Somehow, today, I started experimenting with integrating zen cart admin pages into the new ZenMagick admin UI.
While the master plan is to re-implement all required features rather than reuse, it would still be nice to have a complete interface without having to switch back and forth.
Instead of trying to describe what it looks like, check for yourself:
I am very happy (and also rather tired) to finally having released ZenMagick 0.9.10.
The main focus for this release has been to get the new admin UI up and running. RubikIntegration have been generous with help on the design and part of the implementation and I’d like to say ‘Thank you’ for that.
Of course that is not all, but instead of repeating things over and over again, just a couple useful links:
Other than that there isn’t a lot to add, except for a link to the ZenMagick 0.9.11 roadmap. It’s already filled with all sorts of things. It will be interesting to see what we can mange to get done. If there is anything missing let me know.
mano
I just realized that it is time for my weekly update, so here it is.
Not much happening in the last 7 days. Lots of cleanup, helping out with a couple sites, fixing a few things, re-shuffling of roadmaps and some last minute changes. Things are down to three items on my todo list; I am afraid the remaining items on the 0.9.10 roadmap will most likely move forward to 0.9.11. [Incidentally, that is where most of the left-over items of the dev/admin todo list ended up 
]
So, there are three things left, plus some minor tweaking of the full release install pages:
I’ve added some steps to the build process that allow to enable/disable locale for a release build, so, seeing that the German translation is not yet ready the admin UI will most likely ship with en_NZ only.
A mixed week with some good results, too!
Testing is progressing, unfortunately it also uncovered a few things that need fixing first :/ On the plus side I’ve upgraded useo2 to the latest version and there is even a script that can patch the code so it runs in the new admin.
Most of the required changes are using ZMDatabase rather $db and a couple other things, for example support for the category urls.
I am also very close to getting a couple sites upgrade to the latest 0.9.9+, or, better 0.9.10RC. It will be good to get some real usage to see how good the code really is :0
Apart from that there are a few improvements that now allow to cache individual template files. For example, each sidebox can now be cached or not. The current caching code itself is rather simple, but it should be easy to make it as complex as required.
This is now enabled as default, as is support for PHP short tags. That is done as a custom filter that will change all <?= or <%= to proper <?php echo syntax.
Again, this is just to get some mileage, I do not expect that a lot of people will be using this initially.
Category caching now works properly, so even a couple thousand categories won’t slow things down too much on the storefront side. The backend/admin will need a bit more time. Again, template caching will make things a lot easier in those cases.
I’ve added a new APC based cache implementation. It does cache things, clearing the cache is still a bit buggy, but if you are keen you can always use the APC admin interface to clear the cache.
The cache admin page now properly shows all used caches and groups. I hope that will make it a lot more useful 
Outstanding here is some sort of central caching config for each cache type. This will be possible either with smarter settings or the still unused context code.
As it turned out, .po and .pot file generation based on the current string scraper code wasn’t too hard. In fact, the hardest bit was perhaps to validate the created files.
It’s not so easy to find usable gettext binaries for Windows.. I ended up using a package from CubicWeb. It does crash, but only after having done the bits I want it to do
So, now there is a new translation project ZenMagick with a component admin UI on trasiflex. So far I’ve created a (default) en_NZ and de_DE locale. Since ZenMagick uses default strings in the code the default locale is at a 100% – yay. German is at 0% :[
If you are keen to work on a different language, let me know and I’ll add it to the repository.
I should add that the code is still using the .yaml files that are also located in the locale folders. As long as there isn’t a useful translation I can’t really see any reason to switch yet.
The last week I have been mostly busy with four things:
Apart from that I have continued looking into planning some proper translations for the admin UI. I have most of the work done to export strings as .po(t), so hopefully it is now mostly a matter of finding the right place to manage translations in an accessible way.
I’ve started a German translation of the admin UI that will be included ni the next release. It has become quite obvious that I am not a great translator. In fact, the german translation sounds a lot mor wodden and artifical to me than the english original. Go figure…
Anyway, it’s a start. Right now the strings are in a .yaml file, but in the long run I’d love to move to a web based translation tool and also move to the gettext based pomo code. If anyone is interested in helping with translations let me know.
In any case it will be good to have a second language to test switching and making sure all strings are covered.
Well, looking at the new snapshot I uploaded two days ago it should be easy for anyone interested to judge for themselfs
Having said that, since then I haven’t been idle. The catalog tree now actually reflects the category selected, editors are improved, the version check widget does some proper version comparison and a few funny things have been fixed.
Testing will start in earnest now and I expect the next snapshot really to be of RC quality.
Also, there is ongoing work on the website. I’ve started updating the wiki roadmap pages and even already created a new one for 0.9.11!
If you have any interest in a new shiny ZenMagick (and therefore Zen Cart) admin UI, now is the time to come aboard – any input is welcome and since I have no preference for what to implement next this could be your chance to decide what to implement next!
Time for another update, although if you are following ZenMagick development chances are that you’ve seen most of what I am going to write about already.
The most notable thing that happened in the last week surely was the website refresh. It’s been a long time coming and I kind of had given up on it. So it is even more satisfying to see it now in action.
I am currently going through all the spelling mistakes that get found and I will also try to add things as I notice them missing.
Related changes happened on the wiki and forum with new favicons and logos finally making their way online. In particular the forum will need some more work to get the header look a bit nicer. I generally don’t mind blue, but that is perhaps a bit too much.
Another thing is, of course, the ongoing work on the admin UI. rubikintegration have done a great job so far, despite that fact that I have ignored a big chunk of the HTML/CSS they have produced. OTHO, I think I’ve gone a bit further with the dashboard than was originally planned.
In fact, things are still moving. I just updated the screenshots to show the recent changes. The dashboard now supports 4 different layouts – symmetric 2 columns, unbalanced 2 columns (small column left or right) and 3 column.
The screenshot on the website shows the unbalanced 2 column with the small column on the left.
BTW: If anyone knows some good icons that could be used to select any of those layouts I’d love to get them
I guess the next step would be to add more widgets – any suggestions welcome. Update check, etc are planned for somewhere around the second next release, so that might be an idea.
It is also worth pointing out that dashboard widgets are just simple classes implementing an interface, so every plugin could add to that list too!
Admin standalone releases are now part of the build process, so that is something to look out for. New snapshots should be out soon.
Another milestone was to integrate pomo – the PHP gettext implementation also used by WordPress – into ZenMagick.
The default behaviour is to load language strings from .yaml files (everything most things are YAML in ZenMagick these days). However, a simple setting change and .mo files will be used.
So, the list of things to do is getting shorter, which means the next release is finally approaching.
Just a heads up that as of 0.9.10 it will be possible to show off the admin UI in a demo mode just like Zen Cart. I’ve added code to all relevant places, so demo users shouldn’t be able to do anything harmful.
