Meet CS-Cart 4.18.1 with a revamped admin panel and an upgraded PayPal Checkout experience

Revamped Admin Panel

We’re thrilled to introduce the changes made in the admin panel. The last time we updated its appearance was back in 2018, in version 4.8.1. The changes back then weren’t big: we made the admin panel responsive and refreshed its look. This time the changes are bigger, and there are more to come. 

In CS-Cart 4.18.1, we reworked the overall look and feel of the admin panel, changed the navigation, and added some new features for the product list.. In future versions of CS-Cart, we plan to systematically revamp each page. This way, we can gradually enhance the interface, gather feedback, and roll out the improvements as soon as they’re ready.

What has changed:

• The style is more modern and streamlined.
• The product list now has new search filters, They may eventually replace the “Advanced Search” pop-up.
• The menu is now in the left sidebar. Many items have been relocated to the “Settings” section in the lower-left corner.

Enhanced PayPal Checkout

CS-Cart has had many PayPal payment solutions over the years. Some of them got marked as “Legacy” by PayPal in favor of newer solutions. These deprecated solutions still remain in CS-Cart, as part of the PayPal Legacy Payments add-on. It allows you to accept payments via PayPal Express Checkout, PayPal Pro, PayPal Advanced, and Payflow Pro. 

However, we recommend PayPal Checkout instead. It is an up-to-date integration that has everything you might need for your CS-Cart Store Builder, much like PayPal Commerce Platform for a CS-Cart Multi-Vendor. 

What has changed:

• We’ve added alternative payment methods like Venmo, PayPal PayLater, giropay and many more. The payment methods that your customers will see will depend on your location and currency, as well as that of your customers. For example, Venmo works in the United States and requires the Venmo app. 
• You can now customize the style and color of payment buttons which appear on the checkout page. 

Improved Warehouses and Common Products

The  “Common Products for Vendors” and “Warehouses” add-ons contribute their own inventory management logic. “Common Products for Vendors” handle the availability of product offers from various sellers, while the “Warehouses” add-on checks the available quantity of a product based on a customer’s location.

Previously, these add-ons didn’t work very well together, causing issues such as this:

A common product is unavailable for the customer’s location, but it is displayed on the storefront as “In stock”, without the “Add to cart” button.

In CS-Cart 4.18.1, we analyzed the interaction between the add-ons and resolved their incompatibility. Common products are now displayed on the storefront based on the availability of product offers in the customer’s rate area (it is set through Warehouses and rate areas in CS-Cart). 

Increased Performance of Product Variations

Variations are products that are mostly similar to each other, but that differ in color, size, or some other feature. Previously the add-on had performance issues when the “Show all possible feature variants” setting was enabled. We have improved performance, and  now the product page loads faster, even with a high number of variations.

Additionally, we resolved an issue where the variation creation pop-up wouldn’t open if there were too many possible variations. Now, even with a large number of variations, you can still create them, but no editing is possible. It would be inconvenient to edit hundreds of variations manually in a pop-up. 

Several Storefront Issues Fixed

• Now, the current storefront is highlighted correctly in the storefront switcher on the layout page.
• The selected storefront remains unchanged after saving changes on the page. Clicking on the storefront in the bottom panel opens the currently selected storefront.
• Switching from the storefront to the admin panel while being on the product page now leads to the product editing page (as intended) rather than to the admin panel homepage.

SagePay Updated and Renamed to Opayo

For years, CS-Cart has provided SagePay as one of the built-in payment options. A while ago, SagePay was acquired by Elavon and renamed to Opayo. There have also been some technical changes on the Opayo side, which required an update on our end. CS-Cart 4.18.1 renames SagePay to Opayo and ensures that the payment method will continue working as before.

Ability to Limit File Size for Uploaded Images

You can now limit the file size for uploaded images. This can help you save up drive space and improve performance. To find the new setting called “Image file size”, go to Settings > General and switch to the Thumbnails tab. When someone tries to upload an image larger than the specified limit, they’ll receive a notification about exceeding it. 

This feature is especially useful for marketplaces, because not all sellers pay attention to image size. It also comes in handy for single-seller stores which have multiple admins and/or content managers.