Since the latest stable OpenCart version 2.3.0.2 released on August, there’s no new OpenCart version is carried out. The good news is that the OpenCart team began working on the new release - OpenCart 3.0 and the alpha release is already accessible on GitHub.

Are you ready to test it with your themes and modules? Before you do it, please take a quick look on OpenCart 3.0 new features, improvements in comparison with OpenCart 2.3.0.x here.

OpenCart 3.0 New Features

Extensions

Marketplace and Translations are a couple of new features added to the Extensions in OpenCart 3.0 that are not included in the OpenCart 2.3.

Marketplace

With OpenCart Marketplace added to store admin panel, you access all of the themes and modules straight from your own store administration.

The Marketplace provides a standard search function and additional filters that allows you refine your search experience

Translations

For store owners who need their OpenCart store to work in their native language, but the translations does not exist or it’s not finished, they can contribute to the Crowdin Project.

The languages that are already there will appear in the Available Translations field where you’ll be able to install and uninstall them.

Design

In the Design section in OpenCart 3.0, there are the Theme Editor and Language Editor added that effectively simplify the customization of your store significantly.

Accessing and modifying your store’s files will now be much easier since it will be done straight from your admin panel.

Theme Editor

The new Theme Editor comes with a very user-friendly interface and is easy to understand even for non-developers and users with no technical & coding knowledge.

Choose your store - Use to customize the design of your sub-stores in case of using multi-store.

Choose a template - Use to edit the template or exact files.

Language Editor

The new Language Editor will let you change any piece of text you have to anything you want, in your preferred language.

You can add new entries and configure your site content in a field that looks like this:

For example:

We’ll change the headline of the Register Account to something else instead of being New Customer  field in the Account Login page.

1. Select the Route (account/login in our example)
2. Select the Key (text_new_customer in our example)
3. Configure the Value. Let’s add something like “I’m New Here”!

The result:

Marketing

The Affiliates is removed from the Marketing section. It can be created in the Customers section.

Create Affiliate: Go to Customers > Customers > Add New and switch to the Affiliate tab.

System

In the System section, the Tools sub-section is removed and Uploads, Backup / Restore and Error Logs become the main System section.

Reports

OpenCart 3.0 allows you to add the Reports via the Extensions. You are free to choose what type of reports you want to have in your store, and which ones should stay disabled.

Go to Extensions and choose Reports from the dropdown list.

This will display all the reports you can enable for your store.

For example: Enable the Affiliate Commission Report.

Click Edit, enable the status and click Save.

Do the same for as many reports as you want.

Then, in the Reports section, it will display a dropdown with all of the reports you have enabled from the Extensions. Select the one you want to review from the list.

This is how the report looks like:

As soon as you need to track something else, you can easily add it from the Extensions.

OpenCart has made a significant difference with the latest 3.0 version. There are lot of exciting features that have been introduced to the latest OpenCart 3.0. Let’s stay up-to-date with OpenCart 3.0 news and prepare your Responsive OpenCart themes with the upcoming OpenCart 3.0 release.

Source: The images used in this article are credited by isenselabs!