Magento 1.4 Review: New Features
Magento 1.4 Stable Community Edition was released last Friday February 12th. This major version release brings with it several new features that will improve site performance and make administration easier.
Widgets!
Widgets were introduced in the alpha versions of 1.4 in October ’09 and now have their debut in this stable release. Widgets greatly expand the CMS (Content Management System) capabilities of the software. The main way that the new widget functionality differs from static blocks is that non-technical administrators of the site can now control not just the content of blocks, but also their placement.
The default install now comes packaged with 7 types of widgets. Magento extension authors can create widgets to be packaged with their extensions.
WYSIWYG Editor
When I install a Magneto site the first thing after I have completed the base software installation is to install the Fontis WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) extension. With version 1.4 there is now a native WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE) that can be used to edit Category and Product descriptions.
Unlike the Fontis extension this WYSIWYG editor does not have the ability to be inline – the user is forced to press the “WYSIWYG Editor” button which opens a modal dialog box. This may have an productivity impact when doing multiple category/product edits.
Custom Variables
With the Transactional Email control panel in Magento store administrators have the ability to customize system generated emails for several events (e.g. New Order, Order Shipment). Store administrators now have the ability to define custom variables to be used within those transactional emails. Data elements that are included on each email can now have a single point of edit instead of having to open each email template and update the value.
A new “Insert Variable…” button on the Transactional Emails screen provides a dialog box with a list of system variables and custom variables. The administrator selects the desired variable in the dialog box to insert the appropriate macro code into their Template Content.
Performance Updates
This release also includes features and updates targeted toward performance. The Compilation Module is now status:stable and greatly improves site performance by “compiling all files of a Magento installation into a single include path”. That means faster page loads when this module is enabled.
Page transfer size has also been in addressed by including all CSS files into a single transfer similar to how Javascript has been handled to date.
Overview
The new features included in Magento 1.4 add to an already extensive feature list that make this e-commerce platform stand head and shoulders above the rest.
