Magento 2.3 release: 13 features that will amaze you
At the Magento Imagine Conference in April 2018, Magento announced the next significant release on the Magento platform - Magento 2.3. It has tremendous features, optimizations, and back-end enhancements. It is slated for release at the end of the year.
Below are the 13 features of the new, but yet to be released Magento 2.3.
1. Progressive Web App (PWA)
Mobile e-commerce is growing at an astronomical rate. In fact, it accounts for 34.5% of total e-commerce sales in 2017and it is expected to rise to 54% of total e-commerce sales by 2021. However, the problem is, most e-commerce owners experience low conversion rates and difficulty in creating and managing user experience, hence the creation of Magento Progressive web applications (PWA) studio. The PWA offer a reliable, fast and engaging experience that can help skyrocket conversion rates as much as 50% and also increase revenue.
A progressive web app is an application that uses the latest technology to combine both web and mobile applications to help developers create online stores as progressive web apps. It works like webpage but can work offline, use a camera and get push notifications.
Progressive web apps have tools and libraries such as webpack, ReactJs, Redux, GraphQL, that will help to personalize content and local preferences, fast prototyping, helpful debugging and enhance productivity.
2. GraphQL support
The GraphQL is a query language created by Facebook in 2015. It is an API technology that will enable progressive web app to push and pull information from the Magento store using smaller packets of data. It allows you to request data when you need it and also make smaller API requests.
It allows development tools and hence, make GraphQL a flexible and effective approach. This results in faster loading times even on slow network connections than the traditional APIs of Magento 2.
Below are more benefits of GraphQL:
- GraphQL makes it easy to integrate with different kinds of programming languages.
- It supports the read requests (queries to read data) and write requests (mutations allow inserting/updating/removing database contents). This reduces network transfers, enables performance enhancements and allows for schema evolution.
- It provides services from one endpoint (URL).
3. Declarative DB Schema
Declarative schema makes it simple to install and upgrade Magento versions. Before now, each time developers had to write database scripts in PHP for the new version of Magento.
For instance, in the current version of Magento, you can change the schema of a Magento database by writing code with InstallSchema and UpgradeSchema. However, with the new Magento 2.3, you can effect changes by using a declarative database schema. This way, you can easily delete data when you uninstall a module. Below is an example:
This will help you to restructure the database and changes in XML so it is easy to roll back a module to an earlier version. This helps to reduce bugs, makes development easy and faster and improves performance.
4. Asynchronous and Bulk Web API
In the current version of Magento, when you make an API request, it is queued up until it finishes executing the request before it. This means it will take time to process responses. The larger the number of changes and requests, the longer time it will take for the response.
But the asynchronous API makes it easy to run multiple API requests at the same time. This implies that integrations won’t need to wait for requests to be completed when making the calls. The asynchronous API enhances the performance of integrations that need lots of API calls. It is helpful for big websites that have bulk API requests. They can easily make bulk requests without having to wait for a response from the server.
5. Elasticsearch
The MySQL search engine was very weak and it has a lot of issues that are difficult to solve. Besides that, it causes a lot of performance problems when you use it to create features such as full-text search, product listing source and faceting. This is why Magento created the ElasticSearch to solve the problems and make the search to be more relevant.
Elasticsearch is a third-party search engine that can run on any dedicated server. Previously available in the Magento commerce, it will be incorporated into the Magento open source in the new Magento 2.3. It is a feature that powers Magento site search with faceted search. It helps to improve the speed and relevance of your online store search results.
6. PHP 7.2 Support
The Magento 2.3 version will have the support of PHP 7.2. This will enhance the performance and add new features to Magento 2.3. It also enhances security.
7. Multi-Source Inventory (MSI)
Currently, Magento manages one inventory system. Because of this, it is difficult to manage different channel inventories from a website.
The new Magento 2.3 will have a multi-source inventory (MSI) feature that will enable you to manage inventory from different sources for order fulfillment. This is helpful if you stock your online store items in different warehouses. Also, you can reserve inventory with the aid of a new table structure in the database.
Below are more benefits of the multi-source inventory (MSI):
- Multi-source inventory (MSI) in Magento 2.3 will help you to manage sources for inventory locations.
- It will enable you to manage stocks for each channel.
- It will help you to manage catalog product inventory
- It will help to manage orders
8. Page Builder
The Page Builder is powered by a company that was acquired by Magento - BlueFoot CMS.
BlueFoot is a simple content editing system that has a drag and drop functionality and flexible row and column layouts. Its layout makes it easy for anyone to create customized pages on Magento without having a prior knowledge of Magento styling and layouts. You can use it to create any page, preview it just like you use any other CMS platform such as Wordpress.
It is especially great for users that don’t know how to code with HTML or CSS.
However, it is only available for Magento commerce users. But Magento Open source users will have an option to buy when the price is determined.
9. Cache-Management ACL
Magento has different kinds of cache and an action to the cache can impede the system's performance. Also, as the number of website users increases, cache flushing policy will no longer serve to protect your store from threats. These were the reasons why Magento introduces the cache management ACL in Magento 2.3 to allow admins to use role permissions in the Magento’s back-end.
With this feature, admins can restrict actions and access to users or user roles both to view and manage cache types. It is especially useful when you want to restrict the access of a specific user that needs to use the system cache. You can easily restrict or control the level of cache management he or she can interact with.
10. WYSIWYG Upgrade
The new Magento 2.3 has an upgraded version of the WYSIWYG Editor - TinyMCE. It is been upgraded from version 3 to version 4. The upgraded version has enhanced features and customizable WYSIWYG.
The widgets, variables and media gallery are plugins in the new version.
11. Google reCAPTCHA and Two Factor Authentication
Google reCAPTCHA is a free service offered by Google to protect a website. It can be used on admin and user login page, registration page, contact form and forgot password page. It has an in-built tool for detecting malicious and spam activities.
The new Magento 2.3 will have the Google reCAPTCHA built into it. This will make your store more secure and restricted to only humans.
12. Two-factor authentication
Apart from the Google reCAPTCHA, Magento 2.3 has another layer of protection known as the two-factor authentication. To use it, a user will have to enter their username and a passphrase. Then, they will need to provide another information supplied by the Google Authenticator app to gain access to the website.
It has three methods i.e. Google authenticator, Duo security and Authy as is shown in the image above.
It helps to protect your website from malicious attempts to gain access to your Magento admin panel. It is being used by many stores on the internet.
13. Message queue
The message queue is already in use in the Commerce edition. However, it is a new feature that will come up with Magento 2.3 Open source edition. Message queues allow asynchronous communication between systems. It offers a scalable platform to send and receive messages.
Conclusion
Above are the major features you can watch out for in Magento 2.3. If you are still using old versions of Magento, it is time to migrate. Pronko Consulting has a team of certified and experienced Magento developers. We have successfully launched and migrated 10+ Magento 2 websites. We won an award for the best Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration during the Magento Imagine 2017. So, if you are looking for the best Magento developer for your websites, we are the best for you. You can send us an email on info@pronkoconsulting.com message or call +353 85 85 32 401.
