V2.7.0 is now available to download.

This version has some major new features over the previous version, including :

• API Support for Affiliate Window (Shop Window V3) and Commission Junction.
• a GUI for the main configuration file
• Support for Amazon used prices
• Simple spam filtering (‘human test’) for user reviews
• now uses libcurl instead of wget to download feeds – should make Datafeed Studio compatible with more hosts

For the full details see the CHANGELOG.txt file inside the distribution zip.

The biggest change is the new “API Search” tab on the admin interface, this replaces the old “Amazon Search” but acts in a similar fashion.

Instead of being restricted to just Amazon, you can now choose to search the Affiliate Window (Shop Window V3) or CJ networks for products to add to your database without having to download a feed file for the merchant.

In theory, you could now use Datafeed Studio without having to download a single feed file (I might have to rethink the name :-p ).

However, in practise this feature is most likely to be used to augment rather than replace your database, the situations I find it good for are when you are promoting a single product, which is available on lesser known merchants but you don’t really want to go to the trouble of downloading the merchant’s entire feed.

With the API you can just select what products you want from a particular merchant and add them to your own Datafeed Studio database. From that point on Datafeed Studio will treat it like it’s a “normal” product – and even keep any price changes (or other product information) in synch should it change.

This is done by the new “apirefresh.php” script, which replaces the now deprecated “amazon.php” script present in previous releases – but acts in the same way, except does it’s business cross-network.

If you are upgrading see the notes in the README.txt file for the usual upgrade instructions.

If you have any feedback on any of the new features, especially the API implementation, or if you have an API that you want supported, drop me a line.

Download v2.7.0.