Our concerns
Whilst we know 1.4 will bring a much improved e-commerce platform, our only concern lies in template compatibility. Those that suffered the upgrade from 1.1 to 1.2 or 1.2 to 1.3 will have been forced to change a small portion of their template to suit the newer methods devised. The major point upgrades were never designed to facilitate an end user easily upgrading their store with 1-click methods.
So, for those of us that have built highly complex template derivatives, will the option to upgrade still remain viable?
Improvements
* Implemented frontend templates for widgets
* Added field scope hints in system admin configuration
* Implemented #15031: paypal checkout allowed through PP logo while allow guest checkout is marked NO
* Simplified core email template store url generation (because all this logic is correctly implemented in the core url model). Completely disallowed to render SID in emails. Moved SID-related logic to cms template filter.
* Adjusted text labels and pre-selected is_active in CMS page edit page
* Added ability to set default value of page layouts, utilized it on CMS edit page (1 column by default)
* Implemented uniqHash() method in core helper. Reduced probability of possible md5(microtime()) collisions in places where it was used
* Implemented #17084: Product “Custom Layout Update” per store view
* Updated indexing management labels, made one of mass actions pre-selected
* Implemented a generic wrapper block for frontend. Purpose is similar to core/text_list, but it also renders a wrapper HTML-element. No need for generic wrapper template in modern theme. Utilized the new wrapper block in onepage checkout for checkout progress
* Implemented aggregation catalog rules and their customer groups and websites to new table for further using in simple getting applied catalog rules
* Made customer checkout and registration “email already exists” messages more informative
* Added Real Media and Windows Media extensions to CMS media browser
* added scrollbars to widgets insertion window
* Adjusted look & feel of wysiwyg and widgets
Changes
* Implemented asCanonicalArray() in simplexml element – same as asArray(), just ignores node attributes
* Changed widget.xml declaration, refactored widgets implementation (Misha promised to post examples – add cross-link there)
* Jammed Exception in customer loginPost action, replaced catch to Mage_Core_Exception
* Changed Db layout Updates to load by default store (0) if no data for current store
* Added “– Please Select –” label to the empty value of websites dropdown in admin area forms
* Added ability to support the
– checked all existing
– specified sort order for catalog menu
– updated some text labels
* Updated frontend label of region_id attribute of customer address entity
* Prevented email send exceptions spoiling onepage checkout process, order invoicing and order re-sending email
* Provided event perfix and event object for customer address
* Added method addIsInStockFilterToCollection to CatalogInventory Stock Status Model
* Made Mage version getter based on version info getter
* Added new events:
– checkout_cart_save_after – provide entry point after all shopping cart items changes (add/remove/update item)
– wishlist_items_renewed – changes with wishlist items
* Adjusted CSS-classes for salesrules store fieldset
* added ability to override table class and value class for default adminhtml fieldset and fieldset element renderers
* improved cms widget chooser block (hidden element didn’t get all data fields of original element)
* removed redundant non-breakable space in grid column renderer in ‘edit_only’ mode
* Added Known Issue Notice of Firebug VS TinyMCE
* Moved methods getColumnCount, addColumnCountLayoutDepend, removeColumnCountLayoutDepend, getColumnCountLayoutDepend, getPageLayout from Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List to Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract class
* Added an ability to disable admin menu item rendering via configuration
* Added deprecation message to admin menu/acl config model
* Removed double quote recollect from multishipping checkout
* Adminhtml Manage Currency Rates: Moved services select to separated child block
* removed checkout progress layout in iphone theme, since it uses 1-column layout
* Added ability to return empty JSON object if data to serialize was empty and column names were already added
* Improved Mage_Adminhtml_Helper_Js::decodeInput() – clarified logic, made it ignoring non-numeric keys. Renamed it to decodeGridSerializedInput() (renamed in all places where it was used)
* Removed Mage::log debugging usage and fixed notices in log directory configuration
* Reorganized CMS and Customer menu and ACL in admin area
* Changed label of product visibility “Nowhere” to “Not Visible Individually”
* Updated license notice, tabs to spaces and CRLF to LF, LF before EOF
* Added created_at as a static attribute of customer entity
* Newsletter Module code refactored. Added method Mage_Newsletter_Model_Mysql4_Subscriber::addStoreFilter()
* Upgraded Zend Framework to v.1.9.3PL1 release
* Added javascript console object to prevent JS errors with using this object in browsers accept firefox
* Changed AdminNotification URL