We released our new website www.webasyst.net!

With the new website we launched a special discount offer for the entire WebAsyst software suite (9 applications including Shop-Script). Entire suite is now available at super discounted price—$599.
If you buy all WebAsyst applications separately, the total price would be:
299 + 179 + 99 + 149 + 129 + 129 + 149 + 99 + 99 = $1331
. When you buy all applications together your total discount is $732. You get all applications at less than half-price! See WebAsyst pricing for more details.

We are working on several new partnership programs that will be presumably released in the following order:

If you are interested in becoming a partner, sign up for our email newsletter about the new programs. We will let you know when every new program is released. There are no exact timeframes for now—we are working to release asap.

You will be able to participate in all of our partner programs if you like.

One year ago we introduced new software update policy which assumed paid access to WebAsyst software updates: 25% of the original purchase price for 1 extra year of updates (after the first year passes).

According to this change updates were about to become paid for many of WebAsyst and Shop-Script users on September 1st, 2009.

However, we have several critical arguments against this paid update policy, and that is why we decided to suspend switching to paid updates for now. Let us get back to this issue someday in the future. For now we continue to offer WebAsyst software updates for all our customers for free.

Permanent extension of the functionality of WebAsyst Shop-Script was long ago understood as a dead end. The idea that this piece of software should rather become an easily extendable platform has been discussed during several past years by our team. A couple of months ago we finally realized the gravity of the situation and decided that this idea should be implemented already in the next release of Shop-Script.

We have collected and studied all available information about module-based software development and drawn up a source code refactoring plan.

Our main goal is to make Shop-Script a platform for creation of online stores.

A couple of words about what we are currently doing:

1. Creation of the module-based architecture that would allow installation of functional modules and plugins. This is the main part of work and it is what we are actually busy doing right now.

The problems we are facing are that plugins must remain operational after each software update and that they should be completely independent not to interfere with each other.

We decided to preserve the basic organization of modules, screens and interfaces currently used in WebAsyst Shop-Script and to reject the redundant tree-like structure.

2. Localization. The localization module is being modified to use gettext with compilation like in other new applications which are in development right now (Photos, Contacts, new Support application).

3. Design templates. We know how to make the design modification easier than it is now. We are planning to allow editing a larger number of templates than you can edit in the current version and make the editing tools more convenient.

4. Developer documentation. It is being created in parallel to the coding process and will be released together with the next update. The main idea is to make modification of our script a trivial task.

5. Performance. Preliminary tests already show reduction of load on server twice as high on frequently used screens. We believe that we will be able to increase the performance of the storefront and main screens of the administrator account by 3—4 times.

6. Redesign. Many core backend screens will be redesigned from scratch. For instance, the order and product management sections — they are the “heart” of an online store, and working with them should be a real pleasure.

Unlike transition from Shop-Script PRO/PREMIUM to WebAsyst Shop-Script, an update from the current version to the next release will be performed automatically by means of WebAsyst Installer. All user data as well as design changes will be preserved and correctly updated.

And now the bad news: we do not know yet when the new version is going to be released. Since we switched to a new pricing schedule last year (the purchase price of the script includes the cost of updates during a year with further updates to be purchased additionally) and suddenly decided to work on the next release during a long period of time, we hereby guarantee that owners of WebAsyst Shop-Script licenses will not be charged for getting this major update. We will offer it to all Shop-Script license owners free of charge.