Work is progressing more slowly than I’d like, but the improvements in the upcoming 1.0b6 release will be massive. Thanks to great bug reporting, there will be a lot of new bug fixes and new features that are sure to make a few people happy. Perhaps the two most noteworthy improvements coming in the next release are file system storage support and browser-based file uploads.

The file storage option is important because initially Shopp was going to host everything in the database. That decision was primarily for ease-of-setup to get around file permission issues so people can get Shopp up and running with a minimum of effort. However, using the file system has some pretty nice benefits such as speed and scalability. If you’re hosting giant product downloads (in the 1GB to 2GB range), the file system storage option makes handling those larger files a whole lot nicer. Adding this option fits into Shopp’s philosophy of scaled complexity - the more complex your needs, the more complex the setup becomes in a natural sort of progression. The only real challenge for file system storage is creating your storage directory with correct permissions.

The other addition, browser-based uploads is also a nice for handling problems with the Flash uploader (which are becoming more numerous with Flash 10). It’s a back up system for handling file uploads for product images and digital product downloads when the normal Flash upload system fails for whatever reason. The tradeoff is that the browser-based uploader won’t be able to show file progress, but it’s still AJAX-enabled and seamless.

Roadmap

I’ve also just posted the Shopp Roadmap that I’m using as a planning document and a means to help communicate priorities for the project. It shows what new features (in terms of new functionality) are planned for upcoming releases of Shopp. Right now it also shows my plan of attack for the 1.0 release. So, check it out and by all means, share your comments and ideas about it here or start a thread on the forums!