introducing cpshop 2.4

Please update your installation as soon as possible. Several major changes at CafePress last week have resulted in some fundamental changes in cpshop processing, and I've noticed several stores have a lot of broken product images.

For those that haven't been keeping up with the incremental releases (for shame!), there have been a few smaller changes this time around. Mostly it's all about bug fixes. Here's the lowdown on what's changed since 2.3:

changes in cpshop 2.4 (since 2.3)

• updated product image URLs
• added cpfilter_type support for negative type filtering (e.g. cpfilter_type:-100)
• added <[morecolors]> product thumbnail template tag to display "more colors available" graphic where necessary
• added cpshop.cgi.nocolors file to disable <[morecolors]> tag on a per-product basis
• added <[linksrc]> thumbnail template tag
• fixed many bugs (bad color swatch links; one product missing from each store; Windows server cpadmin bug; broken convert currency link; front and back bug)

how to upgrade

1. Unzip the contents of either cpshop2.4-Unix-update.zip or cpshop2.4-Win-update.zip (or the newest version available). Be sure you use the "update" zip file -- and NOT the "full" zip file -- to upgrade!
2. Upload the contents of the zip file to the cpshop directory on your server.
3. If you want to take advantage of output caching, create another subdirectory in your cpshop install folder called "cpoutput", and give it the same permissions as the cplogs, cpcache and cpbackup directories.
4. Test your store.

updated product image URLs

CafePress recently changed the URLs for their small product thumbnails, resulting in many broken cpshop images in some (but oddly not all) installations. I highly recommend you upgrade immediately for this reason alone.

If you've ever wanted to suppress a particular product type, this is how to do it. For example, to filter out Black Caps (product type 65), use: cpfilter_type:-65

You may have noticed the new "More Colors Available" graphic in your CafePress stores, which appears below product thumbnails for products with color options. You can add that image to cpshop with the <[morecolors]> thumbnail template tag.

Please be aware that the "More Colors Available" graphic will not appear in your store without this tag. Note also that just like CafePress, cpshop doesn't know when you're only offering one color on a multi-color product. However...

...you can tell cpshop to not display the "More Colors Available" graphic for certain products. Just create a file in your installation directory called cpshop.cgi.nocolors, and place a list of the products in the file.

<[linksrc]> - Used to render the link URL of the current thumbnail. Can be used instead of the <[linkstarts]> tag, which automatically places the link URL in an <a href="..."> tag.

the last word(s)

I've been taking a slightly different tact with changes recently. Instead of making lots of changes to cpshop, I've been working on changes at CafePress. So expect to see changes in the marketplace, the shopping cart and the checkout system, which will hopefully increase conversion and sales for everybody, not just cpshop users.

And remember -- if you make any sweeping changes to your cpshop store and want to show them off, email me the URL, and I can add it to my cpshop site list.

As always, let me know if you have any problems with this, either via or posting on the message board.

Regards, Marty