osCommerce 3.0 Alpha 4 "Lebkuchen" Released

We are proud to announce the fourth alpha release in the osCommerce 3.0 development cycle and it is now available for general public testing. osCommerce 3.0 Alpha 4 "Lebkuchen" is the second release to be made available to the public, where the first two alpha releases were made available to Community Sponsors only.

Alpha releases are made to showcase the new features being worked on and to generalize a version specific for testing to help fix and improve subsequent alpha releases for a final, stable, secure, and production ready 3.0 release.

Although we strive to keep alpha releases stable, the primary intentions of making alpha releases publicly available are for testing purposes only. The framework for 3.0 is still under development and will change in subsequent alpha releases. No upgrade paths will be provided between alpha releases and are therefore not recommended for production use.

Some of the new features that are made available in this release include:

* New object-oriented framework (alpha 1)
* New installation routine (alpha 1)
* register_globals and magic_quotes_gpc compatibility (alpha 1)
* New template structure implementation (alpha 1)
* Search-engine optimizations (alpha 1)
* Service modules (alpha 1)
* Checkout procedure cleanup (alpha 2)
* New language definitions implementation (alpha 2)
* Updated payment modules with post-transaction actions (alpha 3)
* Catalog front-end, administration tool, and installation routine combined (alpha 3)
* XHTML/CSS based default template layout for the catalog side (alpha 3)
* Multiple product images implementation (alpha 3)
* New action modules (alpha 3)
* Administration Tool access levels (alpha 4)
* Administrator Log (alpha 4)
* Administration Tool batch action capabilities (alpha 4)
* HTML Editor for product descriptions (alpha 4)
* Full zone entries for most countries (alpha 4; Anders Pamdal)
* Language injection feature for similar languages (alpha 4)
* GeoIP Modules for the Administration Tool Who's Online section (alpha 4)
* ... and more! (application_top.php has never been so clean!)

The full list of changes to reported issues that occurred during development of the release can be seen here:

https://svn.oscommerce.com/jira/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?projectId=10000&styleName=Html&version=10002

The full osCommerce 3.0 roadmap can be seen here:

https://svn.oscommerce.com/jira/browse/OSC

We'd like to specially thank the following community members for extensively helping out in testing this release:

Anders Pamdal (Tech2000)

The osCommerce 3.0 Alpha 4 "Lebkuchen" release can be downloaded here:

https://www.oscommerce.com/redirect.php/go,38 (hosted at Sunsite.dk)

We welcome all public interest in testing development alpha releases to help further improve the 3.0 release. All development activity can be seen at the osCommerce Development Site here:

https://svn.oscommerce.com

If you experience problems with this release, please create a new ticket at the Development Site with the relevant information. Discussions regarding the development of osCommerce are held in the osCommerce Development channels on the Community Support forums:

https://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showforum=43

We wish you the best of fun with testing this release, and look forward to your feedback!

This announcement can be discussed on the community support forums at:

https://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=257053