New release of CMS OpenCart 4.0.0.0

Long-awaited news for many web developers - on May 24, 2022, the new release of OpenCart 4.0.0.0 was launched, a platform for building online stores. It is one of the most popular content management systems in many countries, including Ukraine.

The whole secret of this CMS is that it is completely free, and its simplicity provides a low entry barrier for development. But everything changes, and OpenCart does not stand still — its developers work on improving the engine release after release, and now it is no longer just a CMS, but already almost a full-fledged framework for building modern online stores.

The new 4.x branch has brought numerous engine changes, undoubtedly the most important of which is the abandonment of OCMOD modifiers, which OpenCart developers and users have grown so accustomed to. The main advantage of OCMOD was its simplicity, and hence the low entry barrier for OpenCart module development. But now everything has changed — the time has come to study events, because in the new system extensions will work in a new way, through an Events system and Startup preloads.

Currently these systems are still imperfect, so extension developers hope that updates with improvements to event handling and the engine as a whole will be released soon. Because immediately after publication to the official OpenCart repository, numerous "pull requests" with bugs and issues of the new build started flowing in. The developers spent several years upgrading the system, but still failed to produce a perfect first release — however, this is not surprising, since all previous zero versions also did not inspire user confidence. So it is too early to celebrate; we will have to wait for a more stable build before it can be used for a new online store.

Extension developers will also have to take into account that now all extensions have a separate directory in the site root, and each extension has its own folder within this directory.

Another important change in OpenCart 4.0 is the ability to add product variants — that is, the same products but with different parameters — and combine them. This innovation was expected, since previously users had to solve this problem with additional modules.

Brief overview of the changes we will see in OpenCart 4.0.0.0

• works only on PHP 8.1+
• renamed admin URL
• no OCMOD
• new module installation system
• storing module archives on the server
• separate root directory for extensions
• notification system in the admin panel
• all admin forms are submitted via AJAX
• order editing without API
• CRON scheduler
• autostart system (Startup)
• template for products in listings
• template for pagination
• GDPR compliance (cookie policy, account deletion, etc.)
• currency rate update modules added
• added "Other" module type
• product variants
• updated subscription system (paid subscriptions)
• single-page checkout form
• image size settings moved to store settings
• language=code GET parameter present in all site links
• customer_token GET parameter added on customer authentication
• use of namespaces
• class and method separated by "|" symbol when calling a method
• updates in the SEO URL system, separate fields for "key", "value", "alias"
• Bootstrap 5
• jQuery 3.6.0
• Font Awesome 6
• CKEditor 5
• Whether you should use the new OpenCart 4.0.0.0 release is up to you — there are still not enough modules available to quickly organize development. So for now, the stable build remains the release from the previous branch — 3.0.3.8.