pimcore 4 Beta: Announcing the first public pre-release of the open-source enterprise suite for PIM, CMS, DAM & Commerce.

New backend user experience

We’ve done it! During the last months, we have migrated the whole pimcore backend interface to the brand new Sencha ExtJS 6 component framework. It’s flat, it’s beautiful, it’s fast and it’s powered by the latest ExtJS release from 2015, the most comprehensive MVC/MVVM JavaScript framework for building feature-rich cross-platform web applications targeting desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Within the latest pimcore release on github, the default setting still is the traditional old backend interface powered by ExtJS 3.4. To have a first look at the new interface you either add an additional GET parameter to the backend interface URL (http://demo.pimcore.org/admin?extjs6=1) after you’ve successfully logged in, or you change the default value in the general system settings. Have fun and remember: It still is a pre-release and we are actively working on it. Just for your info: During all pimcore 4 releases both backend user interface variants (ExtJS 6 and ExtJS 3.4) will be available. The further development of the old interface based on ExtJS 3.4 will be stopped at this point and new features will just be available in the new interface. Github pull requests fixing bugs and improvements are of course highly appreciated.

If you are interested in the concrete process, experiences and (few) problems migrating  a rather large app like pimcore from ExtJS 3.4 to ExtJS 6, please look out for an interesting blog post from the pimcore core crew on sencha.com in the next few weeks.

Features & improvements

Besides polishing the user interface, more than 40 little and big fixes, features and improvements were integrated into this release, greatly improving the performance and the stability of the general system. One of the biggest improvements is the 100% compatibility to touch-based devices: The pimcore backend interface is finally ready for being used by tablets, convertible notebooks and the new Ipad Pro ;-)

New object data magic sponsored by Media-Saturn

Pimcore is the leading integrated open-source suite for PIM, CMS, DAM & commerce and plays an essential role within the ebusiness/IT strategy in many international enterprises. The Media-Saturn Group, an international consumer electronics retailer with net revenues of 21 billion euros, is one of those enterprises, actively supporting the pimcore development. And thanks to those guys at Media-Saturn, pimcore provides you with a new object structured data field called “Classification Store”. Pure awesomeness and magic to create and manage PIM classifications schemes. And tested with quite some data ;-) For more information have a look at the documentation. 

Transition from BSD to GPLv3

With pimcore 4 we will draw level with popular open-source projects such as Drupal and Wordpress and release pimcore 4 and future versions of pimcore under the open-source GPLv3 license. The reason for this transition is actually pretty plain: The use of the GPL license guarantees that innovations made with free software is contributed back to the community for the good of everyone. And in this matter we want to join Drupal, Typo3, Wordpress, ezPublish and 1000s of other successful and commercially used open-source projects using GPL. For more details about pimcore 4 licensing, please have a look at the pimcore 4 licensing FAQs. Big thanks to Drupal and the Software Freedom Law Center for providing these FAQs.

Outlook for the next releases

You can imagine that reworking the complete backend user experience was a really complex and time-consuming task. 10.000s of code lines had to be completely rewritten to create the new, state of the art 2015 user interface. The transition to ExtJS 6 is therefore the beginning of a new pimcore era, especially as new interface and reporting components will port the pimcore management experience into new spheres. Believe me: I’ve seen some spectacular stuff in the internal pimcore labs ;-)

Getting hold of the first pre-release of pimcore 4

Be one of the first to try out the new pimcore 4 pre-release and the updated backend user interface experience. To do so, please update your existing installation (be aware, it’s still a pre-release) to pimcore build 3546, use the latest pimcore nightly build or the quick start package.