Dev Update 4

The majority of the work, since the last update, had gone into the Materials product types... that was until we made the Early Access announcement.

We had a flood of requests for early access, and we had to find the right balance between the complexity of the transfer and visitor numbers and quantity of orders. This combined with how regular and constructive feedback is likely to be.

We have a schedule of five sites per week for the first month in the hope that the very 'hands-on' approach will allow us to really use the system in a 'real-world' situation, all aimed at providing a much more rounded product.

True to form, with the first sites under migration, the first lot of improvements were visible, from both a usability and front-end aesthetic point of view.

These have been continuous throughout the week and we are in a fortunate position that, because we have built this in-house from the ground, up, and not based it on any existing framework, we are able to quickly react (not the framework/library) and make any improvements immediately.

Another stumbling block was how to create the version 3 site without affecting the current site, whilst still utilising the same paths and data and have them running simultaneously waiting for the final switchover. Again, easily overcome, but did require some tinkering with the new Admin Area, the Front End and the API.

We are now at the end of the week, and things are really coming together in terms of what is required for a migration. It has been important for me, that I have handled the migrations personally, it has allowed for this 'real-world' understanding mentioned previously.

Although the first migrations have not been completed, this is due to the final pieces of functionality to be put into place... *cough* search *cough*, as well as some final layout tweaking based on selections.

We are getting there and once a more solid migration method is in place we will be moving more and more sites over. 

Because it would take months (if not, years) to recreate the current Admin Area to the new version, we have taken a more efficient approach.

We didn't want you to wait even longer for Version 3, so we decided to simply 'import' any required current options into this version. This means that within the 'shell' of the version 3 Admin Area, there is some version 2 functionality.

This means that you can use Version 3, whilst any version 2 elements can be updated 'behind the scenes'.

As an example, the Orders section hasn't changed... but, oh, it will do - watch this space!

Materials are a special type of product and work in a unique way. Because materials create products that are completely bespoke in size, each one needs to be calculated.

This calculation process is something that Venture Banners pioneered prior to VB Media's initial development and was in fact one of the driving factors for developing VB Media in the first place.

The calculator allows your customers to order prints to whatever size suits them and not 'pre-set' sizes. Initially meant for the large-format printing market, it may well have applications for small-format also.

The calculation page has traditionally had limited customisability.

It has always been fairly simple in functionality, it simply displays a price based on the options entered. However, this doesn't mean it has to be boring...

• Front End - material 'mini-details' tiles
• Front End - material details pages
• Front End - calculation page to accept requests from the new material details page
• Front End - basket to accept product lines from the new calculation page
• Front End - updates to product-specific discounts not displaying correctly in the basket and at checkout
• Front End - the account and sign-up process (sounds menial but is a whopping section with lots of sub-pages) 
• Front End - major overhaul of the mobile navigation
• Front End - ground work for the search functionality
• Front End - cosmetic tweaks for mobile layout of various sections
• Front End - sub-navigation tweaks to prevent off-page placement on selected settings
• Front End - small fixes where settings were not being applied correctly in some sections
• Front End - css updates to ensure changes were being presented correctly
• Admin Area - navigation restructure, removing redundant options and attempting to build a more intuitive flow
• Admin Area - additional options for a few sections to allow for better control
• Admin Area - update to creating pages to allow the creation of a version 3 page if a version 2 page with the same path already exists
• Admin Area - small fixes where settings were not being applied correctly in some section - similar to front end
• Admin Area - css updates to ensure changes were being presented correctly- similar to front end