Better Together Admin for OpenCart

Posted June, 2017

Better Together Admin for Opencart, which is the web based configuration UI for OpenCart Better Together, has just been released for OpenCart 2.3.0.2.

The Better Together toolkit has greatly benefited Zen Cart storeowners, and I'm hoping OpenCart storeowners will find it just as powerful and useful.

Discount Chooser for OpenCart

Posted June, 2017

I am just putting the finishing touches on I have released Discount Chooser for OpenCart (a port of the Discount Chooser / Free Gift Chooser algorithm from Zen Cart). I'm excited about this software and hope it really helps OpenCart store operators.

Better Together Admin Discounted!

Posted May, 2017

Now that Discount Chooser is becoming the gold standard for discounting offers in ZenCart, osCommerce, and (soon) OpenCart, I have decided to reduce the price of Better Together Admin. Better Together Admin for Zen Cart and Better Together Admin for osCommerce are now price reduced to just $30 for software only, or $90 for the software plus installation. If you have been holding off on buying the Better Together Admin Panel, now is your chance.

If your discounting needs are limited to BOGO style offers, Better Together is still a great choice, so I hope a lot of people will take advantage of this lower price.

Discount Chooser for OpenCart

Posted May, 2017

Discount Chooser for Opencart (a port of the Discount Chooser algorithm from Zen Cart) is being actively worked. You can follow the development of Discount Chooser for OpenCart; it will be in the OpenCart Marketplace sometime in June.

New Names: Discount Chooser / Discount Spender!

Posted May, 2017

When I first created Free Gift Chooser, it only offered 100% discounts ("free gifts"), based on the content of the cart. About a year later, I added the ability to do price reductions - percentage or dollar based. So the name "Free Gift Chooser" was no longer very accurate. So I'm taking this opportunity to rename Free Gift Chooser to Discount Chooser (and similarly, to rename Free Gift Spender to Discount Spender).

Better Together for Zen Cart

Posted May, 2017

Zen Cart Better Together has been updated to fix a bug which revealed itself when One to Many mode 2 was used. This is somewhat obscure, so you don't need to update if you're not using this feature.

Shopowners who also use Checkout Candy (or Checkout Candy with Buy Now) will need to update both modules at the same time.

You can read about this issue on my blog if you'd like more details.

Better Together for OpenCart

Posted April, 2017

Better Together for Opencart has been updated for OpenCart 2.3.0.2.

MySql 5.7 Updates

Posted April, 2017

Extended Family joins Zen Cart Discount Chooser and Zen Cart Discount Spender as modules that required MySQL 5.7 compatibility changes. Please get these updates if you use these modules.

Newsletter Discount Updates

Posted March, 2017

Newsletter Discount has a few new features:

• Added dollar off per order setting
• Added caching of mailchimp subscriber status

Marketing Text Improvements Discount Chooser, Discount Spender for Zen Cart

Posted March, 2017

The Zen Cart Discount Chooser Marketing Text and Zen Cart Discount Spender Marketing Text have both been improved. In the old format, they would simply indicate the category and product IDs, as is done in the admin panel. This wasn't very customer friendly, so I updated them to use links instead.

So now, instead of
Discount Spender marketing text looks like this:
and instead of Discount Chooser marketing text looks like this:

MailChimp updates for Newsletter Discount

Posted February, 2017

Please update Newsletter Discount if you use MailChimp. A bug was discovered in the subscriber confirmation logic that has been fixed in version 4.0a.

MySQL 5.7 Updates for Discount Chooser, Discount Spender for Zen Cart

Posted February, 2017

Zen Cart Discount Chooser and Zen Cart Discount Spender have just been updated for compatibility with MySQL 5.7.

Using Jekyll, the Static Site Generator

Posted January, 2017

I had a little fun over the holidays with Jekyll, a Ruby based static site generator. I created a new website for my book group, using a gem that makes it easy to autogenerate Amazon affiliate URLs using the Product Advertising API. I open sourced the project in case anyone else wants to build a book club website, or any other type of website that uses Amazon affiliate links.