Affino 6.0.9 is an interim release, with the vast majority of the nearly 300 updates covering behind-the-scenes elements. That said there are some key features in this release, most notably the new Mobile and Tablet focused Skins and control interfaces.

Also of note are the new inventory and catalogue attribute updates which make managing products in Affino a great deal more flexible when it comes to advanced retail and up-selling sites. The new Article Attributes allow structured tagging of content and are great for retailers and publishers alike.

This Affino release is very much an interim release, however there are a significant number key milestones which have been reached. There are nearly three hundred updates in all with a large portion being behind the scenes fixes and optimisations. 

The most significant visible updates are the new Control Centre navigation which works across all devices and the new inventory management. The biggest changes however come with the new Mobile and Tablet (alpha version) platform which for the first time allows you to run different Skins (page designs) for all your Channels and Templates. There are a number of new technologies which aid with the roll out of mobile optimised sites. This early release allows you to experiment with them, and you can even start creating mobile variants of your sites, but there are known limitations in this release which make them somewhat experimental.

A lot of updates add up to a much improved ecommerce experience with better notifications, more flexible pricing options, ecommerce integration into the What’s New channels and improved recommendations.

A key technical milestone is that Affino now runs on ColdFusion 9 (although it is not yet recommended that you do so). It means that Affino is now nearing readiness to move to Affino 7 which will run on the latest generation cloud platforms and moving ahead will allow for a great deal of innovative scaling developments.

Upgrade Guidance

There are some significant new technologies in this release so it is recommended that you run your update early in the working day so you can thoroughly assess the impact on your site and contact the Comrz support team should you need any assistance.

It is essential that you run through the complete update process starting with the Affino Updater, followed by the System Update, Re-Initialise Site, Design Element Update and Skin Update; all of which are available on the Settings > Update screen.

Key Enhancements

Catalogue Attributes and Inventory

There are major improvements with this Affino release when it comes to managing Inventory and Catalogue Attributes. These allow tighter control of the sales process and much more nuanced management of inventory and pricing.

Inventory v2 - Inventory levels can now be set on each product variation, i.e. black and white