2023 September Product Updates

Welcome to the September 2023 product updates! We have some exciting highlights to share with you regarding our Joomla extensions.

Before we dive into the details, we want to remind you of the valuable updates we released in July and our plans for the rest of the year. In case you missed them, check out the July Product Updates and August Updates articles, where we brought you a range of exciting enhancements to your favorite Joomla apps.

EngageBox: New Conditions for VirtueMart & HikaShop

We're excited to introduce a game-changing EngageBox update tailored to boost your e-commerce success. EngageBox 6.1.2 brings 7 powerful e-commerce-based popup conditions for VirtueMart and HikaShop that will take your customer engagement and conversion rates to new heights.

1. Purchased Product Condition: Target customers who purchased a specific product from your store. EngageBox will trigger a popup tailored to their interests, making it easier to upsell or cross-sell related products.
2. Last Purchased Date Condition: Reach out to customers whose last purchase was made before a certain period. This is perfect for re-engaging dormant customers, offering them incentives to return and shop on your site.
3. Current Product Category Condition: Trigger popups when visitors browse products from specific categories. Tailor your messaging to their interests and guide them towards purchasing within their preferred category.
4. Current Product Price Condition: Encourage visitors to make high-value purchases. Trigger popups when visitors browse products that meet a specific price threshold, enticing them with exclusive offers or discounts.
5. Current Product Stock Condition: Inform customers about product availability by triggering popups when visitors browse products with a specific stock threshold. This condition helps create a sense of urgency and can drive quicker purchasing decisions.
6. Current Category Condition: Trigger popups when visitors browse specific category list pages. Deliver targeted messages that resonate with their interests and preferences.
7. Total Spend Condition: Reward loyal customers by triggering popups when their total amount spent reaches a specific threshold. Show your appreciation with exclusive discounts or offers, further solidifying their loyalty to your brand.

These new conditions empower you to engage with your VirtueMart or HikaShop audience more effectively, drive conversions, and boost sales. EngageBox continues to be the go-to solution for creating dynamic and conversion-focused popups in Joomla. To read more details, visit the documentation page.

Google Structured Data: HowTo Schema & DPCalendar Integration

We want to share some exciting news for our Google Structured Data extension, designed to supercharge your Joomla website's SEO and user engagement. In our latest update, we're introducing two significant enhancements that will elevate your online presence.

DPCalendar Integration

We understand the importance of optimizing your event management efforts, so we've integrated Google Structured Data with the popular DPCalendar extension. DPCalendar is a powerful event management solution for Joomla, and now, our extension seamlessly syncs with it.

With this integration, you can effortlessly mark up your event pages using the Event Schema, ensuring that search engines like Google recognize and display your events more effectively. This means improved search engine rankings and increased visibility for your events, ultimately driving more traffic to your Joomla website.

Visit How to add Structured Data to DPCalendar for more details.

How-To Schema

We believe in constantly expanding our offerings to meet your evolving needs. We're excited to introduce the HowTo schema type to our extensive list. It is perfect for websites providing step-by-step instructions, tutorials, or guides. It helps you structure your content so search engines can better understand and present it to users as rich snippets. Whether you're sharing DIY tutorials, cooking recipes, or instructional guides, our HowTo Schema Type will empower you to stand out in search results and engage your audience more effectively.

Suggested Article: What Are Rich Results? Complete Beginner’s Guide

Advanced Custom Fields: Gallery Slideshow Layout

Exciting news awaits all our Advanced Custom Fields users! We're thrilled to introduce a new layout for our Gallery custom field: The brand-new "Slideshow" layout. With this feature, your image galleries will receive a major upgrade, providing an enriched viewing experience for your website visitors.

Key Highlights:

• Display Thumbnails Below the Slideshow: Easily showcase thumbnail previews of your images beneath the slideshow, enhancing user navigation and engagement.
• Seamless Navigation: Effortlessly glide through your images using arrow buttons or pagination bullets, ensuring a smooth and intuitive viewing experience.
• Customize Slides per View: Tailor your slideshow to your content with adjustable slides per view, offering flexibility in presentation.
• Hardware Accelerated Transition Effects: Choose from various stunning transition effects like Slide, Face, 3D Cube, 3D Coverflow, and Flip, adding a touch of elegance to your slideshows.
• Continuous Loop Mode: Keep your audience engaged by enabling the continuous loop mode, ensuring they never reach the end of your captivating visuals.
• Autoplay with Progress Indicator: Let your images come to life with autoplay functionality and a sleek progress indicator, turning your gallery into an immersive experience.
• Keyboard Control: Give users full control with keyboard navigation, making it convenient for those who prefer a keyboard-driven experience.
• Images Lazy Loading: Optimize your website's performance with images that load on demand, enhancing page speed and user satisfaction.
• No External JavaScript Libraries: ACF's Slideshow script is completely independent and doesn't rely on external JavaScript libraries like jQuery, ensuring a lightweight and efficient solution.
• Mobile-Friendly: Seamlessly adapt to all screen sizes and devices, ensuring your slideshows look and work beautifully on mobile devices.

With the Slideshow layout, you can now use Joomla custom fields to create captivating slideshow in Joomla that leave a lasting impression on your audience. Whether showcasing a portfolio, product images, or travel photos, this feature provides the tools to make your visuals stand out.

Suggested Article: How to create a Photo Gallery in Joomla

Convert Forms: Maintenance Release

We're excited to announce the latest Convert Forms release, version 4.2.2, as a dedicated maintenance update. This release focuses on enhancing stability and addressing important bug fixes, ensuring that Convert Forms continues to provide you with a reliable and seamless experience. Here's a glimpse of what this release includes:

• Compatibility fixes for Joomla 5.
• Accurate display of the submitter's username in backend submissions.
• Correct parsing of nested Smart Tags.
• Improved functionality of the Webhooks App on Joomla 3.
• Introduction of the {submission.user_username} Smart Tag.

Suggested Article: How to Stop Contact Form Spam in Joomla

What’s Next

October is an exciting month for our Joomla Extensions, and we're thrilled to announce some fantastic updates and new features that our valued customers can look forward to.

Conditional Content Shortcode

We understand the importance of delivering personalized content to your website visitors. That's why we will introduce a powerful Conditional Content Shortcode feature for Convert Forms and EngageBox. With this feature, you can display or hide content based on specific conditions, ensuring your audience receives content tailored to their preferences and needs. Whether you want to show a special offer to first-time visitors or target a specific audience segment, our Conditional Content Shortcode will make it easier than ever.

Advanced Custom Fields Enhancements

Our Advanced Custom Fields extension has been a valuable tool for creating dynamic and interactive content on your Joomla website. In October, we will be enhancing this extension further by adding two exciting features:

• Image Resize Option for File Upload Custom Field: You asked, and we listened. We are adding an Image Resize option to the File Upload Custom Field. This will allow you to automatically resize and optimize images uploaded by users, ensuring that your website remains fast and efficient without sacrificing image quality.
• Watermark Option for Gallery Custom Field: Protecting your images and adding a personal touch to your galleries is important. We're introducing a Watermark option for the Gallery Custom Field. You'll be able to easily apply watermarks to your images, helping you maintain control over your content and brand identity.

New Form Templates for Convert Forms

Forms are essential to any website, and we want to ensure that creating stunning and effective forms is as effortless as possible. In October, we are excited to roll out brand-new form templates for Convert Forms. These templates are designed to save time and make form creation a breeze. Whether you need a contact form, survey, registration form, or any other type, our new templates will give you a head start, allowing you to focus on what matters most – engaging with your audience.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned for these exciting updates and enhancements coming to your Joomla Extensions. We are dedicated to delivering the best tools and features to empower you to create amazing Joomla websites. Your feedback and suggestions continue to drive our development, and we can't wait to see how these improvements will elevate your Joomla experience.

To stay connected with our community, you can join our community on Facebook. If you use multiple extensions, consider upgrading to Bundle to save loads. Stay updated with the latest news and tips by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. If you've enjoyed using our software, please consider rating us on the Joomla Extensions Directory. Your feedback is invaluable to us.