Upcoming versions - 1.5.3 and 1.6.0 -- compatible with PHP 5.4, 5.5, 5.6

We've been waiting an unusually long time in queue for PA-DSS assessment of the upcoming v1.5.3 release. It's in the lab right now, and we'll be making adjustments to it to accommodate anything they find needs attention. We expect those changes to be very minimal, but since we don't have their report yet, we can't commit to any dates. We hope to release in the next couple weeks if at all possible. But the final certification paperwork takes time to process by the PCI people before you'll see it listed on the PCI site's list of approved software. It's basically just formalities holding it up at the moment.

A bit of background:
A few months ago we posted a beta of v1.5.2 in anticipation of having that be the next release.
But due to the assessment delays and the push forward by many hosting companies to upgrade to PHP 5.4, many people started installing that beta version on their live sites. So we've treated the 1.5.2-beta as though it was an actual release.

The new features added to 1.5.3, including modernized smarter password handling, required additional database changes beyond the 1.5.2-beta, so upgrading those live sites using the beta would have been complicated without mixing up version numbering.

So, 1.5.3 is updated and tested compatible with PHP 5.4, and 5.5 and briefly with the beta of PHP 5.6, so has some future-proofing built in from that perspective.
It also has a number of features that have been publicly accessible in the in-development code in the github repository for v1.6.0. We elected to backport a number of new features and feature improvements into 1.5.2/1.5.3 so you could benefit from them sooner than later.

So, that brings us to 1.6.0. The latest activity in the 1.6.0 repository is around consolidating the new/featured/specials/upcoming listing pages with a consistent set of code that is easier to template change layouts across all of them centrally instead of having to do them all one-by-one as must be done in 1.5.x and 1.3.x. This is also in preparation for making the templating system easier to manage for those pages especially for mobile devices. Naturally that also means old plugins specifically built to change the design of those pages will need some attention, or may even become no longer necessary.

The developers are continuing to work on building out these features for 1.6.0 and desire to release it as soon as possible.
So, in case you wondered, Zen Cart is alive and well.

If you want to help with development, please feel free to submit pull-requests on Github, or if you see bugs specific to 1.6.0, raise an issue/ticket within github so it can be responded to there. Be sure to submit very detailed explanations to help the developers respond accurately.

If you encounter real bugs with v1.5.3 or prior versions, use the Bug Reports section of the forum for reporting those. Again, post detailed explanations on how to recreate the problem on a brand new install, as that helps us fix the problems faster.

When the v1.5.3 code is ready for release, we'll post another announcement right here in this section of the forum, and of course all the download links will be updated accordingly.
v1.5.3 has been released. See: http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...1-5-3-Released!

Also, for those wondering, here's the list of "server requirements", which also serves as a "compatibility guide" for PHP/MySQL versions:
http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?...o-run-zen-cart