2017 January to June
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 for Zen Cart Modules
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
Spend $50.00 in any category, Get 1 Comedy (CAT 12) free.
Discount Spender marketing text looks like this:
Spend $50.00 in any category, Get 1
Comedy free.
and instead of
Buy 1 from category DVD Movies (CAT 3) , Get 1 from category DVD Movies (CAT 3) free.
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.