Magento

We are pleased to announce the availability for download of Magento Preview version 0.6.12840. The biggest highlight of the release is PayPal integration (view screencast) and multi-lingual support.

Magento supports two different PayPal methods for use in your websites and stores: PayPal Express, which allows the customer to check out from the PayPal site, and PayPal Direct, which offers credit card processing capability without the customer having to ever leave your store.

With PayPal Express, the customer is transferred to PayPal's checkout from a button in the shopping cart, or from the "Payment Method" section of the Magento checkout process. Upon successfully completing checkout, they are immediately returned to the "Completed Order" page on your store. Customers with a PayPal account looking for a quick checkout may prefer this option.

With PayPal Direct, customers don't need a PayPal account. Instead, customers are prompted to enter their credit card information in the "Payment Method" stage of your store's checkout, taking them seamlessly through the process from beginning to end. With Magento's ability to re-name payment methods, customers don't even need to know they're using PayPal.

Checkout Magento's PayPal functionality in action ...

-- RELEASE NOTES - MAGENTO 0.6.12840 --

MAJOR CHANGES:

Added localization settings:

• Locale configuration in installation wizard
• Locale configuration in admin
• Currency and date formatting

Added translations functionality:

• Reworked all the templates to take translated values
• Prepared translation skeletons
• Implemented English (US) translation

Implemented Paypal payment methods:

• Website Payments Pro
• Paypal Express
• PayPal Direct

Admin permissions implementation mostly rewritten

• Moved permissions models to 'Admin' module, 'Permissions' module deleted
• Implemented permissions checking for system configuration section in admin

Added multi store product reviews management functionality

Added multi store ratings management functionality

APPLICATION BUGFIXES:

• Menu hover color bug fix
• Fixed error in install template
• Fixed one-page checkout javascript error
• Fixed image uploader for Windows
• Fixed loading install layout from db
• Fixed layout and payment methods displaying in multiple addresses checkout
• Empty password was sent in checkout registration email
• Adding item to wishlist twice caused program exceptions
• Fixed deleting backups
• Fixed few newsletter subscription bugs ('My Account' dashboard text, newsletter status in admin)

ENHANCEMENTS:

• Added few models' setters and getters to increase performance
• Replaces _initChildren to _prepareLayout and removed _afterSetLayout methods
• Added Block_Abstract::getBlockHtml method
• Layouts moved to single file
• Changed most of the layout updates to be action updates
• Implemented payment methods sorting
• Added 'Exclude multi-address checkout' option in payment methods configuration
• Added 'Save As' function for newsletter templates

KNOWN ISSUES:

• 3rd level admin menu is broken in IE
• Coupon discount not shown in order totals in customer account
• Security warnings when submitting forms from secure to non-secure pages

After receiving great feedback from the German and Polish communities, we are excited to proceed and open the translation process to the rest of the world.

Here's how it works:

• Under each international forum, you will find a sticky thread (titled "Official Magento Translation" ...) with a zip file attached. The file contains a directory structure and a number of csv files. The directory structure and csv files must stay as is (in terms of structure and naming).
• Each CSV file has two columns. The right column is intended to be overwritten with the translations. The left column serves as a reference and should not be overwritten - this is very important.
• We decided that only <a> and <br / > tags are to be used in the original text (i.e. the first column). All other HTML tags (e.g. <strong>) should be added to the translated text (i.e. second column) where appropriate.
• If you do not see your language in the international forums or your locale, please contact us and we will add it.
• Given the amount of work per language, we strongly suggest for the community to interact through the forum and split up the work. Hopefully this will lead to a faster and more thorough process.
• Please let us know once the translation is complete and we will incorporate it in future releases.

Questions? Let us know in the comments or contact us.

We are proud to announce that the Magento Blog is now available in 9 languages, with more to come. Today we have added French, Traditional Chinese and Vietnamese blogs to the Magento site. The blogs will feature translations of the posts in the English blog, as well as unique content geared to their respective audiences.

If you are interested in taking part in Magento's global localization effort, please contact us.

++++

French Blog - fr.magentocommerce.com (RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-FR)
Traditional Chinese Blog - zh.magentocommerce.com (RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-ZH)
Vietnamese Blog - vi.magentocommerce.com (RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-VI)

The Magento Facebook group is up and running. We'd love for you to join us.

Thanks Jan (AKA lopsta.com) for getting the group started.

This week was a busy one as we continued pushing updates to the community site. A few of the highlights include:

Site Search

We've implemented Google Custom Business Search and developed functionality to view results by module (Forum, Knowledge Base, Wiki, Blog, Features). You can take advantage of all of Google's search operators (AND, OR, +, -, "", etc.) to find exactly what you are looking for ... and for the best part, spelling correction is supported.

Bug (Issue) Tracking System

A new issue tracking system is now live. Search, view, and report new issues as you encounter them. The system is integrated in real time with our internal software so our development teams can have immediate access.

International Magento Blogs

We've expanded our international blog lineup and now feature: German, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Ukranian blogs. Stay tuned for further announcements next week of additional international blogs.

Forum

The Magento forum continues to thrive with over 3,700 message thus far. The participation by the community has been truly inspiring. This week we completed the implementation of the new layout and added the much requested functionality of 'latest posts', and 'unanswered posts'. More updates to the forum will follow in the week ahead.

As always, if you any ideas, we'd love to hear them!

Enjoy the Weekend!

We are proud to announce the addition of Spanish, Russian and Polish blogs to the Magento site. The blogs will feature translations of the posts in the English blog, as well as unique content geared to their respective audiences.

If you are interested in taking part in Magento's global localization effort, please contact us.

++++

Polish Blog - pl.magentocommerce.com (RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-PL)
Russian Blog - ru.magentocommerce.com (RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-RU)
Spanish Blog - es.magentocommerce.com (RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-ES)

Don't forget our German blog at de.magentocommerce.com (RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-DE)

Magento was recently covered by Mashable. With more than 5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the world's largest blog focused exclusively on social networks. The article asks the question, "Is Magento the Zimbra of eCommerce?" (Zimbra is a professional open source company recently acquired by Yahoo) - check it out and let us know what you think.

Magento's first international blog is launched today at www.magentocommerce.com/de (subscribe to the RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Magento-DE). The German community has been especially active with close to 400 forum posts in the past two weeks.

We will continue to expand Magento's content to the international community over the next few weeks. We are actively seeking contributors, so if you are interested in taking part, please contact us.

I'd like to thank Marcel Böttcher (AKA 73inches) for taking the initiative and continued involvment in the German community. Thanks Marcel!

Herzlich Willkommen!