The first set of changes we wanted to talk about revolve around the storefront.
The biggest change we've made in this area is a completely redesigned product page. This is what it looks like:
The more perceptive of you will notice that a redesign isn't the only thing this screenshot reveals - we've added several new features to the storefront.
Multiple Product Images
Probably the most requested IP.Nexus feature, and coming with Nexus 1.4 is multiple product images. You can upload as many different images for a product you like and they are all displayed on the left-side of the product view. Clicking any image will bring it up in the larger box at the top, and clicking that will launch the lightbox to display the full-size image.
We've made adding multiple images a quick and easy experience for administrators using an AJAX upload system, here's a video of it in action:
http://www.invisionpower.com/uploads/nexus_multiple_product_images.mov
As you can see, it's very easy to upload and manage multiple images.
Product Reviews
Another oft-requested feature coming in IP.Nexus 1.4 is product reviews. You can now set (on a per-product basis) if you want to accept reviews, and if you want to moderate reviews before they go live.
Only customers who have purchased the product can review (they'll see a prompt both on the product page in the store and in their purchases list in the client area), and with it they provide a star rating out of 5. The average star rating is displayed on the product page.
All members can click whether they found the review helpful or not, and the count for this is displayed just below the review.
Product reviews of course integrate with the IPS Community Suite Moderator Center - so you'll be able to easily see a list of reviews pending approval, and members will be able to report reviews and these reports will show up in the Moderator Center.
Tax Included
IP.Nexus now has the option to include tax in the price which is shown to customers in the store. The text you see in the screenshot ("incl. vat.") can be customised to display whatever you like (so if you're not including tax in the price, it could say "excl. tax").
The calculation is based off of the member's location if known, or the fallback "All Locations" rate if the location is not known.
Discounted Price
IP.Nexus has long had the option to give selected members discounts based on their usergroup and previous purchases. In IP.Nexus 1.4, if a discount is applied, the original price will be shown striked out next to it so that users are aware that they're receiving a discount.
Grid View
As well as the product page itself, we've added a new viewing option to the category view. Rather than displaying products in a list, you can now display them in a grid format:
You can of course set which view will be the default and disable the option for the user to choose.
This is just the first blog entry we have planned for IP.Nexus 1.4. As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile: