Blog Directory

Top 4 Must-Know ASP.NET Trends For 2017

Top 4 Must-Know ASP.NET Trends For 2017

From past 14 years, Asp.net has marked its name as one of the best web development technologies and developers considers it the best offer from Microsoft. Asp.net has the best features and functionalities to help your business grow. Each year new trends emerge to enhance the development phase of new technologies. Here I’m going to discuss some key trends of Microsoft .net application development services beneficial for both developers and businesses for the year 2017.

The Big Revamp

Microsoft .Net Development has given us all a big surprise by announcing asp.net core 1.0 which is not any similar to asp.net 4.6 but a whole new framework. Well, it does contain same elements of Asp.net we have been familiar with but on the other hand, it has become smaller and modular. This change happens due to the portability but it took development to the next level.

The major advantage of the core Asp.net is it supports more languages, making things easier for developers.

Mobile Development

Developing a mobile app using asp.net was nearly an impossible task. Declined by the windows based smartphones and tablets had nearly ended the enthusiasm for mobile development. But it’s 2017 and things have been changed and taken U-turns. New advancements and improvements in this .net framework will see more of mobile development in the upcoming years. The core .net platform will be used to develop apps for not only just for Android but also for iOS platforms.

IoT & Big Data

From the past few years, Internet of things (IoT) and Big Data gathered too much attention. Big organizations are looking for large volumes of data to get an insight and make informed decisions in real time. Well in 2017, we will get to see more asp.net development as the platform helps businesses capitalize on the big data and IoT technology. One can get the advantage of highly flexible and scalable IoT and big data-based solutions by combining Asp.net with IIS server. This will help you to grow your business by achieving the desired goals.

Cloud Services

From the past few years, cloud services have gained a lot of fame and it really takes no time to move your data and applications to the cloud. Microsoft has strongly marketed their Azure Cloud Services and this year we can expect major and a big change. .Net applications are now being developed and implemented in the cloud. Here’s another good news, it is now possible to create multi-tier .net applications which got Asp.net MVC as front end and deploy it on the cloud. These applications will be using Azure SQL database, the Azure Blob service, and Azure Queue Service.

Conclusion.

With this new release of .net development and the demand for better UX especially on the mobile, Asp .Net development will definitely lead the way in this new era thus helping online businesses to interact with their audiences. So if you want to get the best out of your .net development, we are here to help you out with the latest trends of Asp.net with the help of our experts. Write to us in the comment section below about these latest trends of Asp.net and let us know if you know any.

Read here Top 12 Advantages of ASP.NET Framework

Saima Naz

Mar 16, 2017

Why You Should Choose Drupal Development Services To Build Business Website

Why You Should Choose Drupal Development Services To Bu...

The word “Drupal” originated from the Dutch word “Druppel” which means drop. Drupal is free and a prominent open-source CMS. Written in PHP, this framework is a preferred choice for all the websites from personal blogs to corporate, political, or even government sites. Drupal has several excellent features and because of this, it has become the top best CMS for developing business sites.

Why Drupal?

Drupal has the largest open source developer community with thousands of modules and zeroes licensing cost. Its extensions and features make it an extremely flexible and customizable platform which can help in creating some amazing websites and applications. With Drupal website development services you can create not only business websites but also social networking sites, blogging sites, news publishing websites, media and art sites and much more.

Drupal Website Development Services:

Here we’ll discuss 10 important factors as for why you should choose Drupal web development services for building business sites. Let’s start.

Flexible Payment Modes:

With Drupal, you can achieve your desired needs from your e-commerce sites because this platform provides full freedom in choosing payment modes and also allows you to build multiple payment modes or gateways as per your requirement.

Can Set Versatile Price Slabs:

Drupal is fantastic because it simplifies the whole process of enticing customers. It will also facilitate you to set price slabs for the overseas customers on account of location, product type, packaging and more.

Products Features:

It is trendy to highlight popular and the most selling items on your online store and with Drupal, you can do it real easily. Through this way, you can grab the attention of your customers for the most in-demand products online. It is an ingenious approach to Drupal Development.

Protected Page Module With Secure Checkout & Login:

The secure page is an e-commerce module that gives opportunity and ensures different simple ways to implement few primary example matching. If SSL certification is installed on your business website, then search any organization structure of module to design fully secured web pages. Depending on the module which you uses to enhance the functionality of your business site.

Control SEO, CRO & Website Analytics Easily:

Drupal gives the only single system to work so it is really easy to control the website analytics, SEO and conversion rates optimization (CRO) that is onerous with two systems. Along with this, customer journey optimization is also simpler because it has one journey despite two with the bridge.

Role Management & Great Community Feature:

The role and use feature of Drupal allow the access to use the functionality for any online store. Customers can also use this option to control features. It also consists a myriad of lucrative community features for online business owners which can help in attracting maximum customers in the loop and make them engaged. This amazing feature will no doubt repeat sales for a lifetime.

Integrate External System:

With RESTful API you can extend, enhance the functionality of Drupal platform with external systems for your online business store. This amazing functionality is also available in Drupal Commerce with the 3rd party system.

Order Management Tools:

You can manage, update, and view all the orders on your online store through the Drupal administration tool set. Or can even send update notifications with the Drupal order management tools.

No Premium Plugins / Modules:

There is no such existence of premium plugins or modules in Drupal community. Drupal commerce is basically an open-source and free-to-use software which consists no module or plugin.

WYSIWYG Editorial Manager:

WYSIWYG functionality powered mainly by Drupal brings out numerous reasons to include it in your site. Edit this editorial manager on setting structure and ensures that it represents your online store payment settings and contacts. One thing you should need to make sure is to change settings of editorial manager because no single procedures fit all sizes modules.

Conclusion

All the above-mentioned points make Drupal a cutting edge platform for creating any business website. These points no doubt justify as for why you should choose Drupal Website Development services to create the business site.

Saima Naz

Mar 14, 2017

Best Development Practices In Magento For Building Attractive Store

Best Development Practices In Magento For Building Attr...

Magento e-commerce developers who are new might face some common mistakes in Magento development.  E-commerce website development with Magento is much easy if you have an idea about the tips and have some tricks to build an attractive store. This article is about development tips for Magento developers to avoid common mistakes in Magento development and to improvise the Magento development practice.

Before moving on, you have to make sure that you have Magento installed on your system. Let us see some coolest tricks and tips for Magento ecommerce developers so that you can be a Magento geek too.

Setting up Magento (BASIC STEPS)

Ecommerce web design with Magento is very comfortable. For that first of all you have to setup Magento on your system so that you can further develop e-commerce website with Magento. To set up:

  1. Go to System > Cache Management > Disable.
  2. Next, you have to enable Logging settings. To do that go to System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > and head over to Log Settings. Now choose the Enabled option, and the logging setting will get enabled allowing you to do Magento custom development.
  3. Magento development services provide us the service of SEO. To enable the SEO setting again go to System > Configuration and head over to The Web and Search Engine Optimization. Now check the Yes option for the Use Web Server Rewrites.
  4. Next action is to configure the reindex management. Navigate to  System > Index Management and choose Reindex all.
  5. To enable the Developer Mode go to .htaccess and add the following line of code at the end: etEnv MAGE_IS_DEVELOPER_MODE “true.”
  6. Within <IfModule mod_php5.c> tag add  php_value display_errors On  in .htaccess
  7. Locate /errors/local.xml.sample and now rename it to /errors/local.xml.

Never Edit Core Files

Some Common mistakes in Magento development that developers make is that they edit the core files while doing custom Magento development. The first rule of Magento development practice is never to alter those core files of the Magento platform if you want to achieve any functionality you can use any Magento extensions.

The only solution that Magento ecommerce development provides is to edit “Shipping.php” file located at “appcodecoreMageShippingModelShipping.php.” You have two options you can alter the same file here, or you can make a new file of the same name and then after editing you can copy and then paste it in the following path.

This trick works if you want to do any Magento custom development without altering the core files. So next time when you will upgrade your Magento platform, those files will get overwrite because Magento always looks for files in a local directory that is (app code local)  before looking for a file in the core directory.

Turn on Template Path Hints

If e-commerce website development with Magento is the new thing to you, then you surely can realize some hassle while understanding the logic behind the file structure and block structure of a Magento layout when you try to customize the storefront. Magento development services provide you the solution so that you can enjoy while developing with Magento. Magento has the best feature that helps you by displaying hints showing where the different files of your layout are. So using this feature it would be easy for you to locate them you can edit them.

But to access this feature, you have to enable it so that Magento ecommerce development will get easy for you. Follow these steps.

  1. To access it you have to log in to your administration panel.
  2. Now next step is to navigate to System > Configuration.
  3. Now find “Current Configuration Scope” from the left navigation column on top.
  4. Select “Main Website” from the drop down menu.
  5. Now go to Developer > Advance at the left navigation column.
  6. Here you can see Template Path Hints under  “Debug” just select Yes.
  7. Hit Save Config button.

After that you have done the above configurations on your Magento system you will see some red boxes on your storefront. These red boxes are underlying structure of the pages regarding templates and blocks.

PS: Only use this trick when you are in a development environment. Otherwise, your storefront would look hideous with big red blocks everywhere.

Best GUI for Magento Development

Ecommerce web design with Magento can be more lovely if you use JetBrainfs PhpStorm. It is a Php editor that ‘understands’ your code and its structure. Thus provides full support for all PHP language features for modern and legacy projects. The other features of PhpStorm are:

  • PHP 5.5 support
  • Improved PHP syntax coloring
  • Vagrant, SSH console & remote tools
  • Support for Magento frameworks
  • Debugging and testing improvements

Best Magento Plugins for Magento Developers

If Magento programmers want to choose best Magento development practices to make Magento e-commerce development easy and more catchy, than you can use Magicento is a PHPStorm plugin for Magento developers. Some of the features are:

    • Goto and autocomplete for factories
    • Goto for template paths
    • XML files
    • Class names
    • Documentation for XML nodes
    • Inside Magento environment evaluation of PHP code
    • And much more to have!

Best Magento Development Environment

Magento e-commerce developers love you to use XAMPP for Magento Development Environment.XAMPP is free and easy to install Apache server. It contains MySQL, PHP, MariaDB, and Perl. XAMPP is an open source package that is very easy to install and to use. You can download it from the official site so you can start Magento custom development.

Remember!! XAMPP setup is necessary to be installed on your system before you start working on e-commerce website development with Magento.

Saima Naz

Mar 13, 2017

Top 7 Chatbot Platform Tools To Build Chatbots For Your Business

Top 7 Chatbot Platform Tools To Build Chatbots For Your...

The graph of popularity for the messaging apps is increasing day by day and becoming a hot trend for the e-commerce business owners as they are getting benefit from it. Social media platform and messaging apps provide a lot of marketing and user interaction opportunities for the business owners. Because through this they can market their products and can also offer customer services to their users through these chatbots.

Chatbots are actually AI (Artificial Intelligence) based software applications that can easily integrate into the messaging platforms. A chatbot function in various ways such as in e-commerce or marketing depending on their type like they can personally talk to u or can give you automatic customer services or can even tell you the current service you are providing or the products your website is offering.

Chatbots are basically programmed to behave like human beings and are made to perform multiple tasks like collecting information or feedbacks from the customers or the consumer preferences.

The typical question is how exactly can you build a chatbot for your website? Well here are 7 top best chatbot creator apps to build your own chatbot. They are easy to use or implement as most of them don’t need any programming.

Chatfuel:

Chatfuel, an ideal chatbot creator for the business pages on facebook. Chatfuel will guide and help you in building your own chatbot without any knowledge needed for the coding. The additional feature in chatfuel is the easy navigation steps to guide the consumers in a more friendly way. Chatfuel is catering over 7 million users globally and is used by some world-renowned websites like Uber, National geographic and Techcrunch. Around 230,000 chatbots are created by chatfuel for different industries.

Smooch:

Smooch behaves and acts like a connector or a bridge between the business apps like slack, zendesk, and others and between the messaging apps too like line, Facebook messenger, WeChat, and others. Smooch forwards all your incoming chat notifications from the messages apps to your business apps. Through this, you can answer the chat questions of your customers even without the business apps.

Beep Boop:

Beep Boop is modern paid to host chatbot builders which are specifically for Facebook messenger or Slack. Set up the bot source code on Github, launch it on Beep Boop and integrate it with any of the messaging apps. The Beep Boop chatbot is used for Facebook business pages to interact with customers via real chat, can answer their questions and can guide them through transactions.

Microsoft Bot Framework:

Microsoft Bot Framework has its own platform for creating chatbots which not only offers conversation but also attachment options. Microsoft Bot Framework can build chatbots for Skype, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Office 365, email and more. The framework offers chatbot builders with SDKs for Node.js and.Net platform. The framework has its Bot directory which has an impressive collection of pre-built bots.

Botsify:

Botsify is another chatbot creator tool mainly for Facebook Messenger. Botsify has simple to use interface which lets business owners build their own chatbot without any coding. This tool has Facebook Messenger API which offers features that help developers to configure personalized responses, align messages, integrate with WordPress and also can pull data from data analytics tool. Botsify also supports media contents like audio, images and video files.

Pandorabots:

Pandorabots is web-based tools and services which allow to host and create chatbots.  With this tool, you can create AI based chatbots for customer services, IOT interfaces, advertising, games and more. Pandorabots has a large online community of 225k+ developers and more than 285k+ chatbots are created by this platform. The platform has also a tool called AIaaS (Artificial Intelligence as a Service) which is a RESTful API for accessing the bot hosting platform and integrating chatbot into the web and mobile applications.

Motion AI:

Motion AI is the platform for enterprises to create and deploy chatbots for Facebook Messenger, Slack, Email,  Web, and SMS. The platform has free plans as well as premium plans. It also has documentation to help you creating a chatbot easily. Motion AI also has a bot store to allow developers to share their chatbots with others.

Conclusion.

Chatbots are unique and latest way to interact with the users and offer them your services. The popularity of chatbots is growing at a fast pace. Chatbot expert Murray Newlands said that “Where 10 years ago every company needed a website and five years ago every company needed an app, now every company needs to embrace messaging with AI and chatbots”

Saima Naz

Mar 10, 2017

Best Books to Learn PHP Programming

Best Books to Learn PHP Programming

Learning PHP is usually the first step in programming for the web. Its importance needs no explanation but just to let you know, the world’s top websites like Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and YouTube runs PHP script on their backends. It is undoubtedly the most popular programming language and whoever plans on jumping into the world of programming must learn it.

If you are starting to learn PHP, there is an ocean of learning materials but we can help save your time by finding the right material for you. We have selected some of the best PHP coding books that will transform you into a skilled professional from a complete novice in no time.

Before listing the top PHP books for learning, here’s a little orientation of PHP itself.

What is PHP?

Introduced by Rasmus Lerdorf, it stands for Hypertext Pre-processor.

It is an open source, server-side scripting language which is easy to learn and can run on different operating systems such as Windows, LINUX, UNIX, and more. PHP can create static as well as dynamic websites and web applications. It not only connects the form data but also creates, reads, writes, closes, and deletes files on the server.

PHP Programming Books

Learning PHP programming or developing PHP applications is not difficult. There are plenty of tutorials and detailed courses that can provide you a lot of useful insight on PHP. Also, there several print books that you can purchase to learn about the programming language.

Here are the few best books that will broaden your knowledge of PHP programming.

Programming PHP: Creating Dynamic Web Pages

pros-and-cons-of-using-drupal-for-large-ecommerce-store

Author: Rasmus Lerdorf

Programming PHP is an excellent resource for beginners. It works quite well for them as it covers all the concepts rather than minute details which helps build up a strong foundation. It is a 540-page-long book especially recommended for people who are new to backend coding. The first chapter of the book covers all the basics of server-side code. This introductory book comes handy to pockets and a great investment if you want a detailed introduction of the PHP language

Modern PHP

modern-php

Author:  Josh Lockhart

If you are looking for a detailed beginner book, unlike the typical ones, Modern PHP is the right one for you. It covers everything with great details whether they are namespaces, objects, classes, or security concerns. If you know how to Google your questions correctly, then Modern PHP is looking to up your game right away. It is a definite yes for beginners. Besides, the intermediate-level coders can also make the most of it because there are many topics in the book that go deeper than the level of beginners.

If you want to build a custom SaaS app or just editing a WordPress framework, this book is the right pick for you as it will help you learn whatever you need and give you the in-depth information of everything you need to learn.

Learning PHP 7

learning-php

Author: Antonio Lopez

PHP 7 is the latest version of PHP language which is all set to improve speed and performance on all servers. PHP 7 is only about restructuring with the backend and how objects, classes and memories are handled and does not have any major changes code-wise.

With this book, you can dive into the world of PHP 7 and can get a grip over all the concepts and coding techniques. Not to forget, it is a beginner’s book and shouldn’t be a choice of semi-experienced coders.  There are exercises given which are simple to follow.  Learning PHP 7 will make learning fun for the programmers.

The Joy of PHP Programming: A Beginner’s Guide

Author: Alan Forbes

the-joy-of-php-programming

For a lighter introduction of PHP, Joy of PHP Programming is the apt choice. As the name best describes it, the book is for absolute beginners to catch up quickly. Alan Forbes’ book has a very practical stance for learning PHP. It starts with some basic HTML and goes step-by-step as to how PHP actually works with a series of close-knit and fun-filled exercises.

The book provides great information on PHP and MYSQL. After completing the book, one can read, write and modify PHP scripts and can make one’s own dynamic websites.

PHP & MYSQL Novice to Ninja

Author: Kevin Yank

php-mysql-novice-to-ninja

This book will give a solid ground on both PHP and MYSQL in the most convenient and readable manner. In this book, you can learn and explore some important and useful PHP elements such as regular expression/session management.  It is highly recommended for beginners. Moreover, PHP & MYSQL contains an excellent chapter on structured programming.

This book is really good for beginners because it’s well-written, engaging and covers the basics of PHP and MYSQL.

Head First PHP & MYSQL

Author: Lynn Beighley & Michael Morrison

head-first-php-mysql

Head First PHP & MYSQL is the ultimate learning guide to building dynamic and database-driven websites. It is an 800-page-long book and contains wide-ranging topics, basic and advanced, on PHP and MYSQL coding such as form validation, cookies, database queries, file I/O operation, content management, and more. It is undoubtedly one of the best books for beginners.

Learning PHP, MYSQL, JavaScript, CSS & HTML5

Author: Robin Nixon

learning-php-mysql-javascript-and-css

This book is the second edition of the top-selling guide to the web development. This latest edition is easier to follow and has a large amount of information.

You can practice whatever you learn from this book with the review questions given at the end of each chapter. The book also describes a sample social networking platform built with the help of elements introduced in the book.

PHP and MYSQL Web Development

Author: Luke Welling & Laura Thompson

php-mysql-web-development

The book is a complete guide as to how to make use of the PHP tools to create interactive and effective web applications. Every chapter in the book explains PHP from the beginning to the end and instantly moves over to MySQL. It explains the basics of the PHP language and how to set up MYSQL database. It also tells how PHP interacts with the database.
The book also contains excellent examples that demonstrate common PHP tasks. This book is, simply put, a crash course of PHP.

The PHP & MYSQL: The Missing Manual

Author: Brett McLaughlin

php-mysql

This book will take you to the next level in PHP programming. Reading this book will help you learn the management of content, creation of the database and interaction with users.
The book’s step-by-step tutorials will broaden your knowledge on server-side programming

PHP: A Beginner’s Guide

Author: Vikram Vaswani

php-a-beginners-guide

PHP: A Beginner’s Guide will help you understand how to write basic PHP programs with more advanced features such as MYSQL database integration, XML input, and third-party extensions.

Although it works well for beginners, I personally think it is also appropriate for intermediate-level learners because it covers sufficient information on software installations, language syntax, flow control routines, data structures, and built-in functions.

Never Quit Learning

Anyone who is unknown to the world of PHP Programming can get started from any of the aforementioned books. They are for beginners who want to develop PHP websites and applications and excel into the world of PHP programming.

Read Here 20 Best Websites for Learning PHP Programming

Saima Naz

Mar 3, 2017

How to Secure your Ecommerce Site against Hacking Attempts

How to Secure your Ecommerce Site against Hacking Attem...

E-commerce business continues to skyrocket and when there is money to be made, criminals are here to follow.

Online stores are the prime targets for cyber crimes. This is not new as the e-commerce websites are more lucrative for the cyber criminals. This is because e-commerce website process the customer’s money which is itself lucrative for the cyber criminals and secondly the transactions contain sensitive data of the customers that are directly associated with their credit cards, allowing various scams and frauds easier to make.

Your e-commerce website is not just a website you are running there, in fact, you are also responsible for your customer’s financial and personal security. There is a saying for this:

“Running a website brings responsibility whereas running an e-store brings even greater responsibility”

So how exactly can you secure you e-commerce store against hacking attempts and cyber crimes? Following are some tips and hacks to enhance your e-commerce store security.

Select a Secure Ecommerce Platform: Choose the e-commerce platform which uses a sophisticated OOP language (Object Oriented language)

Set up a Secure Connection for Checkout: Use strong SSL (Security Socket Layer) to protect the website and the data. SSL certificates give authentication that your e-business is safe and the data is encrypted in transit. This will secure your e-store and your customers from losing their important and financial information.

No More Sensitive Storage Data: There is no need to store extra records of your customers especially credit card numbers, expiration dates and card verification value codes (CVVC).

Instead, keep a minimal amount of data to chargebacks and refund.

Enable Address & Card Verification System: Employ AVS (Address Verification System) and CVVC (Card Verification Value Code) for credit card transactions to reduce fraud rates.

Put Strong Passwords: It’s not the only responsibility of online retailers to secure their customer’s information on the back-end, but also to require a strong password from the customers.

A password which has minimum characters along with symbols and numbers are harder for cybercriminals to breach into the e-commerce site from front-end.

Put up System Alert for Suspicious Activity: Set up system alert notice for multiple transactions done through same IP address. Similarly, online retailers can put up these alerts for multiple orders placed by the same person using different credit cards and phone numbers which are from different areas than billing addresses and orders where the receipt name is different from the card holder name.

Layer you E-commerce Security: Layering your security is one of the best ways to keep your e-business secure from cyber-attacks. Put up firewalls, an essential part in stopping cyber criminals before they can breach and get access to your critical and sensitive information.

You can add some more extra layers of security to your e-commerce site and the applications such as contact forms, login boxes and search query. These steps will ensure that your e-commerce site is protected from application-level attacks like SQL injections and XSS (Cross-site Scripting)

Security Training for Employees: Provide security training to employees and make them understand that they should never reveal private customer information on email or in chats as none of these methods are secure.

Make use of strict written protocols and policies and encourage employees to implement them.

Use Tracking Number for Orders: To fight back against chargeback fraud, keep a record of every tracking numbers for the orders you send out. It is very important for those online retailers who do drop ship.

Monitor your Ecommerce Site: Use analytics tool. It is equivalent of installing security cameras in your shop. Tools like Woopra or Clicky will let you keep an eye as for how the customers are navigating and interacting with your e-commerce store.

With the help of these tools, you can detect fraud and any suspicious behavior. One more thing to make sure is to check whoever is hosting your e-commerce site, monitors their servers from malware, viruses and other harmful activity.

Do Regular PCI Scans: Perform regular PCI scans through Trustwave to lessen the risks of hacking attempts against your e-commerce store. If your e-commerce store is using a third-party downloaded software like Magento or PrestaShop, then stay updated with the latest versions of them with improved security measurements.

Security is an ongoing process. The success of an online store is that your customers should feel confident in the dedication to online security. Do remember, your e-commerce site is really important to your business, protect it and secure your customer’s data. Follow our above guideline to find out if your e-commerce store is vulnerable and requires security.

Saima Naz

Mar 2, 2017

Why You Should Migrate From PHP 5 to PHP 7 in 2017

Why You Should Migrate From PHP 5 to PHP 7 in 2017

PHP is extremely a popular language. Almost  82% websites use PHP which means that most of the site are made on PHP to at least some extent. With the increasing number of mobile users who relies on relatively slow 3g connections, it is necessary for the servers to powers the websites to load quickly on user requests.

According to a study, 40% users abandons the web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. PHP 7 offers a 100% improvement in performance speed over its previous PHP 5.6 version. The reason to develop PHP 7 is to make scripting languages run more efficiently. Comparing to PHP 5.6, PHP 7 has reduced demands on servers, making it more cost-effective and an environment-friendly choice as less energy is required to power servers running PHP 7 applications.

PHP 7 has gone through several months of beta testing and was finally released in the stable form on 3rd Dec 2015, promises with some real speed improvements and latest features in comparison to previous versions of this language. The PHP community embraces this new version of the scripting language because of the fast PHP performance.

What’s New in PHP 7?

Twice as fast as PHP 5, PHP 7 can surely compete with modern competitors such as Facebook’s Hip Hop Virtual Machine (HHVM). PHP 7 also offers fast performance to the Drupal users with the additional benefit of not using a virtual machine to execute the PHP code. One more key advantage of PHP 7 is that when it runs on WordPress 4.1.1, it can execute twice as many requests per second as the same WordPress platform running PHP 5.6.

Developers should familiarize themselves with the technical changes appear in PHP 7 if they are intending to upgrade to PHP 7  for web development projects.

Scalar Type Hints & Return Type:

Developers like to declare a return type for the function or method. But by default, PHP 7 allows developers to declare what kind of return type function is expected to return a value. This means that now programmers can specify the type of variable that a function should return. In PHP 7, the return type is defined after closing parenthesis of the argument list.

function f1(): array {
return [];
}

This is an example of PHP 7 which declares the function “f1” that returns an array. Whereas, in PHP 5.6, programmers cannot specify the return type which makes it impossible for anyone reading the code that what the function “f1” is about.

Declaring the return type makes the code much easier to read while debugging your own code or working on the code of someone else.

Spaceship Operator:

PHP 7 introduced a new operator called spaceship operator ( < = > )or combined comparison operator. This operator mostly used in sorting and combined comparison. It works like strcmp() or version_compare ()

Before PHP7:

function order_func($a, $b)
{
return ($a < $b) ? -1 : (($a > $b) ? 1 : 0);
}

After PHP7:

function order_func($a, $b)
{
return $a <=> $b;
}

This is one of the beautiful addition in this latest PHP version which can be used to quickly and conveniently compare two expressions. The operators can be used as follows:
a < = > b

  • f a is less than b, the expression output would be  -1
  • If a is equal to b, the expression output  would be   0
  • If a is greater than b, the expression output would be  1

Additional Features

Apart from the above-mentioned changes, there are some other modifications added into PHP7. Here is the list.

  • Error handling replaced with object oriented exceptions. This change will help developers to track and fix the bugs in their code.
  • The syntax for the foreach statement has changed.
  • No more comments in INI file. Instead of putting a # symbol with the comment, use “;” semi-colon.
  •  In PHP 5.6, the bug which makes the switch statement to have multiple default classes is now fixed.
  • The list () operator doesn’t support string anymore.

How to Migrate From PHP 5 to PHP 7?

PHP 7 is the most significant update that has affected PHP in more than a decade. However, upgrading your existing code with PHP 7 might come with few challenges. But the reward would be much faster performance and less demand on the web servers.

The things you need to make sure before switching to PHP 7 firstly make sure the libraries that the PHP project uses are available for PHP 7.

If the libraries are supported by PHP 7 then you may need to hold off the upgrading for a while or check if it’s possible to remove the dependency on those libraries.

If the code is written in PHP 5.5 or 5.6, then upgrading to PHP 7 will be real easy. However, if you are using PHP 4, then there will be some syntax changes you need to be aware of. For example, the constructor functions in PHP 4 are no longer supported in PHP7.

While upgrading to PHP 7, ensures that your code includes unit and integration tests. These tests should identify any issues with your applications before they pop up as bugs on live screen.

Conclusion.

PHP 7 performances advantages mean that it is going to play a key role in the future of Web Development. Many popular websites developing platforms such as WordPress allows its users to easily upgrade to the new PHP version to experience much better services.

Read here: Top Questions to ask from a Professional PHP Development Company

Saima Naz

Mar 1, 2017

Pros And Cons Of Using Drupal For Large Ecommerce Store

Pros And Cons Of Using Drupal For Large Ecommerce Store

If you are a developer, then there is a good news for you. You have got several platforms to choose when designing, developing and creating your website. Among them, Drupal is one of the popular and best options.

Drupal is powerful and a simple open-source CMS tool which has evolved into being a robust web development platform. In more than 200 countries, Drupal is used and is available in 182 languages. Famous brands websites like Ubuntu, Harvard, The Economist, and Sony Music & White House are powered on Drupal Platform.

There are many advance features in Drupal and it has easy to use admin interface. The built-in generation tool  makes it one of the most favorite CMS for website developers and owners.

But wait, how can you be so sure that Drupal could be a right choice for your e-commerce solution?

Well, here are some pros and cons of Drupal e-commerce website to consider. Read on:

Pros of Drupal E-commerce Website:

  •         Build Complex Site Rapidly.
  •         Better Scalability
  •         Serve the API
  •         Start with Blank Slate
  •         Large Supportive Community.

Some More Advantages of Drupal E-commerce Website:

1: Free and open source code. The real fact is, its CMS is completely free allowing it to compete with other similar products like Joomla and WordPress. In addition, Drupal system code is open, which let the user rebuild it according to their needs.

2: Drupal was originally developed with the idea that only professional will be using it. It is the major advantages of this system and distinguishing it from its major competitors.

3: Plenty of room for creativity with the Drupal CMS. Drupal web developers can help creating resources, ignoring the differences between the complex and original designs.

4: Fast speed. Comparing it with other CMS, due to the built-in caching, Drupal has the best speed.

5: Rich source of modules. Since the source code is open, Drupal open source CMS got the ability to improve and extend the functionality by adding additional modules in it.

6: With the availability of built-in queries, forums, and multi-blogs, any project created from Drupal gets a good start.

7: Full Security. Other than the free competitors, Drupal security is very high. It has increased its protection more and cannot be broken down so easily.

8: Large professional online community. Although there are several fans of Joomla and WordPress, but the online community of Drupal CMS has the largest number of professional programmers.

The above-mentioned advantages and pros of Drupal CMS allow comfortable working with the structure and content of the site and quickly adapted possibilities of the CMS coding for the specific needs of the customer’s website.

Create your e-commerce site on Drupal to experience the full potential of a website.

Cons of Drupal E-commerce Website:

  •         Difficult to Learn
  •         Trouble in Upgrading
  •         Can Consume many of the Resources
  •         Not a Good Platform for Custom Install
  •         Module Compatibility can be Bad

Some More Disadvantages of Drupal E-commerce Website:

1: Difficulty in familiarization. The development and promotion of a Drupal e-commerce can be difficult for any newbie web developer.

2: Advanced Interface. The professional construction system of Drupal can make it difficult to master. Due to the complex interface, Drupal CMS is not very intuitive.

3:  High System Requirements. Before switching to Drupal CMS, be prepare for paying an extra hosting fee and forget cheap fares.

4: Lack of High-Quality Design in the Free version. Most users of the system are engaged in self-development designs. This leads them to the shortage of quality topics for their site design.

5: Problems occurred while installation of updates and program modules. Drupal can be complicated for developers who had worked on simple CMS as the installation of updates and additional modules in Drupal, is made through FTP.

A certain stiffness of Drupal is often an advantage but admittedly, can also be a disadvantage. The above-listed downsides of Drupal CMS can make the system inconvenient.

Final Verdict.

Drupal is no doubt a great choice for ecommerce development. However, due to the complexity and the above-mentioned pros and cons of Drupal, it may not be the best choice for everyone. In a nutshell, Drupal e-commerce solution allows the developers to make feature-rich, high-quality websites which will fulfill all the requirements of the clients.

Saima Naz

Feb 28, 2017

Why You Should Move From Magento 1 to Magento 2 in 2017

Why You Should Move From Magento 1 to Magento 2 in 2017

Magento is a powerful and stable e-commerce platform among all the e-commerce platform. Magento 2 is out. You may be asking yourself whether you should upgrade your ecommerce website to Magento 2 or not.

Upgrading your Magento store to Magento 2 will bring amazing SEO features and provides an ease to the buyers and the sellers for online shopping. Magento 2.x is SEO friendly. Intuitive admin panel, high stability, great performance, better compatibility and high scalability, these are features which differentiate Magento 2 from Magento 1.

Magento 2.x comes with a variety of SEO features that can optimize your Magento or e-commerce site like Meta tags, page titles, URLs, ALT tags, H1 headings.

About Magento 1.x:

Magento is a very flexible platform. The beauty of Magento 1 platform is that users can create Magento e-commerce stores with a variety of functions using built-in extensions.

But unfortunately, flexibility doesn’t make Magento 1 platform, the most user-friendly or a high performing platform. Performance optimization, mobile responsiveness, admin capabilities, these are some common needs of any e-commerce store which is why to address these issues, the Magento team comes up with the upgraded platform like Magento 2.x.

Benefits of Magento 2:

Magento 2.x got the features which make it the best platform in comparison with others. Even it can compete with other ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce.

Faster Performance:

Comparing Magento 1 to Magento 2?

Well, your Magento 2.x website will run an average of 20% faster with the increase of more sales and Search Engine Optimization.

It is because Magento 2 has an extension called “Varnish Cache” which speeds up the load time of your page on both enterprise and community editions. Varnish loads the page in less than a second rather than waiting for it to render.

Do remember slow page loads time results in lower conversion rates, Google ranking, and higher bounce rate. This is the first most important advantage for Magento store to migrate it to the Magento 2 platform.

User-Friendly and Easy Checkout:

Magento 2.x checkout process is more streamlined, making the whole checkout process quicker and easier. The Checkout in Magento 2 is highly customizable and requires fewer steps for customer information.

The second most important feature of Magento 2.x is less abandoned carts and increased conversions. Another feature which encourages the online customers to revisit your e-commerce site is, at checkout, a default guest checkout screen will appear to enter the email address. If it matches with any of the existing customers then they will be provided with an option to check out faster with their saved information.

A guest visitor on your website can create an account in one click from the order Thank You page.

Key Integrations:

Magento 2.x integrates a lot of popular extension for the better functionality of any Magento ecommerce store. These includes the payment gateways like Paypal and Braintree, making a lot more easy for Magneto 2 developers to integrate any of the payment platforms on their Magento store.

The benefit of Magento 2 is, it is also integrated with Worldpay and Cybersource to increase the payment security.

New Admin Interface:

A better new interface in Magento 2 will reduce the time managing the online store. In Magento 2, admin can customize the admin panel for important business information to be accessed quickly. It will result in personalized admin panel for each user to increase the productivity when managing products, order and customer data.

You can import products 4x faster in the upgraded version of Magento. The admin interface in Magento 2 includes drag and drop layout editing that means you do not extensive coding to modify your Magento store’s online appearance.

Mobile Responsive:

Magento 2 is more mobile friendly. Mobile responsiveness improves sales as customers prefer shopping online from their smartphones. Keeping it in mind, Magento team made mobile responsiveness a key feature to introduce in the core Magento 2 platform.

Magento 2 comes with responsive, SEO friendly designed themes, integrated video, and easier checkout, improving the look and function of your Magento stores on small screen devices, thus, increase mobile sale.

Bonus Benefit: The additional benefit of Magento 2, is its admin panel is also touch screen friendly, helping you manage the store on the go.

But…..Change is not easy to Adapt!

Magento 2 has not become popular much. But customers are steadily moving towards this new platform. This is because several factors are contributing to this like Magento 1 users do not want to revamp or rebuild their existing Magento site, they are comfortable and happy with the Magento 1 and the last factor Magento 2 extensions are not enough.

Time to Upgrade the Magento Version

So, now you know the benefits and advantages of upgrading from Magento 1 to Magento 2 It’s high time to start planning the upgrade timeline by documenting the business needs, requirements and goals for Magento 2.

Final Thoughts

For all Magento store owners, it’s the time to give your customers the benefits this year with the Magento 2 new features and beautifully coded extension upgrades.

Saima Naz

Feb 27, 2017