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VikRestaurants 1.9 - Major Release
VikRestaurants 1.9 is finally here!
This major release radically changes the whole back-end interface and brings a lot of new stunning features.
Let's look some of the most important ones!
Reservation Tables Management
While managing a reservation from the back-end, it is now possible to see a live map of the selected room with the free tables and the already occupied ones. Here you are free to assign new tables to an existing reservation, rearrange them and even detach them.
The system will warn you in case the selected tables are not able to host the given number of participants.
QR Code Ordering
With the 1.8 version of VikRestaurants we introduced the possibility to order the dishes from the table. This was possible thanks to the URL found at the end of the booking process or provided by the restaurateur when the group arrives at the restaurant.
Starting from this new version you are now able to print a QR code and stick it on top of your tables. The QR code will be different for each table, in order to identify the correct one.
After scanning the QR code you'll be asked to enter a 4-digit PIN code to access the details of the reservations. This PIN code can be found in the e-mail received by the customer after booking from the front-end. In case the reservation has been created by the administrator, it should be responsibility of the latter to communicate the PIN code to the customers, which can be recovered from the details page of the reservation. The PIN Code is required to preserve the privacy of the users and to avoid a leak of sensitive data.
Conditional Texts
This new feature can be used to easily alter the contents of the notification e-mail sent for restaurant reservations and take-away orders. From the related administration panel, it is indeed possible to insert new contents within the body, modify the default subject of the e-mail, include some attachments and forward the e-mail to custom addresses.
If you want to apply specific texts to certain conditions, you have several filters at your disposal. It is indeed possible to choose when and how the actions previously defined should be applied, such as for a specific template, a list of selected reservations codes or statuses, a payment method and so on.
Pages & Mail Customizer
This stunning feature lets you stylize the pages in the front-end and the mail templates without having to write a single line of code!
Look at this demonstrative video to have a practical idea of how this tool can completely change the appearance of the notification e-mail sent to the administrator in less than 2 minutes.
Status Codes Management
The status codes that can be assigned to the reservations and the orders are now fully customizable. Thanks to specific rules assigned to the status codes, the system is able to recognize the best one that should be applied.
You are able to easily rename the status codes, in example by changing "Pending" into "Waiting for a Payment", translate them, rearrange their ordering, change their color and even create new ones.
What's new in VikRestaurants 1.9?
Here is a list of the major new features and enhancements.
New Features
- The back-end now fully supports the management of reservations assigned to multiple tables (table clustering).
- Introduced the status codes management (pending, confirmed, paid and so on).
- The system now supports the ordering process via QR code.
- Added support to composite taxes.
- Introduced a new system to backup the contents of VikRestaurants (import/export).
- Introduced the conditional texts to extend the contents sent within the e-mail templates.
- Implemented a customizer to easily edit the style of the site pages and the e-mail templates.
- It is now possible to create shifts on-the-fly while managing a special day.
- The notification e-mail received by the administrator for new reservations/orders now contains a reject link.
- Implemented the "PayPal Express Checkout" payment gateway.
- Added a "Code Hub" feature to easily implement PHP and JS snippets.
- It is now possible to export the customers, the reviews and the products in the following formats: CSV, PDF and HTML.
Improvements
- Added support to Joomla! 5.0 and to the dark mode (back-end only).
- Redesigned the back-end interface and the user experience.
- Improved the algorithm used to detect the best combination of tables.
- It is now possible to create new tags directly while managing a product.
- The reservations/orders CSV export now includes a footer containing the sum of all the totals.
- The back-end now displays a badge for all the take-away orders with "as soon as possible" check-in.
- It is now easier to apply the changes when increasing or decreasing the cost of a topping.
- Improved the SEO for the internal media manager, which now provides the possibility to specify titles, alt(s) and captions.
- Added a dropdown next to the pagination to easily change the number of items per page (all back-end lists).
- It is now possible to automatically send an e-mail notification to the customer when a specific reservation code is selected.
- Added a short text to describe the behavior of all the ambiguous parameters.
- Added some new filters to the operators area.
- The notification e-mail received by the administrator, for a restaurant reservation, now contains the ordered food (if any).
- The program is now fully compatible with all the major PHP versions.
- All the request tasks are now safe from XSS attacks.
- Enhanced the code and the usage of the front-end widgets.
- Improved the speed of some database queries.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue that was still displaying some take-away sections even if the latter was disabled.
- Fixed an issue that was not able to properly display the native custom fields within the reservations and orders list.
- Fixed an issue that could corrupt the generation of the ICS files for the reservations/orders.
- Fixed a few language definitions.
- Several minor fixes.
Any recommendations?
Since this new version changed a lot of things in terms of framework, it is strongly recommended to delete any overrides that you are currently running (e-mail templates included). If you ignore this recommendation, you might face errors due to deprecated functions that do not exist anymore. In addition you might not see some new features that have been introduced. In case of any modifications applied through the overrides, they could be re-applied step by step starting from the new version of the views, layouts and modules.
Afterwards, remember to update all your modules to the latest version in order to support the new framework of VikRestaurants.
IMPORTANT NOTE: the minimum PHP version required for VikRestaurants has been changed to the 7.4. Before to update VikRestaurants, make sure that the PHP installed on your website is equals or higher than the specified version.
Got Errors During the Update?
If the update process gave you some errors, then it may be possible that your current installation or account are not allowed to install the new version of VikRestaurants for free. This may be due to 2 different factors:
- the domain from which you are requesting the update is not registered;
- your support license expired.
In case you are sure that your website is properly registered on our system, then you may have to purchase another copy of VikRestaurants in order to extend your support license by another year. Click HERE if you wish to go ahead with the purchase.
Otherwise just contact us if you don't know what you should do.
Enjoy your new VikRestaurants!