New Release Version 3.0.3 of Featured Product Grid

We have a new release version 3.0.3 of our extension Featured Product Grid for Virtuemart.

This is a maintenance release which includes some bug fixes, mainly to improve the support for display of Virtuemart 3 custom fields. The module now properly supports Virtuemart cart fields and can update prices in response to variant selections.

This release also adds some support for the Joomla updater, so that in future the site admin will be informed when an update is available.  However because it is a commercial module you will still need to download a copy from your account, or use the install from URL option by supplying your download link. This is due to the limitations of the Joomla updater which does not provide a straightforward way for commercial extensions to validate the download.

Read more: New Release Version 3.0.3 of Featured Product Grid

New Release Version 1.6.3 of Amazon Shopping Cart Extension

We have a new release, version 1.6.3 of our Amazon Shopping Cart extension for Joomla.

These a maintenance release which fixes some bugs that have come to light since the release of version 1.6.2, and adds a few improvements. The new version has these changes:-

1. More fixes to the pagination of search results
2. Fixes an issue with the checkout purchase URL
3. Improvements to the product search module
4. Adds an option to select the menu item for click-through pages

You are recommended to update if you can, due to the fix for the purchase URL issue. If this is not convenient, then read this article for an alternative way to fix it: https://www.spiralscripts.co.uk/News/issue-with-amazon-shopping-cart-checkout.html

Read more: New Release Version 1.6.3 of Amazon Shopping Cart Extension

New Release Version 2.6.2 of AS3 Manager

We are have a new release, version 2.6.2, of our extension, AS3 Manager. This extension package for Joomla! 3 allows you to manage your Amazon S3 objects and buckets from your Joomla admin. You can upload and delete objects, and create and delete buckets. You can create download files and packages (consisting of multiple files), for free or for sale. If you want to sell digital downloads you can use our download plugin for Virtuemart which is compatible with AS3 Manager.

The latest is a maintenance release which fixes some bugs (mainly an occasional issue with the Amazon S3 autoloader, and with the Dropbox download). It also includes a Russian language translation (thanks to Хорошевский Алексей http://aleksius.com/).

 You can find out more using the links below.

• Download AS3 Manager
• View the documentation

How to Allow Download Files Securely

Many website owners want the ability to sell files as downloads, or make them available to registered subscribers, or make them available as free downloads. It is often the reason for having a website. There are many scripts and plugins that will enable you to do this, but unfortunately they are most certainly not created equally. It is important to choose one that is well-coded with download security in mind.

Offering downloads on your site raises some serious security issues, the main one being how do you make sure that your users can only download the files that they are entitled to? It is not an idle question, if a malicious user can exploit your download system to download configuration files for your site they can basically own your server and do what they want with it. Even if an insecure download system doesn't allow access to sensitive system files, if it allows users to access commercial files that they are not entitled to, it is a serious weakness, and one which unfortunately some commercial download systems suffer from.

Read more: How to Allow Download Files Securely

New Release Version 1.8 of Spiral Download Plugin

We have a new release, version 1.8, of our Spiral download plugin for Joomla and Virtuemart. This is a maintenance release which improves the layout of the custom field in the Virtuemart administration.

Our paid download plugin for Joomla and Virtuemart supports locally hosted files, and also Amazon S3 and Dropbox hosted files through our AS3 Manager extension. The plugin is designed to allow you to offer paid downloads as products for sale in Virtuemart, by allowing you to attach the download to the product as a custom field. It allows you to restrict either the number of downloads, the time limit on downloads, or both.

Read more: New Release Version 1.8 of Spiral Download Plugin

Extensions Now Supporting Dropbox

We have a new release of our AS3 Cloud File Manager extension. The latest release is 2.5, and now supports Dropbox as well as Amazon S3. This extension allows you to manage your cloud hosted files through your Joomla admin, and make them available as download packages, either for free, for restricted Joomla user groups (through the standard Joomla ACL), or for sale.

If you want to sell your files, our paid download plugin for Joomla and Virtuemart works with the AS3 Manager extension to allow you to do this.We have a new release of this plugin available too: version 1.7 adds support for selling Dropbox files as well as Amazon S3, by selling  AS3 Manager Manager download packages as Virtuemart products. The Spiral Download  plugin is designed to allow you to offer paid downloads as products for sale in Virtuemart, by allowing you to attach the download package to the product as a custom field. It allows you to restrict either the number of downloads, the time limit on downloads, or both.

Read more: Extensions Now Supporting Dropbox

Generating Unusual Output Types in Joomla!

If you are a Joomla! developer you are probably already aware that you are not restricted to generating html output from an extension. In fact it is possible for the CMS to output any type of content that you want, simply by creating a view for it in your component using the appropriate format.

The purpose of this article is to explore how to do this when the output type is not among those currently supported in the Joomla core. In fact this is not a problem, as I will show. I will do this in the context of generating an SVG (scalable vector graphics) image, but the principles will be the same for any output type.

In the examples I assume that we have already grabbed the image data in some way, without specifying where it comes from, in order to concentrate on how to output it. However the nice thing about SVG is that it is just XML, so it could quite easily be generated dynamically by the CMS using data from a database table.

Read more: Generating Unusual Output Types in Joomla!

Creating an XML Feed in Joomla

If you are a Joomla! developer you are probably already aware that it is possible for the CMS to output many other types of content in addition to the usual html. In fact you can use it to output any type of content that you want, simply by creating a view for it in your component using the appropriate format.

Creating a General XML Feed

In this article I will look at how to use your component to output an XML feed. There is actually more than one approach to this: if you want to create an RSS feed, which is a specific type of XML feed, then you can use the RSS document type - I will discuss this below.

Firstly I will discuss creating a more general type of XML feed, which I will do in the context of a reasonably realistic example. We will suppose that you are developing a Joomla e-commerce component that has a view that displays your products. In addition to the normal HTML output you would like to be able to display an XML feed of the products. It is actually not that hard.

Read more: Creating an XML Feed in Joomla

New Extension Google Product Review Feed for Virtuemart

We are pleased to release a new extension. GProduct Review Feed makes it easy to submit your Virtuemart product reviews to Google shopping, you can do it in a matter of minutes. It's a great way to enhance your product listings.

GProduct Review Feed can be used to create either a full review feed, or an incremental feed. As well as automatically creating your feed, the extension allows you to mark reviews as spam, or deleted.

• You can read more about submitting a review feed to Google here;
• See a tutorial, with screenshots of the feed administration here;
• View an example feed here;
• Buy the extension here.

Our Extensions for Virtuemart

Virtuemart is a popular open source e-commerce extension for the Joomla! content management system. We have a number of extensions written explicitly for Virtuemart that will enhance your store:-

• VM2 Product Snapshot  allows you to embed Virtuemart product information in Joomla content articles. As a content plugin it is compatible with the Joomla core content component as well as extension that support content plugins, such as K2.
• HTML5 Slideshow for Virtuemart 2 displays your product images in an attractive HTML5 slideshow. It is compatible with all modern browsers including mobile devices and will display a simplified version in older browsers such as IE7. It is a great way to show off your products without using Flash.
• Virtuemart Featured Product Grid is an alternative to the Virtuemart featured products module. It can be used to show featured products, top ten products, recent products, and random products from some or all categories. The module is particularly useful when you want to display additional images for your products, as these are shown in a scroller.
• VM ModController Pro This module allows you to control the display of other Joomla modules on Virtuemart pages. It allows you to assign modules to Virtuemart pages (including specific product details flypages or category browse pages), categories, and shopper groups.
• GoogleBaseXML This component for the Joomla Content Management System generates a product data feed for your Virtuemart store in XML format. It is specifically designed to be compatible with the format required by Google shopping. The product listing can be manually uploaded, or submitted as an URL to Google Merchant Center for scheduled upload

You can view examples of these extensions in our Virtuemart Extensions Demo Store.

Below: A screenshot of our HTML5 slideshow for Virtuemart