OXID Community Newsletter (2)

Welcome to the second issue of the OXID Community Newsletter. We've released a new version of the eShop as well as a security hotfix. To encourage coders, information on module development has been published. To support end-users, we now also offer service plans for the Community Edition. OXID won the Open Source Business Award (OSBA) in January and EDEKA24 online shops are now powered by our eCommerce engine!

OXID Wins Open Source Business Award
OXID was awarded the first prize in the Open Source Business Award 2009! For everybody at OXID working so hard to realize OXID's ambitious plans in eCommerce solutions, software development and its new Open Source strategy, this certainly is the ultimate compliment, and we are all very proud and honored. To date, many online and offline reviews have been published on the award ceremony and the winners. We'd like to thank everyone for making this possible, especially all members of our community, because Open Source is a completely new way of developing. Our community's valuable feedback, support and enthusiasm are truly appreciated by all of us.

Security Hotfix Prevents Unauthorized Administrative Access
As part of our regular security audit, we've identified a security issue where a specially crafted parameter could lead to unauthorized administrative access to the shop backend. This issue exists in all versions and editions up to 4.0.1.0_15990 on all platforms, however has been fixed in the upcoming version 4.1.0.0. For current versions, a security hotfix is available. Although no exploits are known as of today, we urge all users to install this hotfix as soon as possible! For details, please refer to our official security bulletin.

Roadmap for 4.1.0.0 Revealed
We're happy to inform you about some exciting new features that will be included in the upcoming version 4.1.0.0 of OXID eShop, such as UTF-8 support, data import from XTC and osCommerce, and more. We expect version 4.1.0.0 to be released within a few weeks. There's a blog post with more details on the upcoming 4.1.0.0 release.

How to Develop Modules - An Inside View
The well designed OXID eShop API allows you to code your own module. For those of you who have always been interested in extending OXID eShop, but didn't know where to start, we now offer a step-by-step getting started guide to assist you. In the future, we plan to have more tutorials available for beginners as well as for advanced users.

EDEKA24 and EWORLD24 Migrate to OXID eShop
The EDEKA Group is one of the largest German supermarket corporations, currently holding a market share of 26%. OXID eSales is listed as a partner of EDEKA on EDEKA24 and EWORLD24 as both shopping platforms now run on OXID eShop. Whereas EDEKA24 is the platform to do your everyday shopping for groceries, drugstore goods and housewares online, EWORLD24 is the place to shop for fine food, wine, champagne and spirits, and other complimenting presents like crystal glasses and books. More details are available in the blog post about the EDEKA references.

Need Help? Service Plan Offerings Now Also for Community Edition
Do you run OXID Community Edition and need some assistance? Want someone to setup the shop on your server, help you with creating your own template or giving you a training on how to maintain articles? If our FAQ and forums don't provide the answers you are looking for, or if you want guaranteed response times and someone you can call, have a look at our new service plan offerings for the Community Edition.

The Personal Touch: Customizing Your Shop Templates
OXID eShop comes with default templates to have your shop up and running within minutes. Sooner or later however, you surely want to have your corporate design applied to the cart, giving users the best experience possible. The good news: You don't need to be a developer to create an individual template. Using the well-known, Open Source Smarty template engine, you can easily modify the existing design or create a new one. For your convenience, we've published an overview of all relevant files, divided into dynamic and static content. For a reference, please also see the official Smarty documentation.