What Is PrestaShop?
PrestaShop is an open-source E-Commerce platform that allows its users to launch their e-commerce stores according to their preferences. It is a free & open source platform. It is quite a popular e-commerce platform along with Woocommerce & Magento, in the league of self-hosted e-commerce platforms.
PrestaShop Versioning
The PrestaShop development team keeps upgrading the software to include more features, upgrade the current features, address security flaws, and upgrade the system architecture for better performance and ease of use. The currently running version of Prestashop is 1.7.8. This version was released on the 25th of July, 2022. A new version of 8.0 of the Prestashop is coming up with brand-new features and upgrades. In the following paragraphs, we are going to discuss the features of this upcoming version.
PrestaShop 8.0 version: Why Is It Better?
Why has the world of developers or techs been waiting for this PrestaShop 8.0 version lately? Well, the answer to this question is the features that make it stand out from the previous versions of PrestaShop.
We have categorized all the features so that it will be helpful for you to understand. Here are the categorized core features of PrestaShop that make it perfect for use:
Upgraded Security
Security is the primary focus for every entrepreneur, whether they own a small company or a big firm. And when it comes to securing an online platform, many factors should be up to date so the safety of data will be ensured. Team PrestaShop has upgraded many features of the 8.0 version to enhance security and user engagement with the platform. They are:
Security page: This version has brought a new security page with two new features, including:
- Configuring your shop password policy
- Managing your customer and employee sessions
Strength Indicator Of Password: Customers can check out the strength of their password while setting it up with the help of a color-coded indicator.
Module Development
As you know, the popularity of a brand depends upon various aspects, whether the company is new or old. And an online appearance or presentation of the brand is considered essential in all aspects. By keeping this in mind, team PrestaShop has made multiple changes and upgrades in module developments so that the brands can get exactly the platform they want. Here is the list of the module updations that make this version outstanding:
Image formats: You can save your uploaded images in the modern WebP format that offers you better compression than JPEG and PNG for the same image quality.
Product page: This feature is in its experimental phase. It is an improved version of the back-office product page introduced in PrestaShop 1.7.8. They have reorganized the page and improved the combination management. Also, they have worked on the bulk edition to enhance them.
Multistore: Team PrestaShop has updated this version for multistore compatibility. It allows the merchants to choose the field that needs to be updated and when they can modernize it in a shop or group context.
Installer: This installer feature will help you reduce clutter while the shop’s installation process. It will help you:
- Customize your distribution
- Locate the issues while installing
- And help you to expand the installation process according to your requirements
Webservice: Before this feature was updated, the whole web pages of the platform would be updated even if the user wanted to integrate a part of the website. But with the help of this feature, the user can integrate a single webpage without affecting other fields.
Media versioning: This feature allows the developers to prevent outdated javascript and stylesheet files that can be loaded from the browser’s cache.
Marketing?
Marketing plays a vital role in enhancing the value of a brand. That is why PrestaShop professionals have updated the marketing modules in the 8.0 version that were unable to in PrestaShop 1.7.0. Here are the modules that they covered in the new version:
Better Email marketing: Did you ever have to face the issue that you sent an email to your client but it was marked as spam and you lost a great deal? If yes, then this DomainKeys Identified Mail or DKIM signature feature will help your shop’s emails from being marked as spam.
Search Engine Optimization: With version 8.0, you can:
- Add additional descriptions for product categories
- Prevent the Search Engine crawlers from indexing discontinued products
- Get content length suggestions for SEO purposes
- And more.
Neutrally Open Source Management: PrestaShop 8.0 version will help the business to work neutrally. Because now you don’t have to buy Addons in the package or bundle with this version. Still, you can buy them separately if you are willing to, Which means your project will be mostly free or less costly.
What Is New For Developers?
CLI: CLI or command-line interface feature will allow you to set up the shop’s configuration values and debug mode from the server’s terminal, automate your configuration via scripts, fix a misconfiguration if the web interface is unavailable, and more.
Partial updates in ObjectModel: PrestaShop’s professionals have updated a prior feature, which was buggy and unstable. With the help of this feature, the developers can partially update the ObjectModel entities.
PHP 8 and PHP 8.1 compatibility: This version will need at least PHP 7.2 to set the compatibility. As you know, each new programming language comes up with improvements in performance and security. That is why we suggest you go for PHP 8 and PHP 8.1 programming languages for better compatibility.
Symfony and library upgrade: Team PrestaShop has upgraded this PrestaShop 8.0 to Symfony 4.4 LTS (Long Term Support) version. Team Symfony will support it until November 2023.
Key Take aways for Merchants
- 1 click upgrade will not work (as of this date). You will need developer support to upgrade to the latest version. Find more information on the PrestaShop upgrade here
- The themes will not be affected by this upgrade. All the previous themes will keep working
- Some modules may need upgrades to keep functioning. However, most of the modules should be working on version 8 of PrestaShop.
- You may have to contact your hosting company to upgrade the PHP to PHP 8 to take maximum benefit of this version.
Conclusion
If you are still up for its previous version, you can use it for one year. After that, you will need to update it with PrestaShop 8.0 version. But we recommend that don’t wait for a year to update your platform to the 8.0 version and get the benefits of the latest features.
Download the latest version of the PrestaShop here:
To know more about the latest release click here
In case you need help in upgrading the PrestaShop website to the latest version, you can get in touch with us, we have been providing PrestaShop development and maintenance services to clients all over the world for 8+ years.
October 25, 2024
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