GetShopped.org

WordPress shopping cart plugin

  • View Cart (0)

    • Your Shopping Cart

      0 Items
Home » GetShopped News » GroupDeals Beta 2 has Arrived! Bugfixes, New Features and Roadmaps – Oh my!

GroupDeals Beta 2 has Arrived! Bugfixes, New Features and Roadmaps – Oh my!

Posted February 12, 2011 by Justin Sainton

First things first – a BIG thank you to all of the beta testers and early adopters out there.  Thanks to your diligence, we’ve squashed a ton of bugs already!  If the hundreds of comments (237 so far), emails and trackbacks from all around the world are any indication, we’ve got something pretty special here with this plugin.

Without any further adieu, here’s a list of bugs we’ve fixed, features we’ve added (read: test these heavily) and roadmap from here.  We’re going to make you wait a little longer than I wanted to, but I promise, it will be worth the wait.

Bugfixes

  • Eliminated White Screen of Death some people were experiencing (A couple separate bugs were causing this, all have been resolved)
  • Fixed issue where Vendors sometimes would not show, also where posts/pages would sometimes not show in admin.
  • Home page limited to 1 deal
  • Fixed browser bug with NaN showing in “Time Left” box in non-webkit browsers.
  • Completely refactored to work with newest WPEC 3.8 version (show_ui work specifically.)
  • Fixed broken “Buy Now” button in recent versions.

New Features

  • WP_Cron integration
    • Note: This uses the WP_Cron class in WP, the same class used to publish future-dated posts.  It has all the same features and drawbacks.  We’ll release more info with the stable release on how to ensure this works perfectly for you, but for now, just know that if emails aren’t going out when scheduled, just visit your site and they should be triggered :)

Roadmap

Roadmaps are always tricky, because they are by nature iterative and tentative.  That warning given, here’s our current roadmap.

  • Launch Beta 2 – NOW :)
  • Launch final beta – February 21st
    • Additional features in this version will include automated Google Map Generation and Twitter / Facebook login and account creation and social sharing.
    • Better theme integration (Will work with any theme.  Custom elements integrated via widgets OR function placement in theme.)
  • First Stable Release – February 28th
  • Long-Term Roadmap Blog Post -March 1st (We’ll have a poll here for all of you to help decide the future features we implement!)
  • Release 1.1 – End of March
    • New Features TBD

As exciting as all of these new features and bug fixes are, I know some of you are getting impatient, and rightfully so.  We said this would be released by the end of January or the first week in February, and here we are.  Allow me to explain.  In the course of development, we’ve had the opportunity to create partnerships with industry-leading group deal distributors.  That sounds very jargon-esque, but here’s the bottom line: We’re creating the opportunity for you to import other group deals from around the world into your site AND export your group deals to publishing networks.

Why is that so awesome?  Let’s say you want to buy our plugin, but you don’t have it in you to go out and drum up excitement among businesses.  Totally fine, we’ve got you covered.  You can import products from all around the world and/or specifically from your region.

Maybe you’re totally happy to target your market, canvas the streets and get businesses excited about social buying!  We’re right there with you!  One problem though – no traffic to your website yet.  Well, again, we’ve got your back!  Export your deals to over 200 publishing networks.

We’re literally making it almost impossible to fail at this.

(Legal Disclaimer: It’s still possible to fail…if you try hard enough, you can fail at anything.).

So, I don’t know what you think, but for me, that’s worth waiting the extra 3-5 weeks.  All of that is BESIDES the fact that you still get all of WPEC’s awesome features on top of the Group Buying!!!  That means you can create unlimited instances of this via WordPress Multi-Site.  You can create deals for digital downloads.  You can create membership deals – there’s no better option on the market for e-commerce or social buying!

So, if that wasn’t reason enough for the delay, we’re also creating a completely separate website for this plugin, packed full of documentation, forums, support, premium themes and a whole lot more.  These are exciting times!

So, beta testers, test away!  You should be able to use this plugin with any theme now, but you’ll have to set up the widgets.  If you’d prefer not to, you can still use the Groupon theme for beta testing.  We’ve attached a new version of that theme below.  This beta release will ONLY work with WPEC 3.8 beta 3.  Your current installs will need to be upgraded.  If you’re running WP 3.0.4+, WPEC 3.8 beta3+ and this plugin; hopefully you won’t run into any problems.  Looking forward to all your feedback and hopefully MORE feature requests and FEWER bug reports :)

If you don’t read this next paragraph, I won’t help you with your problems –

Fair enough?  A few notes. (It should go without saying that this is still beta software, don’t you dare run it on a production server.)

  1. This release ONLY works with the most recent beta release of WPEC 3.8, which is beta 3, and up.  That means you should be safe to run trunk.  Beta 3 is linked to below.  That’s #1.
  2. You HAVE to run the new Groupon child theme, also linked to below.  For this beta, no other themes or previous Groupon child theme will fly.  Well, it’ll fly, it just won’t work.  I promise, next release, you can use whatever theme you want :)
  3. If you just overwrite files, the new WP_Cron loveliness won’t work.  Do that, but also deactivate and re-activate the plugin.
  4. Lastly, make sure to set a static front page in the settings panel.  Feel free to leave a comment if you have a real use-case where the Groupon page would NOT be the home page, but that seems most logical.

Group Deals Beta 2

WordPress E-Commerce RC 1 (Woohoo!)

New and Improved Groupon Child Theme

100 Responses to GroupDeals Beta 2 has Arrived! Bugfixes, New Features and Roadmaps – Oh my!

  1. Pingback: GroupDeals Beta 2 has Arrived! Bugfixes, New Features and Roadmaps – Oh my! | PHP World

  2. bloggista February 12, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    Thanks Justin! Cheers!. Will definitely look at this…

  3. Tom Karr February 12, 2011 at 11:55 pm

    Thanks Justin, very much looking forward to playing with it. Do you have any idea about pricing yet? Hoow much per month?

  4. Tom Karr February 13, 2011 at 12:14 pm

    The deals category doesn’t appear to work. If you create a deal and try and assign it to anything other than the default category the deal get deleted.

    I was going to use the categories to display deals by location, e.g. New York Deals, Boston Deals etc, is this how you intended the category feature to be used or is this a feature you’ll be implementing separately in the RC.

  5. Justin Sainton February 13, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Tom,

    We’re still finalizing pricing information, but needless to say, we’ll have a wide spectrum of pricing options, both in fixed one-time fees and monthly subscriptions that will fit almost any serious budget.

    As far as the category issue you mentioned, I”m not able to replicate that. I have no problem assigning deals to different categories and them showing up in the admin or front-end. Feel free to email me at office at zaowebdesign dot com and I”ll see if I can’t help you find out what’s going on.

    In regards to multiple cities, we’re going to implement that eventually, probably not in the first release though.

  6. Tom Karr February 13, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    Interesting, must be a local bug. I’ll try a fresh install tomorrow and see if I can pinpoint the source.

    The other thing I was going to comment on is the length a deal runs for being set at 24hours, though I see you’ve already left a comment in the code saying this function needs to be added at some point. You’re one step ahead :)

  7. Mike February 13, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    What will be the pricing for this theme? Or is this a theme or a plugin?

    Does it have location or geo-based features? Merchant directory with self-serve deals?

    • Justin Sainton February 13, 2011 at 7:50 pm

      Hi Mike!

      Great question! We’ll have premium themes available, but those are different than this plugin. We’ll release pricing info shortly, but suffice to say, we’ll have different options open for every budget range.

      You’ll have to elaborate a bit on what you mean by geo-based features and self-serve deals – that could mean a lot of different things.

      • Mike February 14, 2011 at 11:39 am

        Thanks, Justin.

        Location based where users can select their city or locality.

        A merchant directory with their business profiles, current deals and past deals.

        Self-serve deals where merchants to sign up and run their own deals (Do Your Own or Run Your Deal approach). We can then charge merchants either a percentage based on sales, a flat fee per deal, monthly subscription, etc.

        • Justin Sainton February 14, 2011 at 11:55 am

          Hi Mike!

          Yes, Location-based features are coming, but probably not in the first stable release – we wanna get this thing out the door! That’ll probably come in v.1.1 :)

          A merchant directory is totally possible. Vendors are just custom post types, and custom post type index pages are now possible in 3.1, so with some decent theming and WP 3.1, that could totally be done.

          As far as self-serve deals go, we’d have to see how big the desire for that is, the idea of a Do Your Own deal is a little concerning without any moderation. We could certainly look at a deal submission page where the deal is then moderated by the administrator. And the whole idea of the system is that the profit from the deals you run would be split between your company and your customers, the businesses with the deals – so that’ll already be in place.

  8. Mike February 14, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    Thanks again.

  9. Dan Milward February 14, 2011 at 9:18 pm

    Thanks for the links Mike. We’ll be sure to look into those :)

  10. Sinir February 15, 2011 at 7:10 am

    Seems like Justin promise us heaven…..

  11. Anne February 15, 2011 at 9:09 am

    Justin same problem still exist now under product.
    when adding products
    if I input any sku it makes product disappear under product list
    however under vendor it show but you cant click or no details..

    and adding images also cause problem
    and after adding images whenever I hit publish i received below error

    Warning: array_keys() expects parameter 1 to be array, string given in var\htdocs\groupontest\wp-includes\wp-db.php on line 1222

    Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in var\htdocs\groupontest\wp-includes\wp-db.php on line 1224

    Warning: implode() [function.implode]: Invalid arguments passed in var\htdocs\groupontest\wp-includes\wp-db.php on line 1233

    Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at var\htdocs\groupontest\wp-includes\wp-db.php:1222) in var\htdocs\groupontest\wp-includes\classes.php on line 1601

    • Tom Karr February 15, 2011 at 10:47 am

      Same for me. Also happens if I try and edit a product. I’ve checked the database and it isn’t deleting them, just refusing to show them in the admin.

      @Justin – On a separate issue, I’ve been tinkering and have added a variable where I can choose how long a deal runs for. I’ve simply added a new field to the the ‘Start Array’ in admin-finctions.php as well as a new input box below the start time.

      In wpec-dd-functions.php under the get_wpec_ajx_countdown function I retrieved the new field from the ‘Start’ array and passed it as a variable to the returned data. I didn’t even update the header as you already had an IF statement in there to include ‘Days’.

      Is this a function you’ll be including in the final release, you never said? I’m presuming so as it’s fairly easy to implement.

    • Justin Sainton February 15, 2011 at 5:26 pm

      Hi Anne,

      As I mentioned privately via email, I’m not able to replicate this error, even with having the SKU set; but I’d be happy to take a look at your site and see if there is a configuration issue occurring.

      Tom,

      If you’re experiencing the same thing, feel free to email me at office at zaowebdesign dot com with your admin info and I’ll take a look at it and see what I find. Sounds like a great little addition, feel free to email me a diff file and I’ll be happy to include that in the stable release with credit to you in the readme.txt file :)

    • roger February 25, 2011 at 5:25 pm

      me too same problem

  12. David Alexander February 15, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    Really awesome stuff, I love that your making it to work with any theme as a lot of devs are picky about the general framework they use for search engine optimization, familiarity etc etc. I personally want to get this bad boy up and running on a thesis site. So having that flexibility is a big deal.

    Keep up the good work guys!

    • Justin Sainton February 15, 2011 at 5:20 pm

      Thanks David!

      As we’ve told some others, we’ll definitely have the capability to add the different areas (Time Left to Buy, Buy Box, How Many Purchased, etc.) to widgetized areas in themes, but the best way to integrate this plugin with any site is going to be through creating a child theme that utilizes the functions. We’ll have extensive Theme Developer documentation as well as a dozen or so premium themes that do just that.

  13. Shane February 15, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    This plug-in is amazing! Really, I’m super excited to see it all come together.

    There seems to be a big problem when trying to update a product. At least for me when I create the product and then try to update anything later, it deletes the product…

    • Justin Sainton February 15, 2011 at 5:16 pm

      Shane,

      I’m not able to replicate that, I just updated my staging site here – http://zaowebdesign.com/wp304/ – to modify the Fine Print and expiration date and it didn’t delete anything. Feel free to email me at office at zaowebdesign dot com with your admin info and I can see if there’s a legit bug or if it’s just an issue we need to cover in documentation.

  14. Pingback: Cat costa sa-ti faci o clona de grouponAurasMihai. Online-ing

  15. 3dolab February 17, 2011 at 4:07 am

    thanks and keep up the great work!
    however, in my fresh WP 3.0.5 install
    + WPeC 3.8RC1
    + Group Deals beta 2
    + child theme

    I keep getting an half empty home page and PHP / database errors in server log:
    You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘AND post_type = ‘wpec-dd-purchase” at line 1 per la query SELECT COUNT(id) as purchases FROM wptest_posts WHERE post_parent = AND post_type = ‘wpec-dd-purchase’ fatta da require, require_once, do_action, call_user_func_array, wpec_dd_home_theme, include, get_header, locate_template, load_template, require_once, wpec_deals_purchased

    it seems that post_parent ( aka $post->ID ) is null:
    any suggestion?

  16. chris February 18, 2011 at 3:32 am

    would be nice to get this working :(
    3 hours later and its screwed up a clean install of wordpress…….documentation?

    also groupon will most probably take you down seeing your linking and using their name

    • chris February 18, 2011 at 3:44 am

      think i will avoid this…..you found a way for people to fail.
      and on a wordpress theme which is pretty hard to do, maaaaaan i want 4 hours of my life back

      • chris February 18, 2011 at 3:49 am

        Warning: fopen(/home/aussiede/public_html/wp-content/themes/wp-e-commerce/style.css) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/*****/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4165

        Warning: fread(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/****/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4168

        Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/****/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4171

    • Justin Sainton February 18, 2011 at 10:47 am

      Hi Chris,

      Thanks for the encouraging note ;)

      As noted, everywhere, this is beta software. Documentation will come with a stable release. Groupon logo is only used as a test case in a child theme that will not be publicly shipped. I’ve had dozens, if not hundreds, of people install this without a problem. If you’re having problems with the install, feel free to email me personally and I’ll be happy to help you. Leaving overly dramatic comments in blog posts is hardly helpful for anyone.

  17. Rodel February 18, 2011 at 9:18 pm

    yaeks! :( got this error…

    Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1222

    Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1224

    Warning: implode() [function.implode]: Invalid arguments passed in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1233

    Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-includes/wp-db.php:1222) in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-includes/classes.php on line 1601

    I guess I got the same error like others…

    • Rodel February 18, 2011 at 9:19 pm

      and oh my,.. every time i delete the test product, some options on the sides are gone missing… and additionally, i get a half page empty in the front from time to time or most of the time..

      • Rodel February 18, 2011 at 9:38 pm

        and this is the error i have in my frontpage

        Warning: Division by zero in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-content/plugins/wpec-group-deal1/wpec-dd-includes/wpec-dd-functions.php on line 129

        Warning: Division by zero in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-content/plugins/wpec-group-deal1/wpec-dd-includes/wpec-dd-functions.php on line 129

        Warning: Division by zero in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-content/plugins/wpec-group-deal1/wpec-dd-includes/wpec-dd-functions.php on line 129

        Warning: Division by zero in /home6/diwanagc/public_html/grouptreat/wp-content/plugins/wpec-group-deal1/wpec-dd-includes/wpec-dd-functions.php

      • Justin Sainton February 18, 2011 at 11:59 pm

        Hi Rodel,

        I believe you had the same exact issue some of the others had, I got it fixed for them. I think you’ve already emailed me, I’ll get you squared away soon.

        • Richard February 24, 2011 at 12:59 am

          Hi Justin,

          I too get this error, great work by the way! First time I installed your plugin it was the older version and couldn’t get anywhere with it, come to find the docs on it and realised I had older version.

          With this version WP RC1 – Beta 2 ans child theme, this is as far as I can get in setting it up, this is my site here:

          http://simplified-profits.com

          Any help to make it all work would be very much appreciated =)

        • Justin Sainton February 25, 2011 at 3:05 pm

          Pretty sure you just need to add prices for the product :)

        • Richard February 26, 2011 at 12:32 am

          Hi Justin,

          I emailed in for help and someone has fixed the problem (kind of) I thought I had added prices (maybe just not in the right place), but the issue now is when I click “buy now button” it goes to a blank page, before the fix the button worked properly…LOL – any ideas?

          Thanks in advance!

          Richard

  18. Atranaz February 19, 2011 at 7:26 am

    Hello, Justin

    man you done a great job .. !

    i see your demo its superb but when i started make mine i have lots of error :S like can not find documentation like from where i started then what next … :) but i almost done it now get error on buy button when i click on buy button getting error ” Oops, there is nothing in your cart. ” kindly guide me what i did wrong or if its bug then i hope you fix it soon :)

    great work you done it

    regards
    Atranaz

  19. Sinir February 19, 2011 at 10:08 am

    Justin,

    I am going to pass this version, too much bug and I don’t have time

    • Justin Sainton February 19, 2011 at 1:23 pm

      Hi Sinir,

      That’s fine. We’ve published our road map and we’re on schedule to meet it.

      • chris February 19, 2011 at 2:46 pm

        Hi Sinir,

        just be patient as Justin is working like a beaver and i think it will be worth the wait.

        • Sinir February 23, 2011 at 3:35 am

          Don’t get me wrong I’ll be first one buying this plug in but since I have working php Groupon clone I am going to use it for now. Only reason I am still waiting this plug in

          1) WP

          2) You guys have great amount of eCommerce experience.

  20. chris February 19, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    Apologies for some recent rant,
    was contacted personally by Justin and found him to be a great help.

    Honestly support is 99% of a great product…..and Justin provided 110% support.

    everyone should give him at least a tweet / Facebook like to support his work to keep him motivated.

    When its out of Beta, it will be worth every dollar so tell your friends.

    Enjoy NZ Justin, you will LOVE it there……beware of the 7foot school kids (they make em big)

  21. Jie February 21, 2011 at 5:06 am

    Good.I believe it will be better. Thanks Justin

  22. cregy February 22, 2011 at 3:16 am

    Can you get Dan to contact me please? Or someone anyway. I raised a support ticket with premium support and haven’t heard anything. I don’t want to fill out the form again!
    Thanks
    Rich

  23. Sinir February 23, 2011 at 3:29 am

    I hope everybody is ok over there, I read NZ earthquake

  24. Justin Sainton February 23, 2011 at 11:59 am

    Hi all!

    Thanks so much for the patience! I think we’re actually probably a few days behind schedule at this point for a few reasons.

    1) The bug that a few folks mentioned, though I wasn’t able to replicate on MY setup, I did replicate on each of theirs – and it was NOT an easy one to fix. But, it IS fixed now. So that’s awesome.

    2) I under-estimated how much fun NZ would be :) Got a bit less actually done on the non-bug-killing side.

    That said, the roadmap hasn’t changed signficantly, it’s really only a matter of days, and as Chris mentioned, we’re slaving away over here to get you the best product!

  25. David February 24, 2011 at 1:36 am

    Hi Justin – great job with this, can’t wait for the release. Just wanted to know if anyone’s had the issue of a blank home page come up. I set the static page in settings as “Products” I’m also doing this on a sub site of a new WPMU install also with buddypress running – would that cause any issues?

    Any guide to point me in the right direction would be awesome.

    Thanks

    • Justin Sainton February 24, 2011 at 11:59 am

      David,

      Interesting, I have it on WP Multisite as well, no problems. Curious if BuddyPress is conflicting at all. Shoot me an email at office at zaowebdesign dot com with some admin info and I’ll be happy to check into it.

  26. Chelsea February 24, 2011 at 1:06 pm

    Hi-

    I created a site for a client and installed the wp-ecommerce plugin and the gold cart. For some crazy reason, when I upload images to a product, they jump to other products. I just went in for the millionth time and deleted all of the images that don’t belong in each product’s gallery, but this is getting insane! I even went into one product, which had four wrong photos from various other products that had jumped into its image gallery-I deleted them all, renamed and re-uploaded the correct two images, and after a refresh and a cache clear, all of the wrong images ARE STILL THERE! There is something really crazy going on. Please, please help me!

    I can’t remember my username (or if I even ever had one). I can’t find any contact info or place to ask this question, or how to access premium support. If you could please email me and send me this info, or point me in a direction where someone could help me, that would be great.

    Thanks!

    • Justin Sainton February 24, 2011 at 6:10 pm

      Hi Chelsea,

      That sounds really bizarre! Have never heard of anyone having that issue before. I’ll email you Mychelle’s email address, I believe she’s in the office this week and should be able to get you squared away.

  27. Scott Hack February 25, 2011 at 8:36 am

    Trying to install this to beta test it, but I am running into issues. Would love to have someone help me get things going!

  28. roger February 25, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    Why the item keep dissepearing after its been created ?
    i check the database its there but it wont show/fetch/display in the main wordpress area.
    Its so buggy

    • Justin Sainton February 25, 2011 at 6:19 pm

      Roger,

      If you can, please email me your admin info at office at zaowebdesign dot com. I think you’re having the same issue a few others had. I’ll confirm, and if so, I’ll release a point release beta in this blog post.

  29. Richard February 26, 2011 at 1:24 am

    Hi Justin,

    Thanks for the help! Ok I have figured something out…

    1. Create a product – Is now working fine thanks to you!

    2. Edit a product and it disappears from the front page once you click publish – It get’s updated but as a post and the product is only available as a post from there on and is no longer a product.

    3. My buy now button goes to a blank page as well…

    I hope this helps you to figure out the issue(s), maybe also might be wise to build in a a way to email all members (as thats the main way the deal a day websites get their sales) – to build the member base they force you to give up your email first…just a suggestion though if need be I will add a way for myself to use emails in the marketing of products.

    Thanks again for what looks like it could be a fantastic plug-in!

    Kind Regards

    Richard

  30. citrine February 26, 2011 at 10:47 am

    No one is responding to me on the forums.

    I managed to set-up paypal and do an actual transaction. The buyer received a message from Paypal regarding the order, but the custom purchase receipt message I set up in ‘admin’ does not get sent, nor did I receive an ‘admin report’ (I only received one from paypal).

    I’d appreciate your thoughts/advice on how to fix this.

    • Justin Sainton February 26, 2011 at 11:21 am

      Hi Citrine,

      If they are community forums, those are moderated by the community, so GetShopped has no control over whether or not those questions are answered unless employees choose to answer questions on the forums in their free time.

      If it’s the premium forums, they’ll respond to you as quickly as humanly possible :) The office is a bit short-staffed this week – multiple WordCamps == tired and out-of-office staff :)

      That said, this sounds like probably a config issue, I’ve never heard of this and have dozens of sites running WPEC. Are you running WPEC 3.7.8 or WPEC 3.8 RC 1?

  31. Brett Combs February 27, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    Hi,

    Need the ability to have a deal last more than 24 hours. Possible? Could not see how to set it up in the interface.

    Brett

  32. Will February 28, 2011 at 7:35 am

    Hey Justin,

    Hope you and your family are well after the Unfortunate Disaster in NZ.

    Just wanted to get a quick update on the new release dates etc.. Since the roadmap has changed a bit.

    Also, is the multiple deals option going to be included in the first release?

    Keep up the great work!

    • Justin Sainton February 28, 2011 at 7:25 pm

      Hi Will!

      We’re all safe and sound, thanks for your concern!

      Can you elaborate a bit more on what you expect when you say “multiple deals option”? I’m not sure if you mean multiple featured deals on one page, the “side deals” concept, an archive of deals, multiple city deals…etc.

      The roadmap has changed a bit, as we’re still finalizing some of the distribution API integration, that’s taking a bit longer than hoped, and we’re also making sure we’ve definitely squashed the bugs a few people were mentioning in the comments. So far, so good. The roadmap shouldn’t be off by more than a week at most. So instead of Feb 28 for a stable release, we’ll probably look at one beta release this Wednesday, one on Friday, and a stable release next Monday, the 7th. I’ll finalize that in the next beta blog post :)

  33. Dan February 28, 2011 at 1:40 pm

    Hey Justin & Co
    Wow, this looks very interesting. Been using WP for a while and was amazed to see that this is being developed.
    I was about to purchase a php clone, but will wait a but till I see what you guys have in the oven.
    To me the backend is very important. What the “companies” sees in terms of demographic, charts etc.
    Can you tell a little wether it will be a custom backend with charts etc or will it use WP’s default wp-admin backend?
    I really dig the backend in php groupon clones such as groupclone, has a bunch of real time charts that shows sales, demographic etc.
    Looking forward to hear a little more, and will jump on board if you tell me that the users don’t see classic wp and that the backend will be awesome:o)
    PS. Will the first stable release be launched with a “Give as gift” too, second deals etc and all those nice features?
    Keep up the awesome work!
    Cheers from Copenhagen, Denmark

    • Justin Sainton February 28, 2011 at 7:28 pm

      Hi Dan!

      Thanks for the interest, we’d love to have you on board with our plugin.

      Right now, we’re really making sure that the core functionality works perfectly. We have heavier, deeper analytics on the roadmap down the line. If there are specific features you love and would like to see integrated, shoot me an email at office at zaowebdesign dot com – or, if you’re a developer, feel free to contribute, it is all open source :)

      The first stable release will have everything we have mentioned in the roadmap. We’ll be employing a pretty rapid development model, we plan on having releases scheduled every 3-8 weeks or so – so you can be sure that second deals, give as a gift, etc. will all make it in at some point.

      • Mike March 1, 2011 at 4:44 am

        Hi Justin,

        Will the theme be released today, Feb. 28, 2011? Will it work with any other WP plugin and theme with a single login?

  34. Justin Sainton March 1, 2011 at 10:05 am

    Hi Mike!

    Wrote back to Will a few comments up the thread regarding the roadmap :)

    We’re off by about a week. Looking to release the next beta on Wednesday US time, one more on Friday, then the stable on Monday.

    It “shouldn’t” conflict with any other plugins, and when the stable comes out, all of the functionality will be fully abstracted from the theme and widgetized, so yes, it should work with any theme.

  35. parsy March 1, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    Hello, i am new here in all of this , but i want to learn.

    Can you please make a guide like this:

    Download THIS and Put it HERE
    Download THAT and Put it THERE
    etc .. etc ….

    Because i cant make anything of this.
    I have installed wordpress correctly , but when i downloaded the ‘wp-e-commerce’ and Uploaded it to folder ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ then Activated the Plugin only errors came UP.
    And I dont know what to do with other stuff like:
    + Group Deals beta 2
    + child theme

    Can you please give One full package to download not 10 :P it will be easyer to dummies like me :)

    So please Help, thanks in advance.

    • Justin Sainton March 2, 2011 at 10:34 am

      Hi Parsy,

      It’s not all that uncommon to have a theme and a plugin to install – we just happen to have TWO plugins, WPEC and Group Deals, that you have to install..

      You should be able to download the two plugins, upload them within WP, activate them. Download the theme, go to the theme area, upload and activate – BAM – you’re set.

      If you’d like me to help you personally, just shoot me an email at office at zaowebdesign dot com.

  36. Dan Mandle March 4, 2011 at 6:35 am

    Hey Justin,

    Any updates on releases? Are we seeing another beta today?

  37. Miision impsiblee March 5, 2011 at 1:48 pm

    Justiinnnn. Where is pluginnnnnn?????

  38. 3dolab March 5, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    Hello, I don’t want to deviate or put obstacles on this roadmap, but I found that I wasn’t able to get the deals displayed when using the default permalink structure: it worked only after changing it to %id%/%postname% and the category/tag sub-paths.
    I’m sure that almost everybody would set a custom permalink, anyway I’d like to report this issue for a complete bug tracking.

    Now I feel I can’t wait for the plugin to be released, but I guess that if you people keep asking the date you wouldn’t help the development and every reply to this kind of questions wouldn’t be a step ahead to the final goal.
    On the other hand, since nobody could claim an early release or force a voluntary work, it should be better not to summon false expectations, after all it’s done when it’s done…

    • Tasman March 6, 2011 at 1:19 am

      Justin did you change your name to 3dolab or what?

    • Justin Sainton March 6, 2011 at 5:28 am

      Thanks for the bug report 3dolab – I’ll try to replicate and fix as soon as possible – there’s a decent chance it’s actually a bug in wordpress e-commerce – I know permalinks are being worked on fervently.

      And you’re absolutely right, it’s done when it’s done :) Which is as soon as possible.

  39. Mike March 6, 2011 at 5:52 am

    Getting same bug as reported by 3dolab. Also getting this error showing up in dashboard:
    Warning: implode() [function.implode]: Invalid arguments passed in /home//public_html/wp-content/plugins/wpec-group-deal1/wpec-dd-admin/admin-functions.php on line 478

    I input( to hide admin name above

    • Justin Sainton March 6, 2011 at 7:34 am

      Hi Mike

      Are you using WPEC 3.8 RC2?

      • Mike March 6, 2011 at 10:54 am

        Yup, I upgraded today and checked and still getting error message

        • Justin Sainton March 6, 2011 at 4:24 pm

          Hi Mike,

          Flick me an email at office at zaowebdesign dot com – if you’re referring to the bug about the MySQL warnings in the server log, that should definitely be fixed. If you’re talking about the issue of permalinks, I actually haven’t been able to replicate that yet, even after trying. Either way, shoot me an email so I can make sure you have everything you need and we’re able to test with the latest version and kill any bugs that need killing.

  40. Doug March 6, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    WOW…I’ve spent the last 2 weeks searching and testing different clone softwares. Priced from $25 a month +5% to $500 set-ups. I’ve also got a list of 95 advertisers we have been working with for the last 18 months with another project, (all in the restaraunt and health and beauty industry) and an email database of 1000(so far) ALL waiting for our program in our little corner of the world. Out little town of 80k with a 30 mile reach in 5 different directions to bring that total to 250,000 is going to be a nice little business.

    Groupon just dumped 2mil into Poland in the last 3 months and 4 clones have popped up over the last 6months. The funny thing is…NONE of them list our region of the country on their site.

    You guys just keep plugin away…It’s midnight here so I’ll be diggin into this in the AM but from what I’ve seen..its coming along just SUPER!

    MY first question…TRANSLATION…ini file? Please tell me it’s simply one file. Also, the multi deal someone was talking about…

    When you have extended times for deals..ie, a week or 3 days or 7 days….you can run them simultaneously. Then, you’ll need a deal widget for the side bar to run deals that aren’t ‘daily’ deals.

    Something else that I’ve noticed missing in other softwares was this….

    If I run a deal for lets say 5 days….I want it to automatically go out as a deal of the day when there are 20hrs left. BUT, only if it hasn’t tipped. Not with 24hrs left, if it’s got 10 sold and it goes out with 24hrs left then it doesn’t look so good….but 18, 19hrs left, 10 or 15 sold in the first few hours….it creates that urgency.

    Anyways..It was great to find this even though it is so late…I’ll check in in a few hours.

    Cheers
    Doug

    • Justin Sainton March 6, 2011 at 4:31 pm

      Hi Doug!

      Wow! So interesting to hear about Groupon dumping that much money into Poland. I hope we’ll be able to suit your needs.

      When we launch, we’ll launch with a fully gettext compatible plugin that is 100% internationalized with POT file ready for translating :)

      As far as multiple deals, side deals, nearby deals, concurrent deals (whatever you want to call it) – that’s on the roadmap in several forms, but it will probably have to wait for Version 1.1 or 1.2. Which won’t be all that far out.

      As far as everything else you mentioned goes – we’ll just have to wait and see :) As soon as we actually get this thing out in the wild, we’ll set up a poll for people to request features and vote on them.

      • Doug March 7, 2011 at 9:21 am

        Thanks for the info…I didn’t get to mess with it today because of another product but last night I saw the region settings…like the ability to sell in many regions….Those regions need to be customizable so that we may add our own regions and when people sign up to receive emails they are signing up for a specific region. Not quit sure how that will work…like I said, didn’t get to look into it today.

        I’m also hip on a [deeply :) ] discounted version for a translation ;) I’ve got Polish covered and could probably manage a German version if no one else hawking this project speaks German.

        As for running simultaneous deals and the time being adjustable….that’s a make or break for new businesses. If you read up on what it takes to start one of these businesses up…they specifically mention that your first deals aren’t going to be able to be run for only a day. They MUST be successful and have to be run for a week or so. I’ll try to throw up some links I’ve found tomorrow.

        Cheers

  41. Vero Fenix March 6, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Hi, i’m trying to use this plugin at local server, but i don’t know if i’m doing something wrong, because it’s not working.

    I downloaded all the last versions of wp, wpec and this plugin and the theme…

    When i create vendors, they dissapear… the vendors section is empty ever…

    and… i need some of documentation because i can’t loose more time.

    The translation ini file too, i can translate this plugin (and wpec) to spanish (spain) if you make me a discount in the final premium release XDDDDDDDD.

    Of course, i’m going to wait your updates. I really need a useful plugin that works well.

    The shippment section, i need to edit the actual options. I want to sell products only to spain, not to all europe, and set different prices por 3 regions of spain (peninsula, islands, etc…).

    Thank you so much.

    • Justin Sainton March 6, 2011 at 4:34 pm

      Hi Vero!

      Are you sure you downloaded the latest version? I know the vendors bug you mentioned was an issue in the first release, but I believe it’s resolved now – I’d be happy to take a look at it for you if you have it somewhere I can access it.

      As far as documentation goes, we’ll release extensive documentation, including screencasts, with the first release – right now, we’re really focused on development. But I promise, if you set this up in a normal environment, create a vendor, create a product with all the necessary information (including image set as thumbnail) – it should work just fine.

      And of course, you’re MORE than welcome to take a look at the POT file released with the stable version and contribute a Spanish translation, that would be lovely :)

      Regarding shipping options, that all sounds possible within WordPress E-Commerce. Shouldn’t be a problem.

  42. Mike March 9, 2011 at 3:50 am

    Hey Justin:

    Thanks loads for explaining what was going on. The problem was at my end, not the plugin.

    Can’t wait for the final product to be released.

    Mike

  43. Reuben March 9, 2011 at 8:10 am

    Great plugin. Any idea when the next beta and final product are going to be released?

    • Sinir March 9, 2011 at 9:50 am

      Reuben,

      You used forbidden word ( released date ) 3dolab aka Justin might get angry.

      • 3dolab March 10, 2011 at 1:02 am

        Funny bro, but I have to claim my own identity!!
        The fact is that if you guys have read my comment paying a bit more attention you could have noticed that actually I was also criticizing Justin for his continuous postponement and above all for catching our interest as it seems he tried to keep hype high on his work whereas disappointed expectations are not needed at all.

        By the way, I’m working on an e-commerce site and I stopped looking around for alternative platforms as soon as I’ve found this page, but the result is that I’ve wasted many days in waiting for the new releases to come out.

        And yes, I know it’s clever to faithfully trust only promises supported by facts.

        • Justin Sainton March 11, 2011 at 6:36 am

          Hype = “publicize in an exaggerated and often misleading manner”.

          I hope I haven’t exaggerated or misled you in any way. Every roadmap, estimation and target date was made at the time with the best of intentions, and we’ve announced nothing that isn’t either already a part of the product or scheduled to be.

        • 3dolab March 11, 2011 at 8:05 am

          rofl now I’m taking fire from both sides
          my apologies Justin, I never meant to look down on your great work, I guess I know how it’s going and my exaggerations were only (perhaps mistakenly) led to put an end to that joke.
          Also I’m sure I will stick to this plugin and never shift to other Group deal clones.

        • Justin Sainton March 11, 2011 at 8:26 am

          Ha, I hear ya – I think I heard a proverb once about it being better to remain silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt ;) I should probably practice that more :)

        • Sinir March 11, 2011 at 9:49 am

          Please accept my deepest apologies if I have caused any offense. Having said that Justin, you can use Lebron James’s What should I do? concept for group deal plugin.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdtejCR413c

  44. vina March 9, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    this plugin is promising :)

  45. Jeff March 10, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    Hmmm…I know I am doing something wrong but I get a blank screen when I activate the theme. I think I may be confused on what I need to install. Is it just the theme or are there other plugins that I need? I have read this whole page but no one seems to have the same issue I am having. I’m using wp 3.1.

    I really am interested in this when it goes live!

    Thanks in advance!

  46. Justin Sainton March 11, 2011 at 9:58 am

    Closing comments now at an even 100 – direct all comments to the new blog post :)