ImpressPages CMS 4.0 - Better Interface, New MVC Engine and ECommerce Support!

In advance the upcoming winter release of ImpressPages 4.0, the ImpressPages team have asked us to share with you some of the new features and changes about the upcoming release. And here you go!

So what's new in ImpressPages 4.0?

New MVC engine

ImpressPages CMS 4.0 has a lightweight and clean MVC Framework under the hood. If you are familiar with MVC, you can start coding on ImpressPages CMS straight away by just having a quick look at the file structure. You’ll have access to Request object and your answer will be a Response object or View as it is with most of the frameworks. 

Other MVC implementation details:

• Views are plain PHP files. No templating engine;

• It is an HMVC, so you can do subrequests;

• Use a tiny helper to execute operations on the database or take a PDO connection.

PSR standards-compliant class naming and autoloader

Forget “require” and “include” functions. ImpressPages CMS now loads all classes automatically. And it is extremely simple as filenames identically correspond to the class names.

IDE autosuggestions always work

We care a great deal about the coding experience. For this reason, beautiful class structure and methods as well as a clean workflow in your IDE are all present at ImpressPages CMS 4.0. We took care to make IDE autosuggestions always work seamlessly. Whatever method you use, you will always get autosuggested methods by IDE. You will never want to go back once you try this feature.

Bootstrap styles

Nice and clean admin panel based on Bootstrap styles is available in the 4.0 release of ImpressPages CMS. This means you can code your own plugins without worrying about CSS. Want to change the default HTML? All view files can be overridden in your theme or plugin.

Key-Value storage

ImpressPages CMS 4.0 provides Key-Value storage for all plugins by default. It is implemented in MySQL and can work on any shared hosting. But if you have a real Key-Value engine on your server, you can switch to use it and to improve the performance. The code on the plugin side doesn’t change because of that. As a plugin developer, you no longer need to care about the engine you’re using. Use the same easy set / get functions and create your superfast plugin.

Options service

Add different type options to your plugin and theme using json configuration file or setOption / getOption methods. For language specific options, just use appropriate option type and you will have an option for each separate language on your website.

Easy plugin development

In ImpressPages CMS 4.0, everything can be achieved by writing a plugin. Each plugin is a single folder in the “Plugin” directory. Your controllers, models, views and assets will now go there. And so your whole business domain can be in a single place. This is unheard of not only in the CMS world, but also among the frameworks! And still, you can move all your PHP code outside of the public directory.

New translations engine

Translate any string in your code with a simple function. It works the same as on most frameworks and CMSs.

PSR compliant logger

It is always too late when customers start complaining about broken features on website you have just developed. Yet now you can use the ImpressPages CMS logger to log important situations and exceptions of your plugin by simple functions. PSR standard compliance makes it easy to understand the code, adopt third-party log aggregators and notifiers.

Grid

Add create / read / update / delete interface providing simple json config file. Add your custom layout and functions as you go.

Ecommerce architecture

Ecommerce support by CMSs is always poor or simply nonexistent. Each shopping cart plugin has its own way to add payment methods and products. Two separate plugins never “talk” to each other. Luckily, ImpressPages CMS 4.0 features an e-commerce interface that makes communication between the plugins easy.

• Payment method interface . Write plugin which implements payment method interface and your payment method will be available on all shopping cart plugins;

• Products can be shared. Create your own catalog with products by extending default Product interface. This way your products can be added to any shopping cart implementation;

• Checkout methods are also separated from the shopping cart. You can have a shopping cart from one provider and checkout method from another, or even your own;

• Format prices and currencies in the way you like even when you use third party currency converter.

Uploaded assets repository

It is always a pain to control user-uploaded assets. We solved it in ImpressPages CMS 4.0. Use simple JavaScript method to invoke repository browser and get list of files selected by the user. ImpressPages CMS 4.0 stores all the originals and tracks which plugin uses which files. So you know what resources can be deleted. ImpressPages CMS provides you with methods to get resized / cropped versions of originals on the fly and removes unused files when the original file is removed. Creating thumbnails has never been easier!

Content management improvements

• Text can be edited fully inline . We had inline editing previously, yet now it’s made much friendlier to the user;

• Better user interface across all menus. Now ImpressPages CMS has more functionality with twice as little menu buttons. Pages are easier to manage, to create and to delete. Language management has also been significantly improved. Flat design makes everything crisper and clearer;

• No need to leave the CMS when downloading translations and installing plugins from our Plugin Marketplace.

ImpressPages CMS 4.0 in a nutshell:

• new MVC engine

• PSR standard-compliant class naming and autoloader

• IDE autosuggestions always work

• bootstrap styles

• Key-Value storage

• Options service

• easy plugin development

• new translations engine

• PSR compliant logger

• Grid

• Ecommerce architecture

• Uploaded assets repository

Visit them online at www.impresspages.org