Yes, you read that right! Another version of thirty bees coming up. It has been weeks of hard work, scanning through old pieces of spaghetti code and refactoring large pieces of the software (don’t be afraid to change the code once in a while to make it better!). The goal of these changes is to make the core more stable and/or make it easier in the future to remove bugs and to test it. This also explains why it took a while to reach the beta stage of the next version as we had to fix lots and lots of errors we saw in our production environments as a direct consequence of these heavy changes [we are testing it live, so you don’t have to 🙂 ].
Release candidate?
We have kept the first alpha versions and the first beta private as we found a lot of problems with those packages and while we were at it, decided to release a beta which we think might even be release candidate-worthy. As our regular visitors of our GitHub repository might have noticed, the issues for 1.0.1 have now been exhausted. This means that it is up to you and let us know via our forum or GitHub what problems you come across and might need to be fixed before releasing 1.0.1 stable.
Another reason for us to wait such a long time before making the newer version public, is that we also extensively have been testing the PS 1.6 => thirty bees migration tool. It will allow any version between 1.6.0.0 and 1.7.0.0 to be migrated to thirty bees. To make it easier to find the bugs this release candidate-ey package was also very helpful. After the files have been successfully copied by the migration tool and the database has been perfectly changed (just a few extra tables!), you’re suddenly left with a rock-solid thirty bees engine in your store. We are not sure if the default community theme should be included in the migration tool as well (most of you already have a nice theme and no need to change), but if you think we should, let us know in the comments! We definitely listen, that’s the whole reason for this project.
Feedback
Thank you very much for the feedback you have given us through all the channels possible: Gitter, GitHub, the forum, you name it! As a result we have processed a lot of your feedback and included it in 1.0.1 [sometimes we even were a bit too greedy with merging your pull requests – thanks Markus, but we found out the hard way that have to postpone your contribution till 1.1.0 😉 ].
Here are a few highlights:
- The top menu has been reverted to a forked version of the PS top menu.
- Fixed a lot of problems on the Supplier/Manufacture BO pages.
- Fixed the Friendly URLs and wrote a workaround module for those affected!
- Made a security patch for those who host back office demos with thirty bees.
- Fixed exchange rate modules.
- Fixed the module list.
- A build script to ensure solid packed release packages (thank you very much, Markus Hitter!)
- Improved PrestaShop 1.6 compatibility by restoring the tools folder and a few more tricks.
- Restored translations and localization packs. Thank you for contributing on Crowdin!
- Fixed the CSV importer. Thank you very much for sharing your CSVs. If you think some things are still broken, feel free to contact me directly via the forum, Gitter or whatever channel you can find. This item is very important!
- Despite it being a patch version we felt the need to add a few features:
- Error reporting. The back office page Advanced Parameters > Logs allows you to decrypt error messages that are shown on the Front Office. Instead of a blank page thirty bees now tries to catch the error and encrypt it via a friendly public message. In case one of your store’s visitors comes across a problem s/he can quickly share the generated code with you as a merchant and it will allow you (and only you) to decrypt the message and see the exact error message (plus more information for developers). We felt this was badly needed and expect that it will make the problem solving process much much easier and quicker!
- Omnipay library. This library will allow us to quickly write integrations for about 50-70 payment gateways. We will cover this in a future blog post (and on the forum, stay tuned!), but as we are going to run a few tests soon, feel free to let us know in the comment section with which gateways we should start.
How do I update 1.0.0?
For the moment you can not. This list of dependencies will show you what needs to be done before we can provide a solid patch system for thirty bees:
- Release 1.0.1 stable
- Finish the migration module
- Finish the thirty bees updater
Note that we do not give deadlines as we really want to take all the time that is necessary for a rock-solid system, but we expect that the migration module might hit beta by next week. And, yeah, the 1.0.1 is a biggy, but if we all can not find any heavy bugs in it, that one might hit stable by next week. After that we will further develop the thirty bees updater (of which the module updates are already working!) and things might go really really fast.
Mailchimp
Because MailChimp will then be the next module on the agenda. We have been working extensively with MailChimp and a few stores to make sure the e-commerce integration rocks! There are just three items left to make it the best integration ever (especially to make it suitable for Europe). If you have some spare time and want to help us speed things up, we gladly accept pull requests! And who knows, this might get you a partnership for free, because we have plans for contributor partnerships, since we feel such a program belongs to our open-source nature and what could be a better test than seeing your great developer skills in action?
The MailChimp module will be provided for free and become a native module, always one click away from your back office, so whenever you need to launch a store, you can get your email marketing (automation) started right away, so you have more time to focus on e-commerce.
Blog module
That freed up time could be used to add more content to your site. Besides having cleaner URLs in thirty bees, you can easily improve your SEO via several blog posts (well, the more the better). This module will be released after MailChimp and made available via the thirty bees updater, so it should show up in your back office as soon as it is ready. Have a look at the roadmap for the features: https://thirtybees.com/contribute/roadmap/
Download
Well, here it goes. The package!
And in case you haven’t understood from this blog post: we NEED your feedback, so post it wherever we can find it! Oh, and let us know which payment gateway you use. We love that kind of info, you know, to complete our roadmap.
Oh, before I forget (well I actually did forget): when the thirty bees updater is completed you can upgrade from 1.0.1-beta.2 to 1.0.1 stable!
Nice! To me it’s not clear how the migration works. Do I need to install the migration tool in PS or do I first need to install TB itself? If it’s the first one, why don’t you put a zip here too?
For the migration tool you can use the migration module that we will release. We haven’t released an official one as we are still at alpha 2. It is comparable to what the PrestaShop upgrader does, but that is not good enough for us (we need something that is capable of handling more situations, e.g. old modules/themes etc.).
Developers can test-drive the module: https://github.com/thirtybees/psonesixmigrator, but be aware that as our API changes, the module might break very often.
ah ok I thought this is a part of the beta. I was thinking of recording my migration way as a video. Many merchants even have problems to do a clone of their shop. I could show that in my video and do the migration when beta is released. I believe that all merchants should first do the migrations with a clone. The video should help non technical merchants but also you since you get more feedbacks. Would you like such a video?
Sure thing. That would be great!
I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the stable release. I come from a Magento background so have had to put up with PrestaShop 1.6.x for the past year (and their dire module store – the lack of professionalism on some of the devs there beggars belief!) but we can’t go back to Magento as 1.9.x is becoming obsolete and 2.x isn’t stable enough for production (plus there’s the worry of 2.x CE falling by the wayside as 2.x EE takes precedence). With PrestaShop 1.7 looking like a doomed project we’ve been in limbo for over 6 months and this ThirtyBees seems the answer to our needs! 🙂
> [Magento] 2.x isn’t stable enough for production
I found that out the hard way 🙁
Our store has been running Magento 2.1.x for a while, before we migrated to thirty bees and it was a disaster. Especially theme developers seemed to have a lot of problems with making their themes work on Magento 2.1.x. Only the Porto theme we bought (we bought 3!!) was good enough, but still hard to maintain, in my opinion. Going back to PrestaShop was indeed not an option as you are basically left in limbo.
That was also a real motivation to get the thirty bees project started. After the 1.0.0 release, we were finally able to process payments again since our store crashed in November.
BTW, here is a nice graph of what the end of being stuck in limbo looks like: https://github.com/thirtybees/thirtybees/graphs/contributors 🙂
Wow some serious work there this year!
Unfortunately my experience of Porto wasn’t very good, it’s a nice template and has all the bells and whistles but it’s VERY heavy on code & css. Unless you’re running an nginx full page cached type setup it adds a lot of overhead to the website performance. It’s also not as well supported as the Ultimo theme though that got left behind on a lot of the technology.
I prefer to take the default theme and change it to cater to my needs, which is why I’m interested in you lot porting it over; the less we add on top the less there is to go wrong (or be hacked) 🙂
I’m also looking forward to a module store with developers that care about the community and are not out just to make a quick buck. We’ve got no problems in paying for modules if they’re well supported and tested with core modules from other developers but our experiences thusfar with PrestaShop has been a pain. One thing I would like to see is a multi-licence purchase option to buy the same module for multiple websites, the best we got out of PrestaShop module store was a 20% discount code for multiple purchases, which isn’t much for a module costing £160 a go!
> I’m also looking forward to a module store with developers that care about the community and are not out just to make a quick buck.
I expect that depends on the atmosphere you are trying to create. I have seen marketplaces that push their developers to not refund and/or force their prices.
I believe you should be working with developers not against them, because they are basically extending the services you offer.
> One thing I would like to see is a multi-licence purchase option to buy the same module for multiple websites
Like some agency offer? Discounts for agencies that need a lot of licenses?
Definitely, each marketplace I’m sure has good and bad developers. I’ve experienced bad on Magento as well but on there it’s easier to find out from the marketplace reviews side and comment threads in the forums actual thoughts / guidance / help from the developers and community on issues with various extensions (the Ultimo theme support thread was fantastic a year ago).
My experience of PrestaShop marketplace is seeing a #/5 rating with no actual reviews with positive/negative thoughts on it. On the Magento module side I got to read real reviews from people before deciding to buy, on PrestaShop I literally had to take a gamble on buying a module because it had a lot of sales and still a high star rating, there was usually no data to make an informed decision (there’s very little information on the PrestaShop forums on modules). The PrestaShop live module chat is next to useless, they are PrestaShop sales people with no experience of the module and can’t help with your questions.
With regards to the licences I was more thinking multiple websites but not agency. I run 5 websites across two companies on PrestaShop so I have to buy the same module multiple times depending on which site I want to run it on. Something along the lines of 1,2,3… limited licences rather than agency level.
I just have a question, if we decide to migrate to thirty bees, will all our modules, and themes that are compatible with prestashop 1.6 also work with thirty bees, or would we have to start from scratch?
We are aiming at 100% compatibility (PS 1.6 for modules, 1.6.1 for themes). If you do have a compatibility problem, let us know and we will work on it.
Thank you, could you please guide me how to migrate to thirty bees? Would i have to install it on my server, like prestashop?
We are going to release a migration module, soon. And a dedicated page, but it isn’t live, yet. You can monitor this page for updates: https://thirtybees.com/migrate-from-prestashop
Would you like to convert a PrestaShop store? In that case: https://thirtybees.com/migrate-from-prestashop
Maybe a stupid question as a prestashop shop owner! You forked 1.6, why didn’t you fork 1.7 version.
Essentially we forked at 1.6 because we do not believe the direction PrestaShop went for in 1.7. 1.7 had very few new features, only 2 that I can think of. They can be accomplished on the 1.6 framework. At the same time we do not agree with the how Symfony was used. It will slow the framework down. It adds a lot of needless packages to do small trivial tasks and creates a ton of dependencies.