6 New Magento 2 Platform Capabilities You Haven’t Heard About
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6 New Magento 2 Platform Capabilities You Haven’t Heard About

The first mentioning about Magento 2 is dated back to 2010. However, due to a chain of events the date of release was shifted till 2017. 13% of e-commerce websites are based on Magento. 19 of 20 Magento 2 platforms are used in English language and the major interest comes from the US, Indian, Australian, Canadian, Estonian and Vietnamese merchants. The leading wave of migration to the second version has gained pace and most owners are satisfied with the most vivid performance, layout, and admin panel interface changes.

Here are 6 profound features you won’t mention without platform’s testing:

1.Simplified layout customization

No sophisticated technical knowledge is required now for customizing the layout. Magento 2 developers have made us feel good with the new Visual Design Editor. The easy ‘drag-and-drop’ management allows any merchant to modify layout blocks and containers without professional assistance.

2. Components module structure

Now relationships between Magento 2 modules can be managed much easier. Merchants have a possibility to enable, disable, replace the components using a new intuitive interface. In case you are fed up with the core complexity you can use Magento 2 as a CMS.

3. New directories structure

The number of root directories has been reduced from 9 to 5. A new ‘pub’ directory contains has the data available for publicity. Besides, Magento 2 application files can be placed outside of the webserver document root.

4. New or modified tables

Magento 2 developers excluded the next tables:

  • catalogsearch_query;
  • catalogsearch_result

These tables were renamed:

  • core_website – store_website
  • core_store – store
  • core_translate – translation
  • core_url_rewrite – url_rewrite
  • core_store_group – store_group
  • core_email_template – email_template
  • sales_flat_order – sales_order
  • sales_flat_order_address – sales_order_address
  • sales_flat_order_grid – sales_order_grid
  • sales_flat_order_item – sales_order_item
  • sales_flat_order_payment – sales_order_payment
  • sales_flat_order_status_history – sales_order_status_history
  • coupon_aggregated_order – salesrule_coupon_aggregated_order

These tables/columns were added:

tables

  • catalog_product_entity_media_gallery_value table;
  • cataloginventory_stock;
  • rating;
  • sales_order_tax_item

columns

  • entity_id;
  • website_id;
  • is-active;
  • amount;
  • base_amount;
  • real_amount;
  • real_base_amount;
  • associated_item_id;
  • taxable_item_type

5. JavaScript files solution or improved performance

As you know Magento 1 uses Prototype as its core JavaScript library. In Magento 2 the issue has been solved with the use of jQuery and added the RequireJS library. The innovation improves Magento 2 performance due to the reduction of mixing calls to both libraries like it was in Magento 1.

6. Full Page Caching for Magento 2 Community owners

Full Page Caching was built only in Enterprise version in Magento 1. Now it’s available for Magento 2 Community version as well. A new version owners can use ‘Built-in Cache’ for testing a website and ‘Varnish Cache’ for life sites.

Final word

Besides, the ‘deep’ changes, Magento 2 has lots of novelties in the Admin Panel interface such as:

  • intuitive navigation;
  • bettered products and attributes configuration;
  • highly-customizable data grids;
  • a new ‘views’ tab;
  • columns supplied with a drop-down option;
  • improved checkout in the native Luma theme, and others.

Magento developers are now working at adopting Magento Commerce 2.2 to B2B with a new functionality. And the platform is projected to be even more convenient and handy for both admin users and customers.

BIO: Alina is a technical writer at Amasty who is keen to e-commerce and implementation of new solutions into the sphere. She believes self-enhancement and spot-on goal setting contribute to any project’s success. Being a regular buyer of numerous online stores she wants to work a fine line between customer’s needs and merchant’s interest.