Thread: ML 8.1 Released today

ML 8.1 is formally released today, September 14th.

In order to access this release, you must purchase Update Rights before September 18th. This release will not be available through any other alternative route at any future time. It is provided free of charge when you have update rights and will be visible from the license-management portal.

Release notes, as always, are available for the launch, and upgrade notes will walk users through the migration path.

This release confirms our committment to 3 issues:

• The continued support and onwards development of ML8
• Our diligence over configuration management, from where we derive our unwillingness to "patch" older versions
• Our long-term focus on ever-improving security for shopper and seller alike

I hate to say it, but the release notes make this look very underwhelming to require a support subscription after you originally said you were killing all existing support contracts when you bought the company. *yawn*

I've been sitting back since vortx took over, and NOW its come apparent that they are not intereserted in retaining there customers, instead they haved stripped things out of adnsf, then created mod's such as "mobile" "one page check out" and "google feed" all of these where to work out of the box, but they had bugs, so we had to purchase mod's so it would work! thats not what we where to get when we bought the orginal product! I've since decided that i would try the NEW GOOGLE FEED, sorry but that was a "Joke" it still does provide any support for "Variants", and now on the ML 8.1 upgrade there is NO "Auth.net" gateway! and now you have removed the google feed. why would anybody want to UPGRADE? on a side note about "vortex" When you want or need "vortex" to do installation or customization it seems as though they will do it only when they are "SLOW" as there reply was "we are not taking on any more projects right now" as a business owner myself, when you get busy you hire more people, so you can keep up and not turn down work, its kind of hard to rely on a company that picks and chooses, when they want work.
I would like to see what other people's thoughts are on this!

How can something be Free of Charge if you have to pay for it?

Originally Posted by waterboy

now on the ML 8.1 upgrade there is NO "Auth.net" gateway!

Not that I disagree with much of what you say, but where do you see that they removed auth.net gateway? That would make this product useless

I don't see any mention of Auth.net in the release notes.

Remember that Update Rights don't just apply to 8.1 - if you get them before the deadline (Sunday) you will be able to continue upgrading to whatever version you want to for the next year, including MultiStore 9.2 and any other future releases. That's what "free of charge" means in this case.

Update Rights are not the same as the old support contracts. We will continue to provide free support. Update Rights are only about upgrading to later versions of the cart.

We were forced to stop supporting the Google Product Feed feature because the constant changes from Google make it impossible to support with core code. You can read about the new subscription-based feed console here: http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/t-dotfeed.aspx

We have not removed Authorize.net as a payment gateway.

does the feed upload all product variants or only the product default variant?

DotFeed uploads all variants and all sizes and colors of each variant.

not TRUE, according to support, here is what support told me:

"Variants aren't included because Google doesn't know anything about a variant. All they support are 'full' products. The only way to add variants to the feed would be to list each as a whole product, which would end up with multiple products pointing at the same URL, images, etc, and Google would skip the 'duplicates'."

WHICH I FIND HARD TO BELEIVE, that my 2 cents!

Google has added support for variants since the older feed was created, and in fact is expanding what they can do as part of the new requirements for the 22nd. What Google calls variants is a little different than the things we call variants, but in the end we can use it for essentially the same thing.

To use Apparel as an example, any variation in gender, age group, size, color, material, etc is a variant. If you have a shirt that you sell in 4 sizes and 5 colors, that'll end up submitted as 20 different products. They're tied together by what Google calls the 'group ID' - as long as those 20 products are all under the same group ID, they're allowed to point to the same page, use the same image, etc.

The new dotfeed service will use those group IDs to support variants, as well as sizes, colors, etc.

Full feed spec
Changes for the 22nd

Hey Scott,
So can I still use the "products -> feeds" feature in the new 8.1.0.0 version? We have built many custom feeds that integrate with shopping engines besides just Google. We'd like to upgrade but this may present a glitch. Please let me know when you have a chance.

Thanks,
- Andrew

Yup, other feeds run through there will run fine. The old Google feed will still 'run' for that matter, Google just won't accept what it sends as it doesn't supply all the new stuff they're looking for.