Looking for certain features

[relish]

Hello All
I am with Zen cart from last 3 months. We are in retail of some items which are being offered for first time in our area. So was not sure how the response was going to be for an online shop.

Thus Zen Cart was helpful in a start up . It saved many a $$ before we could fathom how the response from netizens will be for our e shop.

Not knowing a single scripting lang (even my excel and word knowledge is elementary) , it was the simplicity of zencart and the helpful team and forum because of which i got a very nice site (zen cart basic template do not do justice to its capabilities). Because of the first look of zen cart i bounced and went for prestashop initially . But i must say zencart is the ONLY REAL opensource and free e commerce . Others (i think) just have label of open source cart so that they get free work horse for them in reporting bugs and answering their forums. Zencart is all togetherly different .

Thats why it shames me to even say that i want to migrate to some other cart. It feels like leaving people who supported and helped when the chips were down. It amounts to treason in my mind. Though i havent sold anything through zencart uptill now (that was due to delay in signing up with the local payment processor ), i know the response will be okay for a startup.

But i need some features which are very difficult to implement / cumbersome to manage/update and some are not possible . For example adding extra fields & displaying them, product filters, sorting using added fields, easily customizable shipping module and some others which are there but as addons which will be troublesome when upgrading .

What i need to know is will these features coming to Zencart in coming 2-3 months (which is time i could wait for easily). Instead of buying a cs cart lic i can donate that amount to this superb zen cart team (but i cannot afford both). I also found cs cart to be slow and a little buggy for some basic functions (but the only good alternative to zen cart IMHO).

I am in two mind about this.

Please guide

[gjh42]

Zen Cart will not be adding a bunch of new core features in the next few months. At least some of the mods you mention should be straightforward to install, and their authors or someone will keep them up to date with core code. If you need to write or commission new coding, the maintenance load will be on you, of course. If you create a mod that is widely useful and donate it to the community, you should be able to get help in keeping it current.
Do you know that cs-cart supports all of the things you desire already? How much will it cost you to have your functions made ready in cs-cart as compared to Zen Cart? Just things to keep in mind.

[relish]

Thanks G
the feature i desire are already there in cs cart. I have tested them. adding extra fields & displaying them, product filters by fields, sorting using added fields are the most important for me and cs cart has them . Implementing it in ZC 1.5 seems too much of coding to me and it will take months before its relatively bug free.

any how i think i should wait before taking the jump