Magento

Greetings Magento Community,

We've made changes on Magento 1.5 and there are some important changes for developers and merchants using Magento Connect that you should be aware of.

Packaging Extensions on 1.5

Packaging extensions using 1.5 has some minor syntactical changes from previous versions. Please see our new documentation on packaging an extension using Magento 1.5.

The significant changes are:

• When packaging extensions, the channel field now uses the single word community. Extensions packaged prior to 1.5 use the words magento-community in the channel field.
• When packaging an extension, you now have the option to package your extension for Magento shops that are 1.5.0.0 & later version (2.0) or for shops pre 1.5.0.0. (1.0)
• When you click on the Save data and Create Package button to generate the tar.gz package file, the 2.0 extension file is now created in the var/connect directory. The 1.0 extension file is generated in the var/pear directory. This means there are two individual files - one for 1.0 and one for 2.0.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For broader extension support for free (unpaid) community extensions, it is best to package using pre-1.5.0.0 option. When uploading the 1.0 version from var/pear -- Magento Connect will make the 2.0 version for you. If you wish to only support 1.5 and higher versions of Magento only then only upload the 2.0 file from the var/connect directory to Magento. If you are trying to create separate packages (such as to upload both a 1.0 and 2.0 version to your site for a PAID extension, or if you want different version numbers for different releases) then you must select both options when packaging which generates both 1.0 and 2.0 file types.

Make sure that you add this information to your extension description so that merchants are aware of the supported versions of your extensions.

Additionally, if you have previously uploaded a 1.5+ (2.0 only) extension and would like it to have support for Pre 1.5 (1.0) as well, repackage the existing extension with a new version number but be sure to upload the file from the var/pear directory when adding to Magento Connect. This will update both versions but also give you a 1.0 version for Pre 1.5.

Incomplete Extension Information

If you have previously attempted to upload an extension and that extension is listed as pending/incomplete, you can still recover this extension by properly packaging the extension using a new version number and uploading the update under the existing extension.You cannot use the same version number.

What's the difference between 1.0 and 2.0 Extensions?

You may have noticed that Magento Connect Marketplace now has both 1.0 and 2.0 extensions. If you are on a Magento shop prior to 1.5, use extensions labeled as 1.0. Systems 1.5 and later use the 2.0 extensions. It is important to be aware of the differences.

Beta vs. Stable Extensions

If you package and uploaded a Beta or Alpha extension - please add this information into the extension description. It's important for the community to be aware that they'll need to change their stability settings on the back-end of Magento Connect Manager. Magento Connect Manager's Preferred State defaults to "Stable" extensions and attempting to install a beta extension with this setting results in a "Not Detected" error message as the system is not detecting the Stable extension.

To change this setting:

1. Select System->Configuration-> from your store's admin panel.
2. Log into Magento Connect
3. Click the Settings tab
4. Use the pull-down menu to select your perferred state (stable, alpha, beta)
5. Click Save

If you have any questions about Magento Connect or looking for updated information, please check into our Connect Community Forum. This forum has all the latest information on extensions, guidelines, as well as any issues that you as a developer, may need to be aware of.

As always, feel free to if you have any questions.

Rhonda

The Magento ECG in the Community Forums

Don’t be surprised if you see a new face around. The Magento Expert Consulting Group’s mission is to help solution partners and merchants get the most from their Magento installations. With this goal in mind the ECG will now be taking an active role in the Magento community forums. 

Each business day a Magento ECG consultant will spend a portion of their day on the forums, promoting the flow of threads and answering technical questions with a focus on enablement and on-boarding of Magento members. While our consultants’ participation will rotate, we will do our best to provide continuity on posts from one day to the next.

The Magento community forums are a significant asset to both Magento community members and Magento itself. As the Expert Consulting Group, our goal as forum participants is to ensure that the forums remain a high-quality and high-value resource for the community.

Look for MagentoECG in the forums! And as always feel free to if you have any questions. We love having a wide range of technical experience in our audience, and ECG will be yet another a great addition to our community!

If you would like to learn more about the ECG and offerings, visit http://www.magentocommerce.com/services/.

Greetings Magento Community,

Do you develop on Magento? Do you want to contribute to Magento’s core?  Do you like collaborating with others on new features and enhancements? Then you should sign up to be a Magento Contributor.

Since our Imagine Conference, I’ve been getting many requests for information on how we can make this happen. We get requests in every day. Today alone, I am working on requests for over 10 developers who are interested in contributing, and you can too!

What does this mean to you?

When you become a Magento Contributor, we’ll provide you with access to our SVN repository where you can commit changes, and access to our ticketing system if you’d like to provide a patch. Our core team looks at these changes, prioritizes the contributions, and and makes implementations based on those suggestions.

How Do I Get Started?

Just send an email to Magento Contributors. As I receive these requests, I’ll respond with our basic guidelines. Click the link to fill out and sign the Magento Contributor Agreement and send it back to us. I’ll request access, and notify you with your access credentials. That’s all there is to it.

We’re very excited to kick-start this program and are looking forward to seeing what great contributions are going to be made to our fabulous products. We love the idea of collaborating with you, to make Magento a better and stronger product. Our community is what makes Magento so great!

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to .

Security is TOP Priority

Greetings Magento Community,

Security is our #1 priority at Magento. Please be aware that we have an email address for security vulnerabilities, which is . This email receives priority attention and the quickest response.

When security vulnerabilities are posted, tweeted, re-tweeted or blogged - this puts every single user that has flipped on that switch at risk. This opens others to security threats. We want to know about these vulnerabilities, however, not at the expense of our community members.

Report vulnerabilities directly to us, we're happy to credit you for the discovery and giving back to the community.

If you have any questions, as always feel free to

Rhonda

Wow! Magento Community Rocks

It has been an amazing few days.

My Magento Imagine eCommerce Conference kick-off - actually started on Sunday morning when Roy, Yoav and Bob invited our International Community Leaders and myself to a Community Leaders breakfast at Loews Restaurant in Santa Monica. We dined on the patio, which had a gorgeous view of the beach and the Santa Monica Pier. The topic of discussion community, Magento and of course, the Imagine Conference. Community leaders got a sneak peek of the program guide -- and there were smiles all around as we enjoyed a breakfast buffet while getting to know each other.

In attendance (Starting with Roy Rubin moving clockwise) Roy Rubin(CEO Magento), Bob Schwartz (Vice President Magento), Yoav Kuntner (CTO Magento), Susie Sedlacek (Training and Documentation - Magento) Guido Jansen - (Ductchento, The Netherlands), Philippe Humeau - (Bargento, France), Brent W. Peterson - (Us Forum Moderator), Gabriel Bouhatous (Bargento, France) Nick Weisser - (Swissgento, Switzerland) Not pictured: Rhonda Rondeau - (Community Manager, Magento) and Rico Neitzel (Meet Magento, Germany)

The Getty

After breakfast, we hopped in our Magento sponsored 12-seater van, and headed back to the Hilton, to retrieve Rico who had sadly missed his connecting flight after entering the country. The minute we hit the hotel, I was already meeting Magento folks, and chatting up a storm with soon-to-be event-goers. Even on Sunday morning the hotel was buzzing with talk of Imagine and what great things were going to happen at this first conference, or what new things might be announced. Once assembled, it was time to take off and go have some fun. We were even joined by a few others that I had not met yet, but as I always say -- the more the merrier.

Back in the Van, we headed to the Getty Museum. The Getty Center is famous for its beautiful architecture as well as well known art pieces that it houses. There are usually some kind of special exhibition or event going on to check out. This time, Imagining the Past in France, 1250–1500 was on display, which I felt was ironic considering we had several guests in attendance from France. The Getty has some of the most amazing views.

Community Towering over me at the Getty

Venice Beach

Since our friend Rico missed Breakfast - I promised him lunch on the beach and that's exactly where we went next, and what a better place to go then Venice? Street performers, skate boarders, sand and sun! We had a great time hopping along the beach and checking out the sites, and yes we had lunch on the beach! Not just any lunch, but pizza and hot-dogs! We spent a great deal of time watching the amazing skate-boarders and just getting to know each other.

Community at the Skate Park in Venice

Some of us parted ways at Venice, and some went back to the hotel. I had to go, as there was still a lot to do before the Imagine Conference! I know the party continued into the night as I watched tweets from 3rd street Promenade in Santa Monica.

First Day - Imagine eCommerce

Monday night was the kick-off party. I was lucky enough to arrive several hours early and finally able to meet Sherrie Rohde - our US design forum moderator and Magento M finger enthusiast! Throughout our flickr gallery of amature photography, you will see her posing with a number of folks, making the Magento M that she's now made famous!

Throughout the flickr stream of photo's we've uploaded -- it might look something like the Rhonda, Sherrie and Rico show. The three of us took more pictures than I can count with various employees, and new Imagine Conference friends. We pretty much stuck together throughout and I couldn't have asked for a more memorable experience.

Magento Community

In this next photo, I'd like to formally introduce you to Sherrie Rohde and Brent W. Peterson. I cannot say enough wonderful things about them. They were here before I came on-board at Magento and they're dedicating their time as volunteers of our US Community Forums. Sherrie wrote our online design guide and handles the Html/CSS/Design forum while Brent consistently works on everything else. He answers questions on our boards, and has been recently being very active with @ask_magento I don't know what I'd do without them! This picture was taken at our Imagine Conference kick-off party.

Some of our photos were downright silly, which is the sign of having a really good time! In this photo, we have Guido Jansen from Dutchento who came all the way from the Netherlands. Guido has been a huge asset to me since joining the Magento team and now, a very good friend. He taught me many things about Magento when I first came on board, which was just awesome, as a new employee just learning the ropes.

Manhattan Beach

After the amazing conference, breakout sessions and parties -- we were tired! But... I wanted one last night with the folks who could join me, so this time it was our German Community! We quickly stopped by happy hour before we headed off to our next adventure! Joined by Rico Neitzel, Daimen Luszczymak, Imagine Conference speaker Vinai Kopp, and of course Sherrie and Brent -- it was off to Manhattan Beach for pizza. We found the tiny little place, looked funny, and according to Rico -- smelled funny too! It did, however have some really great pizza and the company? OUTSTANDING! I think we laughed for almost 2 hours straight. As you can see from my face in these photos - it is bright red. That's a sign of me laughing so hard that it was hard to breathe! We had pizza, we skipped along the pier arm in arm (literally), we posed in that famous Magento M fashion!

Thank You

I cannot thank Roy, Yoav and Bob enough for bringing us all together. The Imagine Conference has just been an amazing experience. There are not enough happy adjectives to describe how I feel. I met so many amazing people, amazing companies, and made many new friends. This has been one of the best experiences of my life, and I can see it's only going to get better!

I'm looking forward to future events and working with our awesome Community! Thanks to everyone for making this event so memorable. Check out our flickr stream and stay tuned for the professional photos which will be coming soon.

GO-GO MAGENTO!

Update February 3, 2011 10:30am

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Update February 2, 2011 7:30am

Welcome Back

We are back. Our site maintenance took a little longer than expected and we're aware that some users are experiencing log-in problems. If you are unable to log in - please clear your cookies (in some cases you may need to close your browser) and then attempt to re-log in again. If you are having any additional problems, please feel free to contact me directly at .

We're Upgrading MagentoCommerce.com

Greetings Magento Community,

We will be upgrading the MagentoCommerce.com website tonight beginning at 9:00PM Pacific Standard Time. This planned maintenance will help improve the site's performance and capacity. We will also be introducing some new enhancements to the "My Account" section of the site.

While we are undergoing the upgrade, the entire magentocommerce.com site will be inaccessible. Work will begin at approximately 9:00PM tonight (PST) and will last around 2-3 hours.

The upgrade includes the launch of some new enhancements to the "My Account" section of the web site:

• New user interface, with simpler navigation and more logical organization of information and tools
• New interface for posting and managing job listings
• Updated "Downloads" section

Stay tuned to our Twitter account for real-time updates. We will update both Twitter and this blog post when our planned maintenance is complete.

Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

Rhonda

rhonda[at]magento.com

Tweets from around the world for #MagentoImagine

Excitement! Excitement is the best word I can use to describe our #MagentoImagine Twitter feed which is full with tweets from folks all around the world, getting geared up for Magento's Inaugural Imagine eCommerce Worldwide Conference. Many are looking to meet up with others, or just share in their excitement. Here's a preview of what they're saying about us!

@blueacorn just made some changes to our scheduling for #magentoimagine to spend more time in LA with the @magento team and meeting with some clients
@shepherdra: Catch up with Zend at Magento Imagine event, Feb in L.A. http://bit.ly/e4ba3v
@magento_tweets:Guidance is sponsoring Magento's Imagine eCommerce Conference! Find us at the Marketplace - http://bit.ly/magento_imagine
@royrubin05: Really excited about the Magento Unconference at the HQ with the core development team following #MagentoImagine
@Neff_D:Excited to be a part of the First Annual #MagentoImagine conference - it's right around the corner!
@bob_brodie: So excited for #MagentoImagine - if anyone wants to meet up, let us know.
@inchoo: Cool, #Magento Imagine conference is sold out!
@getsweettooth: RT @royrubin05: Prepping for the keynote for #MagentoImagine. Can't wait!
@PeterKrideras: Looking forward to #MagentoImagine next month. Any other Aussies going?
@GorillaCommerce: Meet the Gorilla team at the #MagentoImagine conference in LA Feb 7-9th
@bargento 500+ are expected to attend #MagentoImagine
@ampersandit: Looking forward to the #MagentoImagine conference in LA in Feb.
@EmailvisionUSA: Join Emailvision at the 2011 Magento Imagine eCommerce Conference - register for your ticket http://om.ly/BLGcK #MagentoImagine
@Webshopapps: WebShopApps are attending the #magento imagine conference next week. Let us know if you are attending! Should be a good one.
@wikigento: My presentation for #magentoimagine is now complete ! Hope to see you there
@aschroder: Woohoo flights booked, confirmed a tech session at #MagentoImagine, I'm going to LA, so excited! See you soon @magento
@summasolutions: Argentina says hello to Magento Imagine Conference! We look forward to attending this great event! #MagentoImagine #Magento #Argentina
@ProContractors: Already having the first newbiz client meeting booked for #magentoimagine #crazy attention ProContractors already have in the United States
@AldoW: Registered for #MagentoImagine , LA here we come!
@adamlevenson: Just got our tickets for #MagentoImagine. Let me know if you are going so we can meet up.
@ebizmarts: Fight to #MagentoImagine booked! Looking fwd to meet you, Sage Pay/MailChimp/Sage Payments integrators cc/@magento @mailchimp @sagepayments

If you have not heard, we are SOLD OUT! If you'd like to join our waiting list - please email . If space frees up, we'll be happy to bring you on board

Tune into Twitter using #MagentoImagine hash tag and join in the conversation! We're looking forward to meeting everyone in 7 days, at Imagine!

Rhonda

Party Time for the Witches and Wizards of Magento!

On Tuesday January 18th, Magento Employees were treated to a night of dinner, music, witchcraft and wizardry at Whimsic Alley! If you didn't know, Whimsic Alley is a hidden secret in Los Angeles and also a shopping haven for Wizards of Distinction! All of us have been working so hard on new products and prepping for Imagine that we *completely* forgot to celebrate the new year. So, last week we stopped, took a breath….and partied!

Guests arrived around 7:00 pm and were treated to drinks and h'orderves as they were "sorted" out Each guest received a colored marble indicating what their dining assignment would be. It was fun to be able to sit with people you really don't get a chance to talk to on a regular basis, and to learn more about them. Many guests and employees were in costume which made the night even more memorable.

Once in the great Dining hall, we played a little quiddish, to see which table would get to line up first for the GREAT BUFFET and guests dined on chicken, Salmon and (dare I say -) Harry Pot-roast. Guests then lined up for the dessert Candy-Bar ! ... which had a large assortment of.. (you guessed it!) CANDY! Everything from brownies, to jellybeans!

After dessert, it was more drinks and music by @shaimus and dancing! It was truly a fun night of dinner, magic, and music!

Check out the pictures below and see ALL of our Potter Party Pictures on Flickr!