TreasureChest 1.3 released

TreasureChest [b]1.3! 1.2 1.1[/b]

May 28, 2010:
The 1.2 version is now officially released.
To learn about the improvements it brings, see message #24 of this thread.

August 2, 2010:

The 1.3 version is now officially released.
Online demo was updated to this new version.

New features of the 1.3 version:

- Up to 10 options per product

- Optimized for utf-8

- Accented characters fully supported also in value of option fields
(charsets must also be correctly configured in your PayPal Business account)

- German installation files (as well as English/French)

- Backend fully translated in German

October 16, 2010:
Internationalization bug fix for TreasureChest 1.0 to 1.3.
See: http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,46813.msg321119.html#msg321119


English / French / German :

[EN] www.altipoint.ch/treasurechest
[FR] www.altipoint.ch/treasurechest_fr
[DE] www.altipoint.ch/treasurechest_de

Use another browser than Firefox to consult above links as this browser does not work fine with the tabs. Wait that all tabs load before clicking any. I know, that this is perfectible...
Best browser to consult the documentation is Opera version 9.

Screenshots
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,46813.msg296858.html#msg296858

Tests with credit cards, via PayPal
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,52362.0.html
Note: Acceptation of credit cards in PayPal depends on your PayPal merchant account settings.

Online demo

A demo in French is available from the pages above, or directly from www.altipoint.ch/demo_treasurechest

DISCLAIMER - If you go up to the end of the demonstration so that you can see the detailed voucher, it will cost you price of the several products, including handling, shipping and tax, but no product will be delivered. This is a demo shop of fictive products, not a true shop!

A true PayPal Business account is used, so that you can test the store up to the end.
In order to limit costs, do not put too many products in your cart. Two items is a good number for testing.

Documentation

--- Edit (03/11/2010) ---

The content of "Placeholders" sub-tabs does not appear in the documentation ?

This problem seems coming from tabs initialization script being run before document is ready. Here are solutions that worked for me.

Firefox:
Simply reload the documentation main page one or several times, holding on the "Ctrl" key, until all the tables in all subtabs display.
Always wait that all components are loaded before clicking on a tab.
Normally, about two or three page reloads are sufficient.

Internet Explorer:

1) Display the following documents:

[ENGLISH]
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=245
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=247
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=252

[FRANCAIS]
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=268
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=273
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=276

[DEUTSCH]
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=295
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=300
www.altipoint.ch/index.php?id=303

2) Go again to TreasureChest’s 1.1 page:
[ENGLISH] www.altipoint.ch/treasurechest
[FRANCAIS] www.altipoint.ch/treasurechest_fr
[DEUSTCH] www.altipoint.ch/treasurechest_de

3) Click in the address bar at the end of the url

4) Click the "Enter" key on your keyboard

Opera and other browsers
I don’t encounter the problem with Opera.
If you encounter the problem, try one of above procedures or to mix them.

---- End of edition (03/11/2010) ---


--- Edit (03/13/2010) ---

Versions numbering

The versions that I’ll release will be numbered the following manner.
Please note that versions released by other users might be numbered differently.

Major version . Minor version . Major revision . Minor revision

- Major versions will be reserved for major redesigns of the system.

- Each minor version, like the 1.1 will indicate the addition of substantial new features.

- Major revisions will indicate the addition of supplements to a sub-version such as new templates,
new language files or bug fixes affecting the sub-version.

- Minor revisions will be reserved for minor adjustments such as the correction of typographical error,
improvements in the language files or script optimization.

---- End of edition (03/13/2010) ---

That’s all. Enjoy!

Julien

Julien, that’s awesome - thanks!!

Now again not sure weather to switch back to TC or go on with new baby Shopkeeper. Which one you guys think is better?

Jul, looks like Treasure Chest 1.1 is only available if you pay for it. Is this correct?

Hi Ryan,

Yes, I charge a small amount for TreasureChest 1.1 and this amount depends on the level of service.

It really took me lot of time to make TreasureChest evolve to the 1.1 version, so charging a little bit appears me an honnest deal and I hope it will help for further developments.

I had several surprises when working on TreasureChest 1.1. For example, most Ajax POST requests were cached in TreasureChest 1.0 and asynchroneous. This caused synchronization problems when refreshing the in-page cart view of TreasureChest 1.1.

The synchonization between the detailed cart (in the Thickbox) and the cart in the page asked me quite a lot of work.

Currently many sub-totals are available and this means an underlying dichotomy was created between the numerous "display" variables and the restrictive set of "checkout" variables in order to not overload the PayPal checkout form with fields that it wouln’t recognize.

If you look at the drop list of options, you’ll also observe that you can change them without having to click an "update" button. Selecting an option in the detailed cart view (in the Thickbox) also selects it automatically in the cart view included in the page

Ciphering the form also took me lot of time.

The testing phase with PayPal was painful before I understood how per-product variables (handling/shipping/tax) were interpreted.

The "Standard" and "Professional" distributions will come with shipped paper documentation and templates in a few days. With one of these distributions, setting up a TreasureChest cart should be easier than in the past.

Lastly, I tried to bring better internationalization with online documentation in French, English and German.

TreasureChest development was stopped long time ago and I hope the 1.1 version bringing some fresh air.

Cheers,

Julien

I just added tricks in the first message for those encountering problems displaying the "Placeholder" subtabs on TreasureChest’s 1.1 page.

I am not sure how this works but...

AFAIK, TreasureChest was a eCommerce system that Scotty Delicious built for the MODx community. It seemed to be going well, but then Scotty ran out of energy when it came to moving the project forward. I remember his parting words on the project. But didn’t he leave the project to the MODx community as a free open source code project?

I am not sure of the convention here but I wonder how folks feel with someone taking the project with its actual name and then charging fees to use it? I know the whole eCommerce arena is lacking in MODx when compared to other systems. But are there other MODx snippets you have to pay for? I wonder how Scotty feels about this?

I hope I don’t sound too critical here. It also looks like this new version of TreasureChest needs a little more refinement. The sample page cart looks like it has CSS issues. Then there is the whole issue of browser compatibility. Not everyone uses IE8 for example.

Still, I am glad there are more options with eCommerce in the MODx arena though...

+1 on Photowebmax’s comment

Hi Photowebmax and noahlearner,

If you have read TreasureChest 1.1 webpage, I explicitely mention at the top of the page that TreasureChest was initially developped by Scotty Delicious up to the 1.0 version and provide a link to the www.treasurechestcart.com website.
It is clearly mentioned that my distribution is an enhancement of TreasureChest 1.0.
Also in TreasureChest 1.1 copyright notice, I clearly mention that TreasureChest 1.0 is copyrighted to Scotty.

The source code of the 1.1 version comments and dates the changes made since version 1.0. In this fact, it respects much more the GNU/GPL than what is often practiced.

Renaming the software would not have been better than keeping its name I think. I don’t prevent anyone developping concurrent version. Maybe to avoid confusion if there are other forks to come, I could add a suffix after the software name to more clearly mention the distribution.

The philosophy of the GNU GPL license is that concurrent versions may exist and there are many companies in the word living from their distributions.
For instance, PERL is GPL and ActiveState.com earns money with its ActivePerl distribution.

Everyone is allowed to make distributions of GNU/GPL softwares and to sell them. You also can as long as you respect the GNU GPL license.

From what I remember, Scotty told that TreasureChest was GPL and that’s all. I cannot remember any other condition on future versions. Was there?

In the context of the GNU GPL, "free" means "open source" and there is often a misunderstanding about this.

The free software Foundation tells: "Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can."
source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Even if you’re not a developper, you can charge for free software.

IIRC, Scotty actually charged for the very early versions, $20 I think.
He then decided it was more trouble than it was worth and released it as GNU/GPL.