.dat" which can be found and edited from within in the store's "Qfiles" directory.
24) Authorize.net credit card transaction posting back to the store now correctly updates the order's shipping address if changed by the customer while on Authorize.net payment form.
25) A new "Deny Orders From IP Address" field has been added to the Advanced Store Admin page. This optional field may contain a list of full or partial IP addresses separated by semicolons. When a customer's IP address matches a denied IP address, the store will not accept the customer's order. Partial addresses are matched by IP class (A/B/C).
26) The IMPORT/EXPORT function on the Main Menu has been enhanced with a new set of features to look for and optionally remove "orphaned records" from the store's database files. Orphaned records are those that have been assigned to an invalid department, category, or sub-category which can be created by importing incomplete or incorrectly assigned records. Orphaned records cannot be accessed from inside the store admin. The orphaned record check/removal can be run on the following files: Categories, Sub-Categories, Products, and Product Options (Department Records cannot be orphaned).
27) A new field has been added to the Advanced Store Admin page called "Shipping Address Text". When text is entered into this optional field, the store will show it just above the fields on the Shipping Address Checkout Page. This field may contain HTML.
28) A new field has been added to the Advanced Store Admin page called "Shipping Method Text". When text is entered into this optional field, the store will show it just above the shipping method selection list on the Shipping and Payment Method Checkout Page. This field may contain HTML.
29) A new field has been added to the Advanced Store Admin page called "Review Order Text". When text is entered into this optional field, the store will show it just above the customer's order information on the Review and Confirm Order Checkout Page. This field may contain HTML.
30) The View Processed Orders section of the Main Menu has been enhanced to allow you to filter/select to view only those orders that were referred to your store by a specific Affiliate ID number.
31) When viewing the stats and the commission detail report for an Affiliate, a new link called "VIEW" now appears next to the number of orders the Affiliate has referred to your store. When you click this link, the store will show the View Processed Orders Selection screen with the Affiliate ID number pre-filled. This allows you to quickly view the processed orders for an Affiliate.
32) When viewing the detail commission report for a specific Affiliate, a new table is shown that lists the Affiliate's "Referred Customer Orders" for the period of time selected. The store manager now has the ability to turn on/off the commission payment for the individual orders listed inside the table.
Version 3.8.6c - Released 06-17-2004
1) All New Affiliate Tracking System module has been added to Shopping-Q which allows store managers to easily setup and maintain an Affiliate Program.
The system allows Affiliates to join the store's affiliate program and refer customers to the store (fully automated sign-up process).
The store tracks the number of new referrals (customers) sent to the store, the number of orders placed by those customers, and the order amount generated from those customers' orders.
Commissions can be paid on the following:
a) number of referrals
b) the number or orders
c) the dollar amount of the orders (cart subtotal or order grand total)
d) or any combination of the above
The Affiliate sign-up process is fully automated and verifies each Affiliates E-mail address. Affiliates can also log into their account, check their stats, and change their information.
Email can be sent by store managers to any or all affiliates to announce promotions or relay other important information.
Store Managers can view Affiliate information, check Affiliate stats, and calculate Affiliate commissions. Store managers may also download commission results as well as Affiliate email addresses for off-line processing.
2) An all new My Account feature has been added to Shopping-Q. A new store link has been added called "My Account" that customers can click to log into their account. Once logged in, they can check the status of their orders and also change their account information. They may also send email to the store manager about any of their orders (e.g. to cancel or change an order).
When processing new orders, the store manager has access to a new order processing field called "Public Note to Customer". If the store manager enters text into this field, it will be displayed to the customer when they use their My Account access to review the status of the order. The previous field called "Processing Notes" is still "private" (store manager access only) and will not be shown to the customer.
3) Two new markers have been added to Shopping-Q which can be used anywhere in the store.
They are:
a) {{LOCAL_TIME}} which displays the local time (adjusted for the store's time zone). The format is HH:MM AM/PM
b) {{LOCAL_DATE}} which displays the local time (adjusted for the store's time zone). The format is MM/DD/YYYY.
4) The store now correctly takes into account the store's local time when determining which products are still on sale. Previously, the store was using GMT.
5) The store now correctly takes into account the current units in stock when displaying the product's quantity drop down list on the View Cart Page. This check/adjustment is only done when a product's inventory tracking flag is ON and its allow backorders flag is OFF.
6) The store now allows a store manager to "mass adjust" product prices by a +/- flat amount or by a +/- percentage. This new feature has been added to the "Power Edit Products" feature on the store's Main Menu.
7) Fixed a problem with new stores not being able to use the "restore from backup" feature prior to setting up their store.
8) Fixed a problem with the date range selection when viewing MY ACCOUNT orders.
9) Added a BACK TO SHOPPING button to the MY ACCOUNT sign in page.
10) Fixed problem with EMAIL_LIST marker replacement on static store welcome page.
11) Added Numbers to the Main Menu Items.
12) Added an additional field to the Affiliate System Setup. This optional field allows the store manager to provide a hyperlink to a static web page that contains banners for Affiliate advertising. When used, the clickable link will appear automatically on the Affiliate Account Review page. The link will take Affiliates to a static web page somewhere on the Internet.
Version 3.7.4 - Released 03-23-2004
1) Optional Federal Express (FedEx) real-time shipping rate calculations during customer checkout are now supported through OPENSSL sockets. Manual rate configuration is still supported - this feature was added as part of an additional set of shipping features and did not replace the old shipping tables and zones.
2) Optional United Parcel Server (UPS) real-time shipping rate calculations during customer checkout are now supported through OPENSSL sockets. Manual rate configuration is still supported - this feature was added as part of an additional set of shipping features and did not replace the old shipping tables and zones.
PLEASE NOTE:
UPS and FedEx Real-time shipping calculations are OPTIONAL store features that may NOT be available for all stores. Check with your hosting company to make sure this feature is available for use on their servers. There may be an extra charge for this feature or it may not be compatible with their specific type of server. |
NOTE: since these are optional Shopping-Q features, the real-time shipping options won't appear in your licensed store unless they are activated in the store's license file. You need to arrange to have your store's license file upgraded and reinstalled in order to activate these features.
3) The store now automatically cleans up the various temporary IMPORT/EXPORT files when you click the MAIN MENU buttons in the IMPORT/EXPORT area of the store.
4) When the store preferences are set to create a static version of the store's welcome page, the store will no longer insert the customer's "welcome back name" into the static page. Also, the items in cart, cart total, and cart contents will no longer show on the static version of the welcome page.
5) A new store preferences option has been added called "Add to Cart Page Action". This allows you to control whether the "View Cart Page" is displayed after the ADD TO CART button is pressed (previous action) or whether the Product Page is re-shown for the product just added to the cart (new feature).
6) When downloading orders form the store using text files, a new option is available to include field titles as the first row in the file. This feature will aid in importing the data into database and spreadsheets. The store also now removes any customer entered carriage returns or line feeds from the order data exported so it can be processed correctly off-line.
7) Each admin user (who has been authorized to change store inventory) now has their own unique "Default Product Number". This allows multiple users to take advantage of the "default product copy feature" while adding new products to the store.
8) A new store preference setting has been added that allows you to override some of the page titles used in the store. When displaying departments, categories, sub-categories, and products, this feature overrides the normal display of the store's name with the display of the area of the store the customer is currently in (e.g. the department's name, product's name, etc...). This feature will help search engine placement.
9) On the Credit Card entry page that appears under REMOTE SSL, the link for explaining the Signature Security Code now displays the information in a pop-up window.
10) The Advanced Store Administration option has been enhanced to allow you to enter text that will appear on the Specials store page. The text is optional and if entered, will appear just above the HTML table containing the list of product on special. This text can include HTML commands for advanced formatting/control.
11) When a product included on the Welcome Page as a Featured Product has "substitute price text" defined for it, the store now correctly displays the "substitute price text" instead of the product's sale price.
12) A new feature has been added to the Advanced Store Administration option on the Main Menu. A new control field called "Suspend Store Message" allows the store manager to "temporarily suspend" store operations. This custom message will appear to your customers (instead of the normal store pages) while the store is suspended. As soon as you remove the custom text from the "Suspend Store Message" field, the store will become operational.
13) A new Advanced Store Administration feature has been added called "Deny Email Domains". This new field allows you to specify up to 50 email domains that will be used to block customer orders. If a customer's email address (on the checkout page for shipping address) contains one of the denied email domains, the order will not be accepted.
If, for example, you entered:
yahoo.com;email.com;hotmail.com
into this field, the store will not accept orders placed from ANY customer who email address contained yahoo.com, email.com, or hotmail.com. This feature was added to allow store managers to block orders from customers using some of the free email account systems available. These accounts are typically used by people using a stolen credit card.
14) Packing List Printing is now available when viewing a customer's detail order information. A clickable link called "PRINT PACKING LIST" is now shown just after the customer's payment method information on the view order screen. When clicked, the store will display a new window with a packing list that can be printed.
To customize the packing list print page for "local" orders, please copy the default page file from "Qpages/packing_list_print_page.htm" to "Qfiles/packing_list_print_page.htm" and then make changes to it. If the store finds the packing list page file in the store's Qfiles directory, it knows it's a custom version of the page and will use it. Otherwise, it uses the default page in the store's Qpages directory.
To customize the packing list print page for remote_ssl directory orders, please change the "Qpacking_list_print_page.htm" located in your store's remote ssl directory (assuming you are using remote ssl for your store). If you are upgrading your store to this version (and you are using remote SSL), you MUST update the Qstore_remote_ssl.cgi remote ssl script to the latest version as well - be sure to update the script in the remote ssl directory for your store. Otherwise, this new feature wont be available when viewing remote ssl orders in your store.
15) The store now remembers each store manager's last used "settings" for most of the areas of the Main Menu (for example: view processed orders selection fields).
16) Corrected a bug in the new "Remember Settings" features that caused certain categories, sub-categories, and product lists not to display properly.
Version 3.5b - Released 08-20-2003
1) The E-Mail List Marketing System now supports HTML email as well as plain text email.
2) The Shopping Notification Email System now supports HTML email as well as plain text email.
3) The store's Local and Remote SSL Confirmation Email Systems now support HTML email as well as plain text email.
NOTE: in order to support HTML email, the local and remote order confirmation emails no longer use the special embedded {{OPTIONAL}} marker in the confirmation email. This marker will be removed if it exists when the store processes the email text and customer order data. The email.txt and Qstore_remote_ssl_email.txt files have been replaced by a new file called email_body.dat. If the store will automatically convert the email.txt and Qstore_remote_ssl_email.txt files into the new email_body.dat file when it first runs.
4) The Basic Store update section of the Main Menu has been enhanced to allow direct manipulation of the confirmation email's BODY text/html for non-remote ssl orders. The contents of this new field are stored in a new file called email_body.dat located in the Qfiles directory of the store.
REMINDER: this feature only affects the email body text/html for orders NOT using remote SSL. If your store is using REMOTE SSL, you will need to copy the new email_body.dat file from the store's local Qfiles directory to the store's remote SSL directory (be sure to FTP it in ASCII or text mode).
5) Cardservice International's Linkpoint Basic Gateway support has been added to Shopping-Q.
6) For better embedded HTML support, the store's form processing engine now automatically converts <, >, and " characters into their HTML browser command counterparts before sending the page to the browser. The reverse is done when the web page input if processed by the store's form engine. This will allow the store's web page fields (such as the welcome page text) to contain HTML that defines other form fields and text areas embedded within it.
7) A new store preferences item has been added to allow you to control whether or not the store generates a "static" copy of the store's welcome page.
When this feature is active (set to YES), the store will automatically replace the normal "redirection" web page called "index.htm" (which exists in the store's main program directory) with a new page called "index.html". The "index.html" page will contain an exact "static" copy of the last Welcome Page displayed to a shopper.
The default setting is "NO" and is recommended for most stores. When this feature is OFF, the store uses the normal redirection method in the default file called "index.htm". The store's Welcome Page will be generated "dynamically" each and every time it is requested by a customer.
NOTE: the static "index.htm" page will only get generated (updated) when the store's welcome page is displayed via the main "Qstore.cgi" script.
TIP: Keep in mind that items on the store's dynamic Welcome Page change from time to time depending on what a shopper is adding to their cart and the current state of inventory in the store. While using the static "index.html" page will help with search engine submission, the static page will not properly reflect a specific customer's shopping cart contents nor will it show accurate information regarding the store's featured items.
IMPORTANT - the store will NOT allow both an redirection "index.htm" and static "index.html" file to exist in the store's main program directory. It will automatically remove the file that is invalid based on this field's current setting.
8) A minor bug in the Main Menu Restore feature has been fixed. All stores should be upgraded to this version as soon as is practical to do so.
Version 3.4a - Released 07-04-2003
1) A new gateway has been added to Shopping-Q to support the very flexible Fast Transact Credit Card Processing Gateway (www.fasttransact.com).
This gateway has the special ability to "silently" post approved credit card transactions back to the store without the customer having to click the CONTINUE button on the gateway's receipt page. The customer still has to click this button in order to return to the store and see the Thank You Page. However, approved credit card transactions in the store's View Orders section will always have an updated status of "NEW ORDER" regardless of whether or not the customer clicked the receipt page's CONTINUE button.
2) Shopping-Q now supports ANET's Silent Post URL feature. This feature has the special ability to "silently" post approved credit card transactions back to the store without the customer having to click the CONTINUE button on the gateway's receipt page. The customer still has to click this button in order to return to the store and see the Thank You Page. However, approved credit card transactions in the store's View Orders section will always have an updated status of "NEW ORDER" regardless of whether or not the customer clicked the receipt page's CONTINUE button.
3) Shopping-Q now supports the Silent Post URL feature of Verisign's Payflow Link Gateway. This feature has the special ability to "silently" post approved credit card transactions back to the store without the customer having to click the CONTINUE button on the gateway's receipt page. The customer still has to click this button in order to return to the store and see the Thank You Page. However, approved credit card transactions in the store's View Orders section will always have an updated status of "NEW ORDER" regardless of whether or not the customer clicked the receipt page's CONTINUE button.
4) A new flag called "Search Meta Tags" has been added to the Store Preferences Page. This new feature allows the store manager to control whether or not product meta tags are included in the store's search feature. The default setting is "YES".
5) The Credit Cards Accepted item on the Main Menu has been enhanced to allow you to apply order amount limits to each credit card your store accepts. This allows you to control the maximum order amount on a credit card by credit card basis. This new feature will come in handy for store's whose merchant account allows different maximum amounts for Visa, Master Card, and/or American Express.
6) The Payment Methods Accepted item on the Main Menu has been enhanced to allow you to apply an order amount limit for PayPal orders. This allows you to control the maximum order amount allowed for orders being paid for by customer Paypal accounts.
7) A problem with UK Switch Credit Card support has been fixed.
Version 3.3c - Released 05-16-2003
1) The thank you page that appears at the very end of the customer's checkout process can now optionally display 2 additional fields from the customer's order. If the following markers are found within the thank you page's text or its skin page, they will be replaced with information from the customer's order:
{{CART_TOTAL}} will show the total amount of products in the cart BEFORE coupons and purchase discounts are subtracted and BEFORE sales taxes, and shipping costs are added.
{{ORDER_SUB_TOTAL}} will show the cart total AFTER coupons and purchase discounts are subtracted but BEFORE shipping costs and sales taxes are added.
These markers can be embedded in the HTML for the thank you web page skin or they can be included in the "Thank You Message" field (see the Basic Store Administration section of the Main Menu).
The following markers were previously added to the Thank You page processing in version 2.7d and are shown again here for reference purposes:
{{ORDER_NUM}}
{{SHIP_TO_NAME}}
{{SHIPPING_METHOD}}
{{PAYMENT_METHOD}}
{{ORDER_TOTAL}}
2) The store's Main Menu program has been changed to allow for the removal of any of the menu's LINKxx markers (and their associated menu items). While this is NOT recommended, certain items on the Main Menu can now be removed from the Qpages/main_menu.htm administration page to hide them from store managers.
3) A new field has been added the Payment Methods Accepted option on the Main Menu. This new field is called "Payment Method Message" and is an optional field that will display text to the customer during checkout. This field may contain HTML commands and will be shown just below the Payment Method Selection list during customer checkout. This was added to allow stores to display required Visa/Master Card logos (through HTML commands/links) and related merchant information.
4) The store's online help/instructions for Authorize.net setup has been updated to properly reflect their latest Virtual Terminal changes with respect to their SIM gateway. A copy of this instruction set is also available for review on our web site's FAQ page.
5) A new feature has been added to the Basic Store Administration. It's called "FONT CONTROL" and allows you to control the store's font display. This feature controls the font used for store generated text (text that is not part of the "skin templates" or styles). This setting only applies to the store pages that the customer sees while shopping or checking out from your store. It does not apply to the store's administration pages.
PLEASE NOTE: most of the font display is controlled by the skin templates' HTML code and style sheets so this field will only affect a small portion of the tables, lists, and text generated internally by the store. But when combined with custom skin and style sheet changes, this new feature will allow you to control the font used throughout the public side of the store. It does not apply to the store's administration pages.
6) When entering product options, the store now supports entering negative numbers into the "extra cost" fields. When a negative number is used in an extra cost field, the store will reduce the product's price by the negative amount and display the phrase "Subtract $x.xx".
7) The Coupon Code system now allows you to optionally enter up to 50 product record numbers per coupon record. This allows you to limit the coupon's use to specific products. The store will not allow the customer to use the coupon code during checkout unless one of the specified product numbers has been added to the customer's shopping cart. If this new coupon field is blank, the coupon record works like it did before and can be used with any product.
8) A new full featured, E-Mail Marketing System has been added. This system allows the store to collect customer email addresses for an Opt-In Type List (newsletters, new product announcements, etc...) which can be featured on your store pages. Addresses can also be collected from processed customer orders. The new system allows you to send marketing type email to verified customer addresses in this database. Customers may automatically remove their address from the opt-in list via a return link. E-mail cant be sent and targeted to specific subsets of the marketing database and you can download the customer email addresses for off-line processing/storage.
9) A new store preference has been added called "Credit Card Checksum". This new setting allows non-USA stores who accept NON-USA credit cards to turn OFF the credit card number checksum validation that normally occurs during local and remote SSL checkout. This setting should normally be set to YES (which is the default setting) for all USA stores or any stores accepting traditional USA credit cards (like Visa, Master Card, Amex, Discover).
IMPORTANT: if the store is using REMOTE SSL, then the remote SSL directory for this store MUST be updated with the new version of the Qstore_remote_ssl.cgi program in order for this feature to be supported during checkout.
10) For our resellers, the Remote License System that runs on our servers has been updated with new features and much improved error checking system with respect to a store's main menu path (prior to license file creation). *** NOTE: the new license system's store path error checking ONLY works with Version 3.3 or higher of Shopping-Q ***
11) A new store preference has been added to control the default search processing in the store. By rule, when a customer enters a search phrase with quotes around it, the store only displays products that match this exact phrase. This has not changed.
However, when the customer enters words into the search field without quotes around them, this new feature controls how the search is performed.
You now have 3 options:
a) OR search (match any of the words)
b) AND search (match all of the words)
c) QUOTE search (exact phrase only)
This setting tells the store what type of search you want performed if the customer does not enter quotes around the search keywords or phrase. For more stores, we recommend that you set this field to "AND search".
12) Two bugs were fixed in the Category and Sub-Category Administration Systems:
A) When a Category is moved to a different Department, the Sub-Categories and Products belonging to the Category are now properly moved to the new location within the store.
B) When a Sub-Category is moved to a different Category, the Products belonging to the Category are now properly moved to the new location within the store.
Version 3.2 - Released 11-26-2002
1) The Authorize NET gateway support in Shopping-Q has been updated to use the new SIM gateway interface required by Authorize NET. The new gateway uses MD5 data encryption and HMAC-MD5 message encryption of a unique store transaction key supplied by Authorize NET and entered into the store's Authorize NET configuration. The transaction key is encrypted by the store and used during communications with Authorize NET. This new security feature now allows Authorize NET to know that the transaction posted from the store is valid and is not from a forged web address or store.
This upgrade is required by Authorize NET and all merchants are required to use it by April 2003. Shopping-Q store managers using Authorize NET need to access their Authorize NET Virtual Terminal account, click SETTINGS and then click OBTAIN TRANSACTION KEY. This Authorize NET generated key must then be entered into the store's Authorize NET configuration page (part of the Real-Time Processing option on the Main Menu).
If you are not using Authorize NET, then this feature upgrade does not apply to your store.
2) The View Processed Orders option on the Main Menu has been enhanced. It now allows you to optionally limit the display of customer orders by last name or by order number. These two additional search fields have been added for greater control over the selection and display of processed orders.
NOTE: if you are using Shopping-Q's remote SSL feature, then you must update that script as well in order for these new features to function properly.
3) The Master Product List option on the Main Menu has been changed to only show the first 375 products in the store. Showing any more than that amount took a long time and tied up server resources (or never finished depending on the size of the store). Store Managers wanting to review all the products in their store at one time should use the Import/Export option on the Main Menu. This allows you to export all the products in the store into a text file that can be downloaded and opened by a spreadsheet or database program on your personal computer.
4) The Low Inventory Report option on the Main Menu has been changed to only show the first 375 products (with low inventory) in the store. Showing any more than that amount took a long time and tied up server resources (or never finished depending on the size of the store).
5) 3 new store link options has been added called "POLICIES", "PRIVACY", and "FAQ". These links are setup and controlled in the Advanced Store Administration option on the Main Menu. When active and being shown to the customer, these new links will display custom text (including HTML) that the store manager can define. When the customer clicks on one of these links at the bottom of any store page, Shopping-Q will display the affiliated text to the customer (using the current skin).
6) When a Shopping-Q store is running under a domain name that should be called with a "www." prefix (e.g. www.storename.com) but the store was called without the "www." Prefix (called using just domainname.com), Shopping-Q will now allow the "Add The Cart" and "Checkout" functions to work. Store security and Store Licensing still requires the use of the correct www. Prefix but the shopping cart side of the software now works properly either way the store is called.
7) For Shopping-Q stores running in Members Only mode, the store now logs valid member signons into a special log file called "members_access.log". This file is located in the "Qstore/Qfiles" directory of the store. The will allow store managers to monitor and record which members are accessing the store.
8) When an order's status is changed to "SHIPPED", Shopping-Q can now be configured to automatically send the customer an email letting them know their order has shipped and include the Tracking Number that can be entered on the View Order screen. The Store Preferences option on the Main Menu has been enhanced to support several new control fields for this feature. Store managers have the ability to activate (or deactivate) this feature, control the format and content of this email's title and text (including data from the customer's order), and send a copy of this email to themselves for tracking/safe keeping.
Version 3.1 - Released 10-31-2002
1) USA and International Shipping Calculation records can now be temporarily deactivated (turned off). A new flag has been added to each record that allows you to control whether or not the Shipping Calculation record is active within the store.
2) USA and International Shipping Calculation records can now be assigned minimum and/or maximum weight controls. When these new fields are active (not blank), the shipping calculation record will only be active within the store when the customer's order meets these minimum/maximum weight requirements.
3) Shipping Method records now have a "nickname" assigned to them (as well as their traditional "display name"). The new nickname field is used to identify the shipping methods during store administration (e.g. UPS GROUND - ZONE 1). It is never displayed to the customer and will help keep track of all your method records during shipping calculation setup. This will help to better setup and identify multiple shipping methods for the same shipping company.
4) The Worldpay Credit Card Processing Support in Shopping-Q has been upgraded to support the latest changes in WorldPay's gateway requirements.
IMPORTANT NOTE: if you are using Worldpay Real-Time Processing, YOU MUST UPDATE your store's Real-time Credit Card Processing Page (from the Main Menu) for the *NEW* WorldPay settings! In addition, YOU MUST make sure to update your WorldPay CMS Account settings to use the *NEW* CALLBACK URL to your store. These two changes MUST be made in order for the checkout process to call WorldPay correctly and return the credit card processing results to the store. Please be sure to test everything from customer checkout through WorldPay processing. Be sure the WorldPay transaction posting (back to the store) completes normally and the orders appear in the store as a "New Order". When it does, you have everything updated and configured correctly. |
