Community 7/27/2022

Recap of Hyvä Meetup #4: Hyvä Roadmap and Magewire Checkout

Anyone who is interested in the topic of Magento will sooner or later also come into contact with Hyvä. Hyvä Themes is a frontend for Magento and was developed by Willem Wigman in 2021. Since then, Hyvä has been on the fast track and its popularity continues to grow, on the one hand through the many successful projects and on the other hand through the presence and presentations on the new frontend solution at numerous Magento events.

One of these events that puts Hyvä in the spotlight is Hyvä Meetup. This regular online event, organised by integer_net as Hyvä's main partner, welcomes everyone. For this reason, the event is free of charge and in English.

Hyvä Meetup is not only about getting the latest updates from the Hyvä world, but also about direct exchange and networking among each other. All participants can decide for themselves whether they want to attend Hyvä Meetup passively as spectators or whether they want to take the opportunity to actively participate, for example by giving presentations or asking questions of other speakers.

Hyvä Meetup #4

The fourth Hyvä Meetup took place on 6 July 2022. This time, the 50 or so participants were treated to first-hand updates, as the presentations were given by Vinai Kopp, Willem Wigman and Willem Poortman, three of the four heads of the company Hyvä Themes.

The topics:

  • Hyvä Themes Feature Roadmap presented by Vinai Kopp
  • Magewire Checkout presented by Willem Poortman and Willem Wigman

After the opening and welcome by Sonja Franz from integer_net and a short networking session, Vinai Kopp took over the microphone. There was a small organisational peculiarity here, because Vinai presented his talk at two events that evening: at the Hyvä Meetup and at the Magento-Stammtisch Stuttgart, which took place at the same time as an in-person event. So in addition to the participants of the Hyvä Meetup, we were also able to briefly welcome the Magento Stammtisch to our virtual stage. A nice, lively example of the cooperation in the community! Many thanks in particular to Nina, Debora and Nancy from Phoenix Media, the organisers of the Magento-Stammtisch Stuttgart!

What innovations are planned for Hyvä?

Vinai addressed this question in his presentation and started with a short general introduction to Hyvä. In his review of the past months, he emphasised two points that are particularly important for Hyvä Themes: The satisfaction of the developers using it and the strong community, without which Hyvä would not be what it is today.

A lot has happened since the founding of Hyvä Themes and it is continuing just as rapidly, because numerous extensions and improvements are also planned for the near future, which we briefly summarise below.

What's coming next?

  • Hyvä 1.2 with Alpine.js + tailwindcss v3: The use of versions 3 of Alpine.js and tailwindcss in Hyvä Themes are eagerly awaited by some, but these new versions bring changes that are not backwards compatible with older versions and can therefore trigger "breaking changes". For this reason, the Hyvä Themes team has decided to use these new framework versions in Hyvä Themes version 1.2 and onwards, but not in the Hyvä Themes 1.1.x releases.
  • Continuous Integration (CI): For a long time, Vinai wanted to work on achieving an even higher level of quality for Hyvä Themes through Continuous Integration (CI). This implements coding standards, for example, but also prevents regressions, i.e. cases in which previously functioning features no longer work due to changes. Now the time has finally come for Vinai to dedicate himself to this task. Together with the update to Hyvä 1.2 and the "breaking changes" that may occur due to the new framework versions, CI can quickly show its capabilities. The update process shall be automated as far as possible.
  • Improved Support of Adobe Commerce features: Some functions of Adobe Commerce can already be used with Hyvä Themes. In the future, there will be even more, so that Hyvä is also a convenient solution for all merchants using Adobe Commerce. These additions are partly made together with Adobe teams and also with the Hyvä community.
  • Hyvä Magewire Checkout: For most people, this was probably the most exciting topic among the announcements. For the Magewire Checkout, the team from Hyvä Themes is cooperating with the experts from OneStepCheckout. The extensive know-how of OneStepCheckout for the design of user-friendly checkouts combined with the technical basis of Magewire promises to become a valuable additional option for the checkout area of online shops. We will go into more detail about Magewire Checkout below.
  • Hyvä UI Library: After the first releases at the beginning of the year, more phtml components and snippets follow, which can be used similarly to Tailwind UI. They can therefore be copied into your own theme and work there out of the box, as they are adapted to Magento. The work and building of themes is further accelerated by the Hyvä UI Library.
  • Hyvä Widget Improvements: The Hyvä partner agency Bemeir has created some widgets that make it easier to create content in the CMS areas of an online store. These widgets can be adjusted in different ways and filled with content and also they are easy to integrate in Hyvä Themes. The existing Hyvä Widgets will be improved and supplemented with further widgets. Are Hyvä Widgets only relevant for those who use neither PageBuilder nor any other CMS tool in Magento? Certainly not, as widgets can also be used in PageBuilder. They provide restrictions which lead to a more unified appearance in the store's frontend and thereby create a good balance between the almost unlimited possibilities in PageBuilder and the necessary specifications for a decent result.
  • Certifications: A certification programme for Hyvä developers is planned. If everything goes according to plan, it will be launched this year. This way, agencies can make their level of knowledge about Hyvä visible to the outside world and merchants will be able to use the certifications as orientation when looking for a suitable technical partner for their Hyvä projects.

In addition, Vinai emphasised the particular aspects that make Hyvä special and which will remain the focus of attention in the future: Simplicity, reliability and stability are the key attributes. The aim is to enable developers to work effectively and, at the same time, not to change established components in such a way that they become incompatible with previous solutions. This makes Hyvä future-oriented and an extremely attractive front-end solution for both developers and merchants.

News on Magewire Checkout

The second presentation of the evening looked in more detail at the "Magewire Checkout" already mentioned by Vinai.

Since the HyväCamp in May 2022 in Aachen, no one from the Hyvä community has been able to avoid the term "Magewire". There, Willem Poortman's presentation caused a genuine buzz and the schedule was shaken up, as the participants wanted to learn more and more about the topic. Thus, Hyvä Meetup #4 was a good time to revisit the topic of "Magewire" and to delve further into it, this time by Willem Poortman together with Willem Wigman and focusing on Magewire Checkout.

What ist Magewire Checkout actually?

In the words of Willem Wigman:

"A brand new checkout built from the ground up with the underlying idea of introducing a pleasant and flexible development experience."

For developers, it is a particular advantage that Magewire Checkout is less complex and the logic happens in the backend. As already mentioned, there is a cooperation between Hyvä Themes and OneStepCheckout, so that the years of experience of the OneStepCheckout team flow into Magewire Checkout and, in addition to the developer experience, great attention is also paid to the user experience.

If you want to know more about Magewire in general, you can read our blog article. In short, Magewire allows dynamic frontend functions to be built in PHP, using Magento's layout and template systems.

Demo of Magewire Checkout

In a demo, Willem Poortman presented to the participants how to use the Magewire Checkout. He also showed how easily changes can be made in a very short time. Also shown in the demo: If you want to change from the standard layout of the Magewire Checkout to a project-specific layout, you only have to select the other variant in a dropdown in the backend. This is convenient for anyone who wants to use different checkout layouts at store view level.

For those who want to see it in motion: Here is the recording of the demo

What's next for Magewire Checkout?

At the end of their presentation, Willem and Willem gave an outlook on the next steps: Overall, the Magewire Checkout is in the hot phase before publication. Standard features are nearing completion, after which it is all about testing the functionalities again and detecting and fixing bugs. Anyone with a Hyvä license can participate in the Magewire Checkout beta program. All you have to do is to send a message to Hyvä Themes.

What's the pricing of Magewire Checkout?

What the price structure for the Magewire Checkout will look like is not yet clear. What is already certain, however, is that the Hyvä team will continue to work on further improvements to the checkout after the release, including the integration of further payment and shipping services and other functions such as address completion and verification. Magewire Checkout will initially only be compatible for shops with a Hyvä-based frontend. In a second step, compatibility is to be extended to Luma, so that Magewire Checkout can also be used in Magento shops that use the standard Magento Luma theme.

Which alternatives to Magewire Checkout are available?

We are looking forward to seeing Magewire Checkout in its 1.0 version. Until then and beyond, there are different solutions for your checkout in a Hyvä project. Depending on the requirements and the technical knowledge of the responsible team, the choice is yours. These include the free Hyvä React Checkout, which is particularly useful for projects with a high need for customization or for teams with React experience, and of course the default luma checkout too, in case there are fewer adjustments to the checkout needed.

End of the meetup

Following the Hyvä Meetup tradition, everyone was invited to end the evening by hanging out with the community. If you want to know what that looks like, then you should definitely attend the next Hyvä Meetup and see for yourself since this part is never recorded.

Our special thanks again go to our speakers Vinai Kopp, Willem Poortman and Willem Wigman and of course to all participants!

The date for Hyvä Meetup #5 has already been set

We are already looking forward to Hyvä Meetup #5 with you! On October 20th, 2022 we will be back from a little summer break and want to marvel at many new Hyvä projects together. Keep an eye on the Hyvä Meetup page for more information!

Would you like to revisit everything in detail and listen the exact wording of the announced innovations for Hyvä and the Magewire Checkout? Then watch the recording of Hyvä Meetup #4, either here or on the Hyvä Themes YouTube channel.