So, let's start planning a new major version. This is not going to be a total rewrite or anything like that. Most major things and core architecture are good enough, but there are plenty of things that could benefit from an overhaul.

The initial draft of the roadmap is available here. Comments are appreciated and you're welcome to vote for your favorite features at the LiveCart idea portal (or suggest your own ideas that are not listed in the document).

The document will be gradually updated. It will probably take about a month until the requirement set for LiveCart 2 is frozen and the implementation begins.

Update instructions

Updating using the update manager would be most convenient - just click the Modules and Updates link at the top of your LiveCart backend pages. For this you need to have 1.4.0.1 version installed.

If, for some reason, the update manager does not work for you, it's possible to upgrade manually. If you have 1.4.0.1 version, you can use the incremental update package. Updating from 1.4.0 requires either an intermediate upgrade to 1.4.0.1 or using the full installation package. Instructions for the manual upgrade can be found here.

Update instructions

This release includes a new update manager, which will provide automated updates for future releases, however this release still has to be applied manually:

1. Make sure you have 1.4.0 version installed (upgrade before, if necessary)
2. Download the 1.4.0.1 update package from here
3. Extract the archive and upload the files to your web server overwriting the current files
4. Empty the /cache directory

What's coming up next?

1.4.0 is just a beginning of a series of changes coming in the next couple of months. First, we're looking to add more standard design themes and offer an easy way to modify them (the tools to support this have been fully implemented in the 1.4.0 release). Secondly, work on 1.4.1 release will start almost immediately and it is expected to see another release in about the next 6 weeks. Some of the planned core features for this release are even more convenient design/layout customization and configuration with new and improved tools, recurring billing, IE 8 support for backend, new module/update manager and more. And the third thing... is the most interesting one, so let's keep this as a secret for a few more weeks ;)

The main focus area of this release is checkout improvements. We have added single page checkout, which, we believe, should be one of the most convenient implementations that are currently available. To begin with all the checkout steps (address entry, shipping methods, etc.) are always visible and editable in any order. For example, the customer can always change some details in the shipping address right before clicking the payment button. Everything is interactive and updated at real-time, for example, changing the shipping address or cart contents will automatically update the shipping options and prices. Most if not all competing carts still emphasize "steps" in their single page checkouts - where a customer still has to "return" to a previous step to change some detail. There are many improvements to the multi-page checkout as well.

Another large addition is XML data exchange API, which allows other applications to connect to LiveCart and import/export data. And, as always, there are plenty of other improvements too.

Installation and update packages are downloadable from the customer area. Update instructions are included in the /update/readme.txt file in all update packages.

It is NOT necessary to apply this update if you upgrade to the 1.3.1 version, because it contains all the fixes already. Only apply it if you keep using the 1.3.0 version.

The list of the bug fixes for this update can be found below.