Hey there!

We are proud to announce the release of the biggest Squirrelcart update ever. Seriously. Here's the low-down on this hoedown...

Themes Redesigned from Scratch

We rewrote the code controlling themes, along with their corresponding templates and CSS files; to achieve the following:

• More control over the appearance of the storefront via better structured CSS
• Valid, symantic XHTML 1.0 transitional markup
• Valid CSS 2.1 stylesheets
• Main storefront page and storefront home page are now templates, allowing you to completely change the look of your store by changing themes
• Navigation and store's home page content can now be customized on a per theme basis which was not possible in older versions
• Improved storefront performance. We achieved this by replacing all in-page CSS and Javascript with external files that are now delivered via compression when possible. This allows pages to load faster from cache, and improves search engine optimization by not cluttering up your store with code that spiders don't care about.
• Built-in support for the Unit PNG Fix script, which fixes broken PNG support in IE 6, allowing you to use alpha transparent PNG files without worrying about them breaking in your grandmother's browser.
• You can now create theme variants, to provide a theme in different colors and optimized for certain browser resolutions
• The default Squirrelcart theme now includes 12 color variants and 3 width variants (800px, 1024px, and fluid) for a total of 36 different combinations.
• We've consolidate many templates, reducing the total number of templates - making them easier to locate for modification.

Themes for Sale

We are happy to announce that we will be selling themes, starting with our new Main Street theme.

• Set your default theme to one of 9 color variants: blue, brown, green, light blue, orange, pink, purple, red, & yellow
• Optionally allow your customers to change their theme to any other color variant. (Customer theme selection can be disabled if desired)
• Includes Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fireworks source files
• Valid XHTML 1.0 transitional
• Valid CSS 2.1
• Tested in all major browsers - Firefox 2+, IE 6+, Safari 2.1+, Opera, Chrome
• Button images change on mouseover
• A fixed width layout designed to look best at resolutions 1024 pixels or wider
• Easily change the logo to your own using the Themes > Images section of Squirrelcart's control panel
• Easily change wording of welcome message via a Content record in Squirrelcart's control panel
• Requires Squirrelcart v3 or newer

CMS Functionality

For those of you dwelling in a cave for the past 10 years or so (Yabba Dabba Doo!), CMS stands for Content Management System. Squirrelcart has always had some features that could be considered CMS-like. With version 3.0.0 we've taken that even further.

• Full blown CMS functionality, which allows you to create your own content, links, and even your own pages.
• Control home page content, navigation blocks, create your own links to built-in pages OR to custom URLs
• Easily edit HTML fields without knowing HTML using the new built-in, cross browser compatible rich text editor (courtesy of FCKEditor.net).
  
  

More Bells & Whistles

• Customizable tooltips for products, categories, and any other links you want to add them to.
• Added a Categories per Row setting to show categories in columns.
• You can now change labels on account and address form fields easily via control panel
• Entire checkout process has been rewritten, removing 2 clicks from the checkout process
• More noticeable user msgs (warnings, info, prompts, etc....)

• Discount badge feature - automatically calculates discount percentage and shows corresponding badge for product thumbnail and detail images.
• Customize out of stock msgs for individual products
• Improved image manager - you can now upload from the image manager, create new folders, and sort

• Built-in support for Slimbox (a lightweight clone of Lightbox), to display large images in a less obtrusive manner:
  
  

Checkout by Amazon

We've added support for Checkout by Amazon, rounding out our support for Amazon Payments which goes a little something like this...

Amazon Payments Business Solutions

Amazon Payments offers a set of payment and checkout solutions that enables tens of millions of Amazon customers to complete purchases on your website using the same information in their Amazon.com accounts.

Checkout by Amazon^TM is a complete e-commerce checkout solution that provides your customers with the same secure and trusted checkout experience available on Amazon.com today. It offers unique features including Amazon's 1-Click® and tools for businesses to manage shipping charges, sales tax, promotions, and post-sale activities including refunds, cancellations, and chargebacks. Learn more

Amazon Simple Pay^TM is a set of payment-only products that allow your customers to use payment information from their Amazon.com accounts as a payment method on your website. If you don't need Amazon's end-to-end checkout pipeline, but still want to enable your customers to use their payment information already on file at Amazon, use Amazon Simple Pay. Learn more

Much, Much More!

There are just too many additions to list here. Head over to our version history page for a full list of all the changes. I'd recommend printing the entire page if you need some good bathroom reading.

How to get it

Squirrelcart v3.0.0 is now available for download on our Downloads page, to all customers with active download access.

You can check your download access status here.

Has your download access expired? You can renew it for an entire year for $65 USD by purchasing a Download Renewal.