Retail eCommerce market is booming and growth of tech savvy population promises to keep alive this sector’s growth pace. Many retailers,with a hope to make more money, develop their eCommerce stores without research. However, many of these approaches are not successful enough.
If you are maintaining an eCommerce shop, it is essential that you provide users a comfortable and enjoyable experience. A key factor determining success is whether the developed virtual store has the potential to attract and engage customers.
There are many open source software that enables to design and develop an eCommerce platform. However, designers mostly prefer Magento to design an online store over others as it is easy to implement and upgrade. Prior to Magento development, Open Source (OS) Commerce helps designers to develop these online shopping sites.
However, this OS Commerce lacks a framework for plugins and extensions which paved the path for Magento. It is a feature rich platform, and it is expected that retailers will find everything required for their virtual storefronts. Technology is continually evolving; hence, up-gradation of this platform is essential. Although, the existing Magento platform can run fast and offers a stack of features, the Magento team has also realised the need to upgrade existing version. Therefore, they are working on Magento 2.0 with a hope to create even better and user friendly platform.
In April 2012, the Magento team showed, in Magento Imagine conference in Las Vegas, a demonstration of their Magento 2.0 version. On 31st October of the same year the team called a conference for developers where they specifically state information regarding Magento 2.0.
An overview of Magento 2.0
Much is not known about this Magento 2.0 platform since it is absolutely new. It is for sure that the features and architecture of this new platform will be entirely different from the Magento 1.x series. One major change that is noticed with Magento 2.0 is that the development version is available on github. This enables the Magento community to contribute in the development process. They can request to add a feature or remove one accessing the main github repository.
Another major and interesting feature of this new Magento version is the” Visual Design Editor”, which enables to simply drag-and-drop blocks of texts or images on pages. If it is implemented properly, a developer can design layouts much faster compared to writing XML codes.
In addition to this new introduction, there are changes in core technologies and functionalities that will support modern web development.
Change in file structure
The file structure is changing considerably in the current release of Magento. The base theme no longer exists. All base views are shifted inside the module structure. The purpose behind such a change is to provide a better and clear view structure and at the same time encourage developers to rule out views that they need for their customised themes.
Functional changes
The new version of Magento allows managing design packages and themes through the database. It is also become easier for developers to control and edit email content as email templates are no longer related to locale.
Removal of some modules and components
The old payments methods and compiler are replaced with new and advanced payment options. The new release slims down 20% of the config.xml file. It becomes much simpler for developers to provide a customised solution and that too within a short span of time. The new structure of module directory will enable faster and logical development of the platform infrastructure.
New concept of containers
A developer can add the “container” to layout option. These containers are part of the visual design editor and will allow moving blocks around. A container can contain other containers and blocks.
Elimination of skin
The skin is removed from Magento 2.0, instead it uses themes. It results in file systems that are conceptually simple and clear to understand. Developers can better control these themes.
Migration to jQuery
jQuery is most popular in the Java Script library with numerous extensions and support that are widely used today. Since this technology has become an industry standard such an addition will help developers to be innovative with their web development approach.
Changes in web applications
Magento 2.0 relies on Representational State Transfer (REST) Application Programme Interface (API) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) with Wireless Services Integration (WSI). This increased coverage will allow better combination for systems connecting to Magento through web applications.
Auto generated granular Web Service Description Language (WSDL) make web application performances better.
Improved framework
Magento 2.0 will use Zend Framework 2 for managing performances of cache engine, database access layer and translations.
What facilities users can expect?
There are several improvements in terms of User Experience and User Interface which help store owners to easily manage their products and tax rates. The menu system and navigation are modified and users can log into the system and update products pretty much quicker than before.
How to migrate to Magento 2.0?
If you think of migrating to Magento 2.0, perform Magento code audit. This will help to determine which functionalities will not work if you shift to Magento 2.0. This renewed version is completely different from its predecessor and therefore it is possible that you have to develop the site from scratch.
Magento team is working on a migration tool that will convert data and code from Magento 1.x to 2.0. It will not work for every system.
Why you will upgrade to Magento 2.0?
Technical and functional changes will provide better user experience and make the development process far easier. Apart from that one can expect
- Improvement in performance and scalability
- Enhanced product security
- Simple processes and transparency
- Increased support for multiple languages
- Easy way of customisation
- Improvements of codes that will increase performance efficiency
- Better optimised database access for the system
Magento 2.0 will be a fantastic experience for web developers and designers. The present version of Magento provides users and visitors amazing features, but this new release seems to be more impressive with all its improvements. It is expected that web developers will work on these changes and explore new avenues to better utilise these features.