The Kartris News Feed

Kartris now featured on the MS Web App Gallery

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:35:47 +0400

Kartris has completed the approval process for the Microsoft Web App Gallery, and is now featured in the 'latest additions'. The MS web server IIS7, the MS Web Platform Installer and the new MS Web Matrix tool integrate with this gallery, making installing Kartris simpler than ever. Just select Kartris from the listed applications and follow the prompts to install Kartris on your machine ready for use.

The syndicated gallery is also widely used by web hosts, offering many users a way to install fully-functional apps quickly and without fiddling manually with code.

So from now on, you don't need to download Kartris directly from our web site, configure permissions, setup databases and fiddle with code. Just download one of the official Microsoft products if you don't have one already, and install directly from there. Of course, we'll continue to provide the latest downloads as a zip directly from our web site for those who prefer to do things the old-fashioned way.

Kartris-powered million-item site goes live

Sun, 9 May 2010 09:21:38 +0400

The new Miles Tools and Machinery Centre web site, powered by Kartris, features over one million items. Powerful relevance searching ensures that every single item is right at your fingertips, and extensive use of caching and optimization reduces load on the database and results in a snappy response time, even during busy periods.

Kartris site conversions and optimization

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:10:22 GMT

We have performed the first upgrade to Kartris from a site with existing data. The site was a monster in terms of the amount of product and customer data to upgrade - approximately 1 million product versions! This process allowed us to identify various modifications to the data tool, as well as optimize the Kartris code itself.

Kartris now supports full-text catalogues for front and back end searches. The Kartris front end search with full-text catalogues can easily find products in a couple of seconds, despite providing results sorted by keyword relevance - just like the search engines typically web users are familiar with.

We have also optimized paging and paging controls to deal with huge recordsets (such as tens of thousands of order records).

We are continuing to work on improving the data tool, and hope to release this publicly shortly.

Kartris adds 3 major new features

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:42:58 GMT

Kartris v1.0017b is to be released 2nd February 2010.

The fundamentals of Kartris are now sound and with the first live site now well bedded in, Kartris is ready to roll out to a wider audience. We've kept the 'beta' designation as we've added several major new features. So although the core is very stable and sound, these new features might still have a little tweaking in the next couple of releases.

First up is QuickBooks accounts integration. This is done via the QBWC (QuickBooks Web Connector), a free piece of software available from the QuickBooks web site, and a special web service built into Kartris. UK, US and Canadian versions of QB down to 2005 are supported. At present, discounts and coupons are still not supported. But most other elements of an order are. When configured and hooked up, QBWC can import new orders into your accounts as sales receipts, creating new customers if necessary too.

The other major new features are both support-related. These mirror features we've used successfully on our own CactuShop web site for many years - a knowledgebase and a support ticket system. The knowledgebase is a searchable repositry for specialized information; especially useful if you sell highly technical products, or frequently get asked certain technical questions about certain products. The ticket system is a web-based system for managing customer contact in a much more regulated and organized way than email. We expect it to be useful not just for those selling technical products, but also for sites that wish to organize 'returns' of items under warranty, or even ask sales related questions.

Further information about all the features is available in the new updated Kartris user guide on our web site.

The new Kartris data tool has also passed successful tests internally and should be released very soon.

With the Kartris code stable and the tools to upgrade data now tested, Kartris is fully ready as a solution for upgrading any CactuShop web site. We can provide a quote on upgrading sites to gain the benefits of the new features and SEO improvements, or you or your developer can download the free tools and work on the upgrade process yourself.

First Kartris-based site now live

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:31:11 GMT

The very first live store based on Kartris is now online at http://www.thetozo.com/. This is running the v1.0013b build and the PayPal IPN payment gateway. We're continuing working on minor improvements and there will no doubt be some minor bug fixes in our present informal weekly release schedule. But the site is running stable 'in the wild' and we're happy with the performance of it on what is a fairly typical shared hosting package.

If you are interested in using Kartris for a site, the present code is certainly ready. Any bug fixes should be relatively simple; in most cases it will just require uploading the newest kartris.DLL. Any minor database tweaks required can be achieved with an SQL script we produce to cover any changes.

The upcoming holidays should be a perfect chance to spend a bit of time looking over Kartris without the pressure of customer calls and incoming emails.

Kartris v1.0013 due shortly

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:54:46 GMT

We have been working hard on fixing bugs and issues with the Kartris code in order to get out the next public beta. In particular, we have found some shipping and browser-specific issues in the checkout which have taken a bit longer to figure out than we originally thought.

We're confident that we are getting close to the problem and that v1.0013 will be the first fully live install for a client.

We should also have more information added to the kartris web site shortly; we've already revamped the layout and restructured it slightly to run the demo and main site on separate sub domains.

We hope that a fully working and stable version will be available well before Christmas so those interested will be able to install and test it during the only time of the year when one seems to have plenty of spare time.

Kartris Beta testing on live site

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:18:56 GMT

Kartris has entered the final stage of beta testing as we work with a live site install for a real web store. The new v1.0009 release fixes a number of bugs and issues, particularly relating to options and combinations. It's been a very useful process to have the software live and to have a more extensive third party work out for our code. Once the new site is live, Kartris should be ready and stable for further customer installs - hopefully by the end of November.

Kartris Beta 1.0005b Released

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:57:11 GMT

The new Kartris beta has just rolled off the production line.

This version focuses on real-life deployment, with considerable reworking of various elements to ensure that it will run on typical ASP.net web hosting. In particular, most shared hosting runs as 'Medium Trust', with some additional features enabled (such as the ability to connect to remote web sites, which is essential for web services to work, as well as our news and update feeds).

We've also fixed a lot of stability bugs, including the issue of deleting or sorting product images causing the application to restart.

The Kartris installer has also been improved both in terms of appearance and functionality, which should make it simpler to set up this beta than it was prior ones.

Finally, non-western language support has been extended to the search. This requires full-text catalogues, but Kartris makes it simple to set this up (if your hosting supports it) from the back end.

Coming soon... Quickbooks integration

The Kartris first public beta is now available!

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 07:50:31 GMT

The first limited public beta of Cactusoft's new .net cart, Kartris, has been released.

As you have signed up to the pre-release news feed on the Kartris web site, you are one of the small first wave of testers to get access to the code.

The zip can be downloaded here:

http://www.kartris.com/downloads/Kartris_b10002.zip

The zip contains a brief PDF setup guide; most of the back end operation should be familiar to those with experience of CactuShop. The front end product data is rather limited, but does highlight the main Kartris features.

We will aim to produce weekly releases over the next month, based on feedback from our beta testers and our own internal testing. By the end of this period, the software should be stable and ready for use on live web sites. We will have some launch discounts on the full package exclusively for those who have beta tested the product.

We believe Kartris offers some significant improvements over the classic CactuShop cart:

- improved speed, performance and scalability
- improved SEO features
- improved product display and interface
- improved modular code design (plug in payment gateways, etc.)

Over the next few months beyond the launch we expect the feature set to develop rapidly. We have a load of new ideas that we've just been itching to implement but needed the new platform ready rather than working on the ageing CactuShop base. A datatool with many advantages over prior CactuShop ones will also be released in the next few weeks. Not only will it remember connection details (useful for daily updates) - it can also form a bridge between external applications and Kartris as it can be run with a command line.

Updated beta zips will always be announced first via this feed, so make sure you bookmark this or sign up to the Feedburner email update to ensure you get the latest code when it is available.

Kartris ASP.net shopping cart beta release

Thu, 21 May 2009 11:08:02 GMT

The Kartris beta will be released for download from www.kartris.com in the next few days. This release will be significantly faster that the previous alpha versions running as demos on the web site as most debug and logging code has been removed. We have also made various performance enhancements by eliminating many double-postback scenarios and providing direct links to each tab of large multiview pages.

The beta version includes support for SagePay Direct and Form payment methods as well as Google Checkout. Further payment methods will be integrated over time, with Kartris's modular gateway system requiring no code changes to the main code branch for such plug-ins. This opens up the possibility of payment gateway companies being able to create their own Kartris support packages if they have suitably skilled developers.

For using the Kartris backend, we would advise ensuring you are running an up-to-date browser such as IE7, Firefox 3, Google Chrome or Safari. In fact, IE8 should do a better job than IE7 owing to faster javascript and the ability to render full web standards. At present there are some minor issues with Opera which we are looking into, though the vast majority of the functionality works. The HTMLeditor is also proving a little problematic though we expect to get those problems sorted if not in the first beta, then in a second soon after.

Kartris - image handling

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:38:39 GMT

The .net platform contains many built in features that the older ASP incarnations lacked. Functionality that was previously only available via COM objects, is now available without any extra software being installed.

This means that Kartris can include image shrinking 'out of the box', with no requirement that your host has extra software installed.

You no longer need to produce thumbnails yourself and upload both a large and thumbnail image. Instead just upload a large view, and Kartris will create the thumbnail in real time where required on the site. These thumbnails, once generated, are cached for performance, so the shrinking process does not need to be repeated for each user who views the product.

One other major improvement to image handling in Kartris, is that you can now have unlimited product images. Where more than one image is uploaded, a gallery of thumbnails will automatically be displayed on the product page, and the large image preview.

A final notable improvement to images is that the large view is now done within the same page using a modal popup effect. This means it is not a separate page within the browser, and as such will not be affected by popup blockers, or be poorly formatted due to some browsers set to handle all pages in tabs.

Promotions can now have their own thumbnail image too - ideal for buy one get one and similar offers where you may want to show both items, or use a special 'promotion' image.

We've recently updated our online demo; some of the images appear with black backgrounds. This is due to the nature of our test data where many images are coded as invisible gifs. We will be updating our demo data soon to improve the quality of the test data which has become rather splintered during testing and development.

Kartris beta programme

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:09:49 GMT

Kartris, the new ASP.net ecommerce shopping cart application from Cactusoft, is now in the final stages of development and testing. We will shortly be making beta versions of the software available along with time-limited but fully-functional licenses.

Users of CactuShop will find some of the Kartris layout and structure familiar, but under the hood Kartris has been built completely from the ground up. A DAL (data access layer) and BLL (business logic layer) sits on top of an MSSQL database, with all operations performed by stored procedures, making the system fast and powerful but more importantly, immune to the most common web application vulnerabilities (SQL injection).

The interface relies heavily on the latest web 2.0 'AJAX' enhancements, and the skin system uses the built in master pages and themes functionality of .net so experienced developers should feel right at home.

Over the next few weeks we will be outlining more of the features of the new package; to keep up with the latest information, please subscribe to our RSS feed or the Feedburner RSS-to-Email version (if you prefer to receive email updates).