nBill 2.0 Alpha Released

[netshine]

An ALPHA version of nBill 2.0 has now been released! 

This includes the following new features:

• Works on Joomla 1.5 without legacy mode
• Migration of data from nBill 1.2
• Template-based e-mails
• Payment plans to allow one-off amounts to be paid as a deposit + final payment, or in installments
• Full control over client profile fields - you can choose which fields are used, which are mandatory, add your own fields, etc.
• New WYSIWYG form editor - drag and drop fields into any position, multiple page forms, instantly see what your form will look like while you are designing it.
• Choose which fields appear on the summary page and in summary e-mails (including ability to specify that a field should only appear if a value has been entered for it).
• Quote request forms to allow users to request a quote through your website front end
• Contacts separated out from Client/Supplier records
• Clients and Suppliers can have more than one contact associated with them, and each contact can have different permissions (to view invoices, orders, quotes, etc.)
• "Potential Clients" store client data of people who request a quote - to be promoted to a 'real' client once the quote is accepted (keeps your client list free of unnecessary records)
• Create quotes, with limited workflow functionality (request more information from the client, send quote to client, accept or reject part or all of a quote, automatically generate orders and invoices based on accepted items within a quote)
• New HTML descriptions supported on invoice items and quote items
• New snapshot report showing which invoices were outstanding on a given date (for year end accounting)
• New anomaly report for pointing out possible irregularities or problems with your data
• New e-mail log which records all e-mails sent out by nBill, as well as failures
• Links to support, license key entry, and a new about box from the main menu
• Favourites - choose which items appear on the main control panel (nBill admin home page)
• Printer-friendly receipts
• Invoices now show a breakdown of how much has been paid and when, and amount outstanding
• Order forms now support mixed one-off and recurring transactions on a single form (only one recurring payment frequency per form though) - if supported by the payment gateway
• You can quickly copy an order form by editing the form and clicking on the new 'Save Copy' toolbar button - this feature may be extended to other record types in future
• Transaction report and ledger report now show full VAT breakdown
• Tax summary report now shows full breakdown of what goes into each total (ie. you can "drill-down" into each total)
• Probably a few more things that I have forgotten right now!

This alpha release is for testing, evaluation, and demonstration purposes ONLY, and should NOT be used for any other purpose.

There are some important things you should know before you install this, so please read the following notes carefully!

1) The release contains only the back-end features. It does not suppot any front-end features as yet. Front-end features will be available in the BETA release, which is expected in a few months time.

2) The alpha release will stop working on 31st December 2009. You will not be able to access the component after that date (by which time further releases will have been made)

3) There is no upgrade path from the alpha version to the next release. As such, when you uninstall, all of the database tables will be deleted. This will not happen in the final version (to allow for upgrades), but do not store any information in this release that you want to keep, as sooner or later it will be deleted or inaccessible to you!

4) There are some NEW PREREQUISITES for nBill 2.0:
     

• It will only work on PHP5 (5.3 or later preferred - NOT 5.2.5, as that was a buggy release of PHP!)
• If used on Joomla 1.5 without legacy mode, the MySQLi extension for PHP must be installed (it is by default on most installations of PHP, but Windows users might need to edit php.ini and insert (or uncomment) the line that loads the mysqli DLL file)
• SimpleXML must be installed - it is by default on PHP5, so that should not be a problem
• Please use an AJAX-capable browser such as IE7, IE8, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera. IE6 is NOT SUPPORTED for some features in the back end (IE6 will still be ok for the front-end features though, when they are made available).

5) If you use Firefox 3.0.x, you might get some Javascript errors reported when using the form editor ("permission denied to get property XULElement.accessibleType" or something similar) - this will not actually cause any problem (the editor will still work fine) - it is a bug in Firefox. You can either just ignore the error message or upgrade to Firefox 3.5+.

6) If you use IE7, the form editor might not be re-painted when you first load it or make a change to a field. This is due to a bug in IE7. You can either click on another tab then back to the previous one, move the pane splitter, resize the window, or some other action to force a re-paint, OR (better still) upgrade to IE8.

7) There is currently NO support for Joom!Fish nor Nokkaew. This will be added later.

8) Extensions for nBill 1.2 will NOT work on nBill 2.0 - the installer will not accept them. There are no extensions available for nBill 2.0 yet. In the final release, this restriction might be lifted to allow legacy nBill extensions to run.

9) If you install nBill 2.0 on Mambo, you will see a lot of error messages immediately after installation ("Severe XML" errors) - these can be ignored (Mambo tries to read the Joomla 1.5 install file, and fails with those errors, then picks up the correct file. As far as I can tell, this is an unavoidable side-effect of having a single zip file that will install on Joomla 1.5 without legacy mode AND Mambo. I will investigate further to see if I can stop the errors, but they are inconsequential)

10) If you use nBill 2.0 on Joomla 1.0 OR Mambo, please ensure gzip page compression is turned OFF in your Joomla (or Mambo) global configuration page (there are bugs in both systems that prevent this from working with some component files). Joomla 1.5 is fine with gzip in both legacy mode and native mode.

11) It is safe to install this on a site that is already running nBill 1.2 - it will not interfere with nBill 1.2 at all, as everything is named differently. As the front-end features are disabled, there is also unlikely to be any problem installing on a production website for side-by-side comparison, but if you choose to do that, you do so at your own risk.

12) If nBill 2.0 is installed on a site that is already running nBill 1.2, it will offer to migrate the data from 1.2 to 2.0. If you select to do this, it will not affect your nBill 1.2 installation in any way - it will just copy the data over and convert it into the format required by nBill 2.0.

13) This is an ALPHA release. There WILL be bugs! Please report any problems, observations, and suggestions to me: support@nbill.co.uk

14) You can download the alpha here: http://www.nbill.co.uk/dmdocuments/nbill_2_0_1_ALPHA.zip

[netshine]

As the only way of enabling a single zip file to install on Joomla 1.5 without legacy as well as Joomla 1.0 and Mambo is to include all of the files twice, the above install package is quite large (5MB). It appears some people may have trouble uploading such a large extension. As such, in addition to the combined installation file, I have split it out into 2 separate packages which are each half the size of the combined install package:

1) If you are using Joomla 1.0 or Mambo 4.6, you can use this: http://www.nbill.co.uk/dmdocuments/nbill_2_0_1_ALPHA_for_Joomla_1.0_or_Mambo.zip

2) If you are using Joomla 1.5, you can use this: http://www.nbill.co.uk/dmdocuments/nbill_2_0_1_ALPHA_for_Joomla_1.5.zip

3) If you are using Joomla 1.5 with legacy mode switched on, you can use either install package.

[netshine]

A 2nd Alpha release is now available. This fixes an issue with PHP versions between 5.0.0 and 5.1.6 (which behaved slightly differently to later versions). A number of other changes have also been made (see changelog for details). The links in the above posts have been updated to point to the new version, but here they are again:

Combined install file (should work on all CMSs):
http://www.nbill.co.uk/dmdocuments/nbill_2_0_1_ALPHA.zip

Joomla 1.0 and Mambo 4.6 install file:
http://www.nbill.co.uk/dmdocuments/nbill_2_0_1_ALPHA_for_Joomla_1.0_or_Mambo.zip

Joomla 1.5 install file:
http://www.nbill.co.uk/dmdocuments/nbill_2_0_1_ALPHA_for_Joomla_1.5.zip

[paulm]

This extension doesn't get the credit it deserves!

Is there a lead time for a beta or stable version?  There's a great deal of the new functionality which I could put to good use immediately!

{edit}

I did see the "BETA in a few months time", I just wondered if there was anything more concrete than that?

[netshine]

My intention is to release a beta version sometime during the Autumn, and hopefully have a stable release at around the end of the year.

[Antoine]

This whole new version seems very interesting : Good job Russell !

However, I wan't to know if we'll be able to display the order form on a first page, then get the summary and finally the customer info page ?
This is to maximize the conversion rate !

I hope this may be done since you have implemented the quote function.

Furthermore, do you plan to create a 2.0 section in the forum, for feedback / suggestions ... ?

Much regards,
Antoine

[netshine]

I am currently working on displaying the summary page in the front end. The way things are at present, the summary can still only be shown at the end, although you can organize the other pages however you want. I will see if I can allow the summary to appear on an earlier page without too much extra work, and if so, will incorporate that, but I cannot guarantee to be able to do it for the first release.

Yes, there will be a new section in the forum for nBill 2.0 - I will probably set up the new boards once I have released the beta.

[Antoine]

The idea is much to have login/user creation form page as the last page, in other words after the summary.
This way, nBill could act much like a standard basket.

My experience of nBill 1.x reveals that many orders are not completed.
I am pretty sure, my proposition would considerably increase conversion rate.
Indeed, while the customer still don't know precisely how much his order will cost (since there are options and so on...), he already has to fill a long form of personal information.

Furthermore, I'm thinking about the ability to order as a guest, I mean without requesting user info and creating a user.

[netshine]

I have been working on this today, and it looks like it will be ok - I have created a new field type for the summary table, so you can place it anywhere on the form just like any other field (although obviously it is only of any use if it appears after some other fields so there is something to summarise, and it would typically be placed on a page on its own, but does not have to be). I think ordering as a guest is already possible in nBill 2.0.

[Antoine]

Looks great !

[Tigratrus]

Can't WAIT to get our hands on 2.0.

It's taking me a bit to wrap my head around the way the system works.. But it's incredibly nice to have a billing system that actually WORKS right once it's set up!

One of the things that's really lacking is ACL, but that's more a J! issue than an nBill issue.  Really hope that nBill 2.0 + j! 1.6 = FINALLY having a decent system for subscription controlled access to menus/areas of site.

Really REALLY looking forward to the new order form design tool, having the ability to really control the look/feel of that form is very important to the user experience and site branding.  All-in-all nBill 2 sounds like an important part of our evolving site, thank you for all your work!  We'll do what we can to drum up some on Twitter etc ;-).

James ( of James and Susan)

[netshine]

I'm still making a few improvements to the form editor actually (like up and down buttons to easily move fields and even whole pages around without having to worry about dragging and dropping accurately, and the summary table field type as requested by Antoine above).  

I'm trying not to get too carried away at this stage though, as I would like to get a stable release out by the end of the year and there is still quite a lot of work to do in the front-end.

[medienmodernisierer]

I couldn't wait to test it, but I cannot even install it. The installer says that there is no install file included.
I am on my own server with a big upload limit. I tried all downloads from the forum for all cms'es or 1.5.
I am using Joomla 1.5.

What do I have to do?

[netshine]

Make sure the /administrator/components/ and /components/ folders are both writable, make sure the problem does not occur with other components as well, perhaps try uploading to a folder on your site and using the 'install from directory' option, and if the problem persists, please PM me or email support@nbill.co.uk.

[medienmodernisierer]

I am still having the same problem. Am I the only one? 
Everything is fine, directories are writable but I can't get it installed.