Opencart 4 Features
Opencart V4 Unravelled
Opencart 4 is a significantly different platform from Opencart 3.xx, under the hood at least. The reason that they may appear so similar is because Opencart 4 currently still has the same default “skin” (visual look) as Opencart 3. This is not ideal because it disguises the large amount of work that has gone into the new Opencart 4 version however the Opencart core team are working on a new OC 4 default theme so that will be coming in a future update.
Opencart 4 is still very early and for that reason and the fact we are professional Opencart Developers we are currently writing an Opencart 4 manual (not finished yet!) which will be a resource we add to over time to help people manage their Opencart 4 store.
Here are the key differences in terms of functionality with Opencart 4.
CK Editor is back in Opencart 4!
This is the Opencart 3 Summernote text editor, the image below it is the Opencart 4 CK editor. Only a small thing but old school Opencart users have always wanted Ck editor back (it was possible on V3 with a module install)
The trusty CK editor is back with the release of Opencart 4! Not seen since the early versions of the platform. The Summernote editor is no more!
Built in subscription system in OC4!
So now you can make products as subscription products using built in Opencart 4 features. The subscriptions can then be added to a product on the product data tabs.
New Alerts system in Admin Dashboard
Moving up to date Opencart 4 now has a cool alerts Bell icon in the top right of the admin panel. Here you will be alerted to various things like update availability etc
No more Radio Buttons in Admin Dashboard
No more old fashioned Radio buttons or Checkboxes that are hard to work with. The store settings are now also more organised compared to the previous versions, with a collapsible view helping to simplify the page as you are working with it.
Vs the Opencart 3 style buttons
New Extension installer
OC4 has a new extension installer page that works with its new structure.
New GDPR system
As mandated by European Union websites that operate inEU territory and/or do business with EU customers must take GDPR consent from those users, in addition to having specific popup notifications, data retention policies and data delete policies upon customer request. There are also other laws as well, for example: CCPA, CalOPPA and more.
Opencart 4 Update System
New to Opencart 4 is a core update system , similar to wordpress that allows you to update wordpress 4 core versions from your admin dashboard! This will work on totally standard stores with no extensions, but if things are changed from stock at all, then great caution should be used before you think of using this feature (eg at a minimum a full database and website backup prior to pressing the red button)
3rd Party Modules are now in their own directory structure.
3rd party modules are now out of the Opencart core folder. There is now a separate folder called “extension” that will contain all of your 3rd party modules. This is just one of the structural changes in OC4 to help streamline the framework.
New All in One Modules list.
Another change from OC3.xx is that all modules are now listed in one page which is a nice feature for admins.
New and upgraded Cron jobs
No longer do you have to add multiple Cron Job commands into Cron Job manager, just use one global command that executes at one minute intervals. All other 3rd party extensions cron jobs are now listed in Extensions > Cron Jobs as well . This is also useful when your hosting company doesn’t allow adding more than one Cron Job command.
Opencart Sites built by Industry Leaders
SEO Leaders Opencart Developers have over 10 years full time Opencart experience!
Because we are a leading SEO and Ecommerce agency, we combine both of these skill sets in every Opencart project to ensure you get maximum value from your new website. It will be built to meet all Google best practices and ‘ready to rank’ well in Google. We can also offer powerful SEO packages to compliment your new or existing Opencart website. More visitors = more sales!
Opencart 4 sidenotes
Opencart 4 is a very different product under the hood compared to previous lineages like OC 2 and 3. As a result moving a heavily custom store and/or large and complex store from an older Opencart version can be a lot of work. This is because no OC3 extensions will work out of the box ; and the database structure is quite different in some areas including different (new) tables, data fields etc.
At this current time very few extension providers have made their extensions available for Opencart 4. This is telling; if it was easy they would have all upgraded them…!!!!
Some of the larger extension coders have however made theirs available like the venerable Geekodev who we have worked with on numerous occasions and also supplied some code fixes for his All in one SEO pack to work with OC 4.
Apart from this though the vast majority of tried and tested extensions are not OC4 ready yet. This is further compounded by the fact that Opencart 3.X’s main problem was it would only work with an expired (for security updates etc) PHP version 8.0 .
Due to demand Opencart devs decided to extend 3.X likely indefinately by taking on the complex task of rewriting it to work with the latest PHP version 8.3 and onwards. This brings PHP support for some years meaning that OC 3 owners do not have any reason to upgrade unless they massively want to run OC4.
We can build you a store in OC4 or potentially upgrade your older store depending on what custom extensions and work has been done on it. Our advice to 2.x and 3.x owners though is to stay with the OC3.x lineage as it has a huge marketplace of extensions, is bulletproof and can be tuned to be just as good as OC4 with ease.