One of the biggest improvements to this script is a rewrite to completely eliminate all SQL being executed each time you reloaded a page. That makes for less strain on your servers, and therefore a faster, more reliable website for your users and customers.

In addition, we’ve added a My Account page where users can edit their password and personal information.

Plus, a highly requested feature was email activation upon signup. We’ve added this one as well ; new users now have to confirm their registration via email before they’re allowed to view any of your pages.

A few minor additions as well, such as auto-login on signup and admin panel added to navigation for Admins only.Various other fixes and additions are included, checkout the changelog at the bottom of our item details page for all the technical details!

PHP Event Calendar

No longer is out-dated jQuery plugins or core included with this script. The jQuery plugins bundled with the calendar have been updated to their bleeding-latest versions. The “No, back” button while creating and submitting an event is now fixed as well; it will save your details when you want to change your mind about the new event before submission. More fixes can be found in the changelog.

HTML5 AJAX Contact Form – v1.5

This script is now 100% completely valid HTML5 . We’ve also implemented the jQuery shake effect to be configurable. You can now turn it off or no (default is off) by following the instructions in the readme. Further technical changes can be found in the changelog.

AJAX Contact Form v1.3 + Extended v1.5

Both the AJAX Contact Form and AJAX Contact Form; Extended are now updated to follow xHTML 1.0 standards. You can check the validation for both the AJAX Content Form and AJAX Content Form; Extended.

PHP Simple Contact Form – v2.1

Removed all outdated code to make certain it will work on modern-day servers ! We’ve also added error-mail checking so you can test the form out and make sure it sends emails before rolling it to production.

AJAX Contact Forms (for WordPress)

The submit button will no longer stay disabled after hitting submit the first time and receiving a validation error. A simple javascript fix was all that was needed, and it will be available very shortly..

To do so head over to our plugin page on the WordPress plugin directory or simply search “Jigoshop WordPress eCommerce” from your own WordPress admin panel (Plugins > Add New).

The last two weeks have been spent strenuously testing Jigoshop with our pool of private beta testers and we’re happy to report that all small bugs have been fixed and there were no major issues. Of course, we fully expect further bugs to surface with a wider audience using Jigoshop, and this is the main reason that this release is still a beta.

Hopefully the plugin will mature rapidly and we’ll be able to push out our first stable release very soon.

Coming soon…

Along with fixing bugs we’ve been working hard on the design / build of the brand new jigoshop.com web site. Once ready (hopefully very soon), it will become the official home of Jigoshop with it’s own dedicated development blog.

There will also be a community forum for support of the free version and a couple of premium upgrades for existing users. Jigoshop Premium and support packages will follow closely behind.

The real work begins now

Jigoshop has been a gargantuan undertaking and we’re very happy with the product we’ve built. But this is only the beginning. From today forwards we’re beginning development of even more advanced features, extra payment gateways and bespoke themes, further adding value and building the brand.

We will also be offering dedicated support very soon via which we hope to interact with the community and road map additional features to the plugin based on our users feedback.

Exciting times ahead!

That’s right, Magento have heard the community and made the announcement of rewriting Magento 2 for the upcoming 2012 release. We can only speculate and anticipate as there’s still a good 18 months left of their deadline, but nonetheless codename M2 is certainly a hot topic in the development community. Exciting stuff!

With a timetable of production release by mid to end of 2012, Magento 2 development is underway.

Here’s a chance to discuss and share your thoughts below while highlighting a few dev features we’d like to see considered in the ‘ground up’ architecture of Magento 2, that we think would sharpen the already most sophisticated, feature rich e-commerce platform available today.

For those lucky enough to go along, Day 2 of the upcoming Magento Developers Ibiza conference is the place to be to get an early heads up of the official feature list from the architect himself, Dmitriy Soroka (Magento Inc.).

Magento Developers Paradise is the only place where you can get a sneak preview of improvements and goals we have set for M2 from the lead architect himself!

Our Magento 2 Features Wishlist

• Updates – A developers dream, a piece of software you can update without fear of spontaneous combustion. WordPress have managed it, hopefully the new Magneto 2 Connect Manager which some caught a glimpse of in the 1.5-RC2 release will greatly improve the procedure of both minor and updates to the core-platform.
• jQuery – A long requested change which will make it’s way to Magento eventually, Magento 2 is the best chance they’ll get to oust Prototype in favor of the jQuery library.
• HTML 5 – It’s taken the web by storm, hell, even Microsoft have tried to use it in IE9, would be great to see Magento use the new HTML 5 markup properly and consistently.
• Caching / Optimisation – Will we see a leaner Magento, or further improved caching, perhaps pinched from the sought-after Enterprise Edition?
• Javascript Dependency – In a perfect world, we’d all use the same ‘up to date’ browser with Cookies and Javascript enabled, but we don’t, and we can’t forget about those who still use legacy or just plain depreciated browsers, I won’t mention IE6, but we don’t think it would hurt to remove Javascript dependency for the fundamental e-commerce functions, Add to Cart and Checkout in particular.

In all the excitement we might have missed something off our features shortlist, leave us a comment with your Magento 2 requests and suggestions.

After spending the last few weeks at Jigowatt as a Freelancer Rob has impressed us all with not only his tea making skills but his ability to quickly get to grips Magento (no small task) and start work on his first theme.

Not only that, Rob has already contributed a product to our growing CodeCanyon portfolio and demonstrated a good eye for design by assisting with some concept work.

The future’s bright, the future is Jigowatt green.

Magento 1.4 Development Cookbook is packed full of useful Magento snippets ranging from customising the look of the store to optimising the site. The book is structured in such a way that it holds your hand throughout the development process. The first chapter begins with a brief introduction to why Magento is the perfect e-commerce platform to develop in today, along with some installation guides on setting up virtual hosts, SVN, PHP and MySQL.

The book is well laid out with clear and concise introductions at the beginning of each chapter, with quick tips and hints scattered throughout the book. I personally don’t like the font used for the filename and directory text could use some adjusting as it blends too much with the main body and becomes difficult to read against the bodytext at times.

Each ‘recipe’ is explained in a fair amount of detail in terms of describing what exactly is happening and why, which definitely helped me with the development of my Magento build. Complete PHP beginners may struggle to understand however as some of the explanations get quite technical.

In my opinion this book is a must have for the bookshelf for anyone ranging from Magento novices to ninjas, a true pleasure to read!

Buy it from the Packt Publishing bookshop

At the end of the day I am after a website that is going to work and therefore feel I must take advice from the experts rather than it being what I “think” is best!

The words every designer yearns to hear at the start of a project.

Jigoshop private beta

The private beta, accessible to a select few folks will be ready by May 16. We’ve already chosen some people (who’ve been interested in Jigoshop from day one) who we’d like to be a part of the private beta but if you’d like to lend a helping hand please read on.

Jigoshop public beta

Obviously this is dependent on feedback we get from the private beta but we plan to have the public beta (available on WordPress.org) available 2 weeks later – May 30.

I want to be a beta tester!

As I mentioned we’ve chosen a few friends who we’d like to beta test Jigoshop. However, we’re well aware that there are hundreds of people interested in it so we’re going to have a little raffle and offer up the chance to win the opportunity to be a part of the exclusive private beta.

Entering is simple; follow our dedicated Jigoshop Twitter account and retweet the following message;

@Jigoshop – A #WordPress #eCommerce #Plugin which works – http://jigoshop.com RT to be a part of our private beta

We’ll choose one or two random winners and include them in our private beta on May 16.

We’re getting there folks!

Initially we planned for the theme to be free but with so many substandard themes being sold as “premium” we thought we may be shooting ourselves in the foot.

We’ve seen several “eCommerce WordPress themes” built to work with other eCommerce plugins popping up recently and they seem to have sold quite well – there is clearly a market.

Jigotheme (you gotta love that name, right?) will be no ordinary theme after all. It will work in tandem Jigoshop and add some nifty features such as an intuitive dropdown mini cart in the header of all pages and full optimisation for mobile devices. We’re also developing it using the latest HTML5 / CSS3 code which is a feature in itself – customising Jigotheme will be a piece of cake.

We appreciate a premium theme may not be attractive to developers as they will most probably be building their own themes on top of Jigoshop. But for someone with limited time and/or development skills, an affordable premium theme could be a real asset.

Perhaps we release a free version of the theme excluding the mobile optimisation and other built in goodies which still works really well with the out-of-the-box Jigoshop features. And then offer the additional features as a paid upgrade for a nominal fee? Or would that be too much of a tease?

As always we’d appreciate the feedback of anyone interested in Jigoshop and how it evolves going forward.

Over to you!

We’ve 98 #Jigoshop subscribers, no.100 wins a prize! http://jigoshop.com/

Astonishingly we had an influx of about 20 people subscribe instantly. We had a winner before I’d even had a chance to figure out what the prize would be!

We decided to offer Steve, our lucky winner a free pick of one of our products over at CodeCanyon. Steve is now the proud and happy owner of our popular Premium Content plugin for WordPress.

There also followed a procession of excited tweets including this one from our pal Matt Kersley;

@Jigowatt how about treating us first 99? lol… you wouldn’t be at a hundred if it wasn’t for your previous minions

Which got us thinking. Although Matts comment was tongue-in-cheek it was absolutely right. So due to the small scale success we saw with my Tuesday afternoon Twitter competition we’ve decided to run a few similar events from now until the official launch (and possibly beyond).

We’ve nothing scheduled yet but we did just place an order for some swanky, official Jigoshop merchandise. We also have our comprehensive portfolio of products at CodeCanyon to offer, and Jigoshop itself once it’s ready so there’s plenty to give away.

But what this exercise demonstrates most poignantly is the power of Twitter. At close to zero cost on our behalf we’ve earned, as of this morning ~30 new subscribers who may very well convert into paying customers in the future. And even if they don’t, just receiving our newsletter will help establish Jigoshop in their minds which itself could lead recommendations and referrals.

But above all that, we created a short-term buzz around Jigoshop and generated a sharp spike of exposure through retweets and comments. The long-term benefits of this exposure are difficult to measure but we’re certain that it’s in our best interest that this behaviour is encouraged.

So in closing I say to you, keep an eye out on Twitter for upcoming competitions and opportunities to get your hands on some cool free stuff!

With an ever increasing list of clients and exciting in-house projects like Jigoshop our workload is approaching critical mass and we’re looking for more hours in the day.

But instead of modifying the calendar, it would probably be easier for us to recruit so that’s exactly what we’re doing!

We’re looking for web designer / developer candidates who share our passion for the web and possess a working knowledge of the following;

• Web standards
• HTML5 and CSS3
• WordPress
• jQuery
• Social Media
• Search Engine Optimisation

Stand-out candidates would have:

• Experience with Magento
• Local to Peterborough
• Outstanding tea making skills

If you feel that you’d fit in well as a part of the Jigowatt team please send us your details with links to your blog / portfolio.