New release of CMS OpenCart 4.0.0.0

Long-awaited news for many web developers - a new CMS OpenCart 4.0.0.0 is released on May 24, 2022, - platform for building an online store in a short time, has been released. This is one of the most popular site management systems in many countries.

The whole secret of this CMS is that it is completely free, and its simplicity provides a low threshold for entry into development. But things are changing, and OpenCart is not standing still, its developers are working to improve the CMS from release to release, and now it is no longer just a CMS, but almost a full-fledged framework for creating modern stores.

The new branch 4 also brought a lot of changes to the engine, the main one of which is undoubtedly the rejection of ocmod modifiers, which OpenCart developers and users are so used to. The main advantage of ocmod was its simplicity and because of this, a low threshold for entering the development of opencart modules. But now everything has changed, it's time to learn events, since in the new system the extensions will work in a new way, using the Events system and Startups.

At the moment, these systems are not yet perfect, so the add-on developers hope that they will release an update in the near future with improvements in terms of how events work, and the engine itself as a whole. Since immediately after the release, a lot of "pull requests" with bugs and problems of the new build "flew" to the official OpenCart repository. The developers have been upgrading the system for several years, but have not been able to make an ideal first release, in other words, nothing strange, since all previous zero versions also did not inspire confidence among users. So it’s too early to rejoice, you will have to wait for the release of a more stable build so that you can use it for a new online store.

For extension developers, you will also have to take into account that now all add-ons have a separate directory in the root of the site, and each add-on has its own separate folder in this directory.

Another important change in OpenCart 4.0 is the ability to add product variants, that is, the same products, but with different parameters, and combine them. This innovation was expected, since users had to solve this problem with additional modules in the past.

Briefly about the changes we will see in OpenCart 4.0.0.0

• work only on PHP 8.1+
• renaming admin URL
• OCMOD is no longer supported
• new system for installing modules
• storage of module archives on the server
• new root directory for extensions
• notification system in the admin
• all forms in the admin are sent via ajax
• editing the orders without API
• CRON scheduler
• startup system (autoloading)
• template for products in lists
• template for pagination
• compliance with GDPR (cookie policy, account deletion, etc.)
• currency exchange rate extensions
• new type of extensions "Other"
• variants for products
• updated recurring system (paid subscriptions)
• one-page checkout form
• image size settings now are located in the store settings
• the get-parameter "language" in all url's on the site
• the get-parameter "customer_token" is added when the customer is authorized
• using namespace
• separation of class and method by the symbol "|" when referring to the method
• updates in the SEO URL system, separate fields for "key", "value", "alias"
• Bootstrap 5
• jQuery 3.6.0
• Font Awesome 6
• CKEditor 5

Whether it is worth using the new release of OpenCart 4.0.0.0 is up to you, after all, there are still not enough modules to quickly organize development. Therefore, for now, the stable build is the release from the previous branch - 3.0.3.8.