Changelog — v3.5.6 to v3.6.0

Version 3.6.0 is a major release. Below is a complete list of new features, enhancements, and fixes compared to version 3.5.6.

✅ Upgrading from v3.5.6? Your existing settings and custom links are fully preserved. No manual database changes are needed.

New Features

IndexNow Integration (Entirely New)

• Full IndexNow queue system with database-backed tracking per entity, store, and language
• Automatic event hooks — products, categories, manufacturers, and information pages are queued automatically on add, edit, and delete in the OpenCart admin
• Cron-based async submission — up to 100 URLs per cron run, grouped by store and language
• IndexNow Queue Manager — dedicated page to view, filter, force-retry, and delete queue entries
• Auto-disable protection — cron is automatically disabled when consecutive failures or failure rate exceeds configurable thresholds
• Auto-disable email alert — store admin receives an email when the cron is auto-disabled
• Key management — generate API keys and cron keys from the admin; validate key file accessibility with one click
• Automatic key file management — extension writes the key file to your web root during cron processing
• Bulk Sync All — queue all existing products, categories, manufacturers, and information pages for initial submission
• Force IndexNow — trigger immediate submission for any specific queue row from the Queue Manager
• 24-hour activity chart and success/failed totals on the dashboard
• Individual hook enable/disable — disable specific event hooks (e.g., product-add only) without disabling IndexNow entirely
• Configurable retry limit, queue retention, log retention, and failure rate threshold

AI JSON Feed (Entirely New)

• Paginated JSON product feed at /ai_feed_index.json (with .htaccess) or route URL
• Feed index provides a manifest of all feed pages across all languages
• Each feed page includes: product_id, URL, name, cleaned description, price, special, currency, manufacturer, category_hierarchy array, stock_status, last_updated
• importance_score field (0.7–1.0) when Smart SEO Mode is enabled — same formula as sitemap priority
• Multi-language support with ?hbxmllang= parameter
• Dedicated AI feed file cache with separate directory, TTL, and purge control
• ETag and Last-Modified HTTP headers for efficient 304 Not Modified handling
• Backward compatibility: legacy ?page=N AI feed URLs continue to work

Static File Cache (New for Both Sitemaps and AI Feed)

• Sitemap XML files cached in system/storage/cache/hbseo_sitemap/
• AI feed JSON files cached in system/storage/cache/hbseo_ai_feed/
• Atomic file writes (write to temp + rename) prevent partial reads during regeneration
• ETag, Last-Modified, and Cache-Control headers on cached responses
• 304 Not Modified support for both If-None-Match and If-Modified-Since conditional requests
• X-Feed-Cache: HIT / MISS header for debugging
• Configurable TTL per cache type (minimum 60 seconds)
• Separate purge buttons for sitemap cache and AI feed cache in admin

Enhancements

Sitemap Generation

• Sitemap and child sitemaps now respond with proper 503 Service Unavailable when disabled (previously echoed plain text)
• All sitemaps served with ETag and Cache-Control headers
• Smart SEO Mode importance score is now consistent between XML sitemap priority and AI feed importance_score
• Request-scope caches for max_sales and log_denominator — avoids redundant queries within one page generation
• Improved product image dimension detection — auto-detects theme popup image size per store; falls back to 1200×1200
• Image dimensions can be manually overridden with Quick Preset buttons

.htaccess Management

• htaccess management moved entirely to the model layer (syncHbseoHtaccessRules() / removeHbseoHtaccessRules())
• Automatic .htaccess.sitemap.BACKUP created before any write
• Rule detection now uses regex matching (RewriteRule.*extension/hbseo/) — more reliable than simple string search
• Remove button now reports how many lines were removed
• htaccess rules updated to include AI feed routes alongside sitemap routes

Admin Panel UX

• Extension renamed to “XML Sitemap + AI Feed + IndexNow”
• New AI Feed tab and IndexNow tab added
• Dashboard now shows AI feed pagination summary and IndexNow statistics
• Invalid date warnings now show separate counts for products and categories
• Bulk import now reports added count and duplicate-skipped count separately (no longer silently skips duplicates)
• Fix Dates action now validates permissions before running

Settings Validation

• Cache TTL validated: must be numeric and ≥ 60 seconds
• IndexNow numeric settings validated with min/max constraints
• Log retention days enforced to be ≥ queue retention days
• Failure rate threshold validated as 0.0–1.0 float
• IndexNow API key required when IndexNow is enabled (enforced on save)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed: store_id not correctly passed to getSitemapImageDimensions() — image sizes could use the wrong store’s theme settings on multi-store setups
• Fixed: add_link and delete_link AJAX actions now validate URL scheme (only http/https allowed)
• Fixed: import_bulk reported misleading success when all links were duplicates — now correctly tracks and reports duplicate count separately
• Fixed: Four near-identical extractEntityIdFromEvent() methods consolidated into one, fixing inconsistent ID extraction
• Fixed: indexnow_sync_all() now uses the shared queueIndexNowEntity() wrapper, correctly resolving language IDs
• Fixed: Cache purge endpoints now share a single doPurgeCache() private method, eliminating duplicated permission-check logic

Database Changes