1.5.1

Though I started doing 1.5 upgrades a couple of months ago, a wrench got thrown into the works in October when the Zen Cart team released version 1.5.1. It is not considered a mandatory upgrade but there were a lot of changes in it, so I’m having to qualify it as a regular upgrade and not an easy task. Is that going to be the last or are we facing the alphabet soup that 1.3.9 created?

The answer was posted on the forum (http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?199322-Roadmap-for-v1-5-and-beyond). What that says in essence that 1.5.1a may be an option. Don’t know when or if but it might be coming. I expect it to be a collection of small changes, not as major as 1.5.1. So I’m hoping that means no more large stuff or major required upgrades like the 1.3.9 series.

1.5.1 is not considered to be mandatory itself: “It consists mainly of bug fixes for v1.5.0 as well as some performance enhancements.” One of my clients found one of those bugs so we updated him very quickly to fix his problems but I haven’t heard of or run into what the other bug fixes might be.

Changes in the 1.5 Series

The 1.5.0 version is the “first and only free open source E-Commerce system that is fully PA-DSS certified.” This certification for PCI compliance is a tedious and expensive process and I’m tickled that they were able to pull it off. It’s also brought complaints from my clients because of mandatory password changes and the admin emails that go out. Sorry, guys, but the extra security this brings is worth a lot and definitely worth the extra aggravation.

1.3.9h is still a secure version and 1.5 is not a mandatory upgrade. 

So you don’t have to upgrade now.  Sometime in the future it might become mandatory but I’m not thinking it will be anytime soon. (Let me put my crystal ball back on the shelf now.)

So why would someone upgrade from 1.3.9h?

One good reason for upgrading is the incorporation of an old Zen Cart plugin for admin access management. If you have employees, children or slaves working in your admin, you may want them only to have access to maybe just the products or just the orders. The admin access management allows you to set up all sorts of profiles and be able to okay or deny each part of admin to a specific individual or group. That makes is a very handy plugin that can greatly reduce the possibility of someone accidentally or nastily on purpose changing something in admin that you don’t want touched.

1.5 has a more secure admin – that is to say the coding has been looked at very carefully and some things can’t happen with that version.

Module Problems with 1.5 May Tell You Not to Upgrade

The problem, however, is that there are now some mods that may well never see 1.5 unless someone takes it upon themselves to totally rewrite said mods. For example, that stock by attributes mod that some folks can’t live without. I’ve been counseling folks that it has to be rewritten. It was badly done from the start and no one should touch it. It should be rewritten; it should die!  So if you are using any version of the stock by attributes, don’t upgrade – you will lose it.

Or Talk You Into Upgrading

Most of the major mods have been upgraded and many have been improved for 1.5 so there’s a reason you might want to upgrade. Mods have been tightened up and extra features added. Pleasantly, many now self install – no more worrying with sql patches.

Important Patch for 1.5 and 1.5.1 Released

If you have 1.5 installed, there was an additional emergency patch of one file that was released in October. If I’ve worked on your cart since then, I’ve probably fixed that but please do let me know if you have 1.5 installed! If you upgraded to 1.5 and have not had your cart touched since, read this post and get it fixed right away: http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?200947-XSS-Flaw-Patch

Oh, Yeah, and Version 1.6?

They are planning it; they are working on it. They say soon. For a “whole new updated template”, addressing the look and the way it works – positioning Zen Cart for HTML5 and building in jQuery (which I’ve been doing with my mods). Sounds good. Don’t hold your breath though! How soon is anyone’s guess, but I do know they are actively working on it.