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What's new

!!! note Welcome to v3.0. Meet the new major version of Virto Commerce Platform. Our development efforts were focused on moving to ASP.NET Core, performance, architecture improvements and further enhancements. The changes below are a subset of the larger list of changes in update to ASP.NET Core.

Architectural and conceptual changes

For developers and architects

  • Improved extensibility and unification
  • Increase in development speed and decrease in time to market
  • Unified architecture and usage of good architecture practices leads to shorter learning curve for developers who are new to Virto Commerce
  • Cross-Platform Support: run on Windows, Mac or Linux

Technology stack

Application & Data

  • .NET 8
  • ASP.NET Core 8
    • ASP.NET Core Identity
    • ASP.NET Core SignalR
  • Entity Framework Core 8
  • OpenIddict 4
  • HangFire 1.8.6
  • AngularJS 1.8

DevOps and Utilities

  • Visual Studio 2022
  • NodeJS 20 LTS
  • Webpack 5

Techniques

Caching

  • ASP.NET Core in-memory caching is used
  • Strongly typed cache regions and change tokens for cache dependencies
  • Ability to manage cached objects' expiration time and disabling the caching
  • Hybrid caching policy for keeping cached data consistent in multiple Platform instances
  • The dedicated "VirtoCommerce.Cache" module was removed; now caching is implemented in place where it is needed

Dependency injection (DI)

  • Unity DI replaced by built-in .NET Core DI (Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection)

Development

  • Virto Commerce developmet switched to GitFlow Workflow model
  • GitVersion tool to ease Semantic Versioning
  • Both Platform and all modules repository structure unified to have build, docs, src, tests folders on the top.
  • The recommended structure of a module solution was updated:
    • Permissions, Settings and other constants should be defined in the .Core project
    • Caching should be defined and done in the .Data project
    • All v3 modules were refactored to follow the recommended structure
  • All methods in search and CRUD services made asynchronous:
    • Returning async Task or async Task<T>
    • The methods renamed to end with "Async"
  • All API controller methods made asynchronous:
    • Returning async Task or async Task<T>
    • The endpoint names left unchanged for backward compatibility (not ending with "Async")

DevOps

Dynamic properties

  • Dynamic properties registration logic changed. Now manual registration used instead of reflection

Export/Import

  • Export/Import is now streamed for all modules

Security

  • Now permissions are defined only in design-time using a special fluent syntax
  • Localization for permissions added
  • Storefront switched to work using barrier token authentication

Settings

  • Settings are defined in design-time, using special fluent syntax
  • Localization for settings added
  • Now setting value can be changed using any .NET Core configuration provider

Modularity

  • Module.manifest file structure changed (scripts, styles, settings and permissions declarations removed)
  • IModule abstraction changed to have only Initialize and PostInitialize methods; Module.cs structure simplified.

Persistency infrastructure

  • Object-relational mapper (ORM) switched to Entity Framework Core (EF Core)
  • New EF Core migrations generated
  • Only Table per Hierarchy (TPH, hierarchy mapping to a single table) inheritance model now supported
  • DbContext defined separately from repository
  • EntityFramework.Triggers for auditing and change logging
  • Calls to DbContext methods refactored to be asynchronous

Changes in VC Platform

Solution code structure

  • Functionality specific implementations were split into dedicated projects (Assets, Modules, etc.)

Configuration and Options

Modularity

  • Assembly and dependency loading completely reworked into platform process

Security

  • Authentification and authorization fully updated to ASP.NET Core Identity without any extensions
  • OpenIddict used as an OpenID Connect server to support all OAuth flows; it's also used for token based authentication
  • OAuth2 Password and Client credentials flow for Machine to Machine (M2M) applications
  • HMAC and simple key authorization support removed for API calls

Logging

  • Built-in .NET Core ILogger abstraction and logic instead of ICommonLogging and NLog

Virto Commerce Manager app

  • Webpack + npm instead of Gulp + Bower
  • New make-up for Commerce Manager app UI

New modules

Notifications module

  • Functionality, which was spread across the system, now gathered into a dedicated module
  • Unlimited channel types for notification sending (email, SMS, social networks, etc.):
  • Notification availability management for each store
  • Possibility to activate/deactivate each notification individually for each store
  • New flexible extendibility model
  • Notification template preview with data
  • Support of LIQUID syntax for templates based on Scriban engine
  • New notification messages feed enables to search and preview individual messages
  • Enhanced notifications management UI

Tax module

  • Tax calculation functionality, which was spread across the system, now gathered into a dedicated module, responsible for tax settings and calculation
  • The new module is a single integration point for third party software and custom extensions

Shipping module

  • Shipping costs calculation functionality, which was spread across the system, now gathered into a dedicated module, responsible for shipping methods, related settings and shipping costs calculation
  • The new module is a single integration point for third party software and custom extensions

Payment module

  • Payment methods functionality and integrations, which were spread across the system, now gathered into a dedicated module, responsible for payment methods and related settings
  • The new module is a single point for payment gateways integrations

Search module

  • Provides a generic UI and programming components for indexed search
  • The new module is a single point for search engine integrations

Major changes in modules

Commerce core module

  • VirtoCommerce.Domain project removed
    • Now each module self-defines domain model and abstractions in corresponding .Core projects. Multiple packages from corresponding modules will be distributed instead.
    • Nuget package VirtoCommerce.Domain was left unupdated from previous version. There won't be any update to v3, nor any replacement package in v3.
  • Common functionality and model moved from Virto Commerce dynamic expression library module

Catalog module

  • support for model extending added
  • VirtoCommerce.CatalogModule.Web.Core project removed. Model from .Core project used in API directly

Marketing module

  • "Dynamic expression" building refactored to "compile time" expressions
  • New serialization logic for expressions. Serialized expression format changed to JSON (backwards compatible)

Removed modules

  • Smart caching module
    • Now caching is implemented in place where it is needed (Platform and modules)
  • Virto Commerce dynamic expression library module
    • Common functionality and model moved to Commerce core module
    • Module specific functionality was split to corresponding modules (Marketing, Pricing, etc.)

Platform v2 and v3 versions compatibility

The list of code breaking changes

API

  • Both versions are compatible on API level. API clients should be able to switch between the versions only by changing the Platform endpoint URL and credentials
  • v2 and v3 swagger API specifications comparison generated by swagger-diff tool: v2v3Changelog.html

Database

  • The v2 and v3 databases have structural differences;
  • Special migrations were added to upgrade Platform and VC modules from v2 database to v3 automatically;
  • Any database related extensions made in custom modules, should be upgraded by adding special DB migrations in module code (no manual changes to DB)
  • Any custom existing v2 database should be upgraded before using by Platform v3

Current Virto Commerce Modules

Id Title Version
vc-module-core Commerce core module 3.800.0
vc-module-tax Tax general logic module 3.800.0
vc-module-search Search module 3.800.0
vc-module-azure-search Azure Search module 3.800.0
vc-module-lucene-search Lucene Search module 3.800.0
vc-module-elastic-search Elastic Search module 3.800.0
vc-module-inventory Inventory module 3.800.0
vc-module-image-tools Image tools module 3.800.0
vc-module-notification Notifications module 3.800.0
vc-module-export Export module 3.800.0
vc-module-content CMS Content module 3.800.0
vc-module-payment Payment module 3.800.0
vc-module-store Store module 3.800.0
vc-module-customer Customer management module 3.800.0
vc-module-bulk-actions Bulk Actions general logic module 3.800.0
vc-module-catalog Catalog management module 3.800.0
vc-module-shipping Shipping general logic module 3.800.0
vc-module-sitemaps Sitemaps module 3.800.0
vc-module-pricing Pricing module 3.800.0
vc-module-cart Shopping cart module 3.800.0
vc-module-order Orders management module 3.800.0
vc-module-marketing Marketing management module 3.800.0
vc-module-subscription Subscriptions management module 3.800.0
vc-module-customer-review Customer reviews module 3.800.0
vc-module-Authorize.Net Authorize.Net DPM payment gateway integration 3.800.0
vc-module-avatax Avalara Tax automation integration 3.800.0
vc-module-catalog-personalization Catalog personalization 3.800.0
vc-module-catalog-publishing Catalog publishing module 3.800.0
vc-module-catalog-csv-import Imports management module-catalog-csv 3.800.0
vc-module-quote Quotes module 3.800.0

and more. List of currently released v3 modules till the moment of writing. Additional modules might have been added.