Supported versions and Router

-- HikaShop version -- : 4.7.1
-- Joomla version -- : 4.2.7
-- PHP version -- : 7.4

Hello,
I'm currently creating a better finder plugin for hikashop and I'm running into serious issues with the router. The URLs are simply completely wrong, which is mainly due to the Itemid being hardcoded to the URL. When I look at the router, I also see issues there and it would start with unnecessarily complex code there. The question would be, which Joomla versions you are supporting, because unless you are support Joomla from before 3.6, you could drop half the code in your router.

To be specific:

<?php
$jversion = preg_replace('#[^0-9\.]#i','',JVERSION);
if(version_compare($jversion,'4.0.0','>=')) {
	class hikashopRouter extends Joomla\CMS\Component\Router\RouterBase {

		public function build(&$query) {
			return _HikashopBuildRoute($query);
		}

		public function parse(&$segments) {
			return _HikashopParseRoute($segments);
		}
	}
}

function HikashopBuildRoute( &$query ) { return _HikashopBuildRoute($query, ':'); }

function _HikashopBuildRoute( &$query, $separator = '-' )
{
...
}

function HikashopParseRoute( $segments ) { return _HikashopParseRoute($segments, ':'); }

function _HikashopParseRoute( &$segments, $separator = '-' )
{
....
}

function hikashop_retrieve_url_id(&$vars,$name){
...
}

<?php
class hikashopRouter extends JComponentRouterBase {
	public function build(&$query) {
		...
	}

	public function parse(&$segments) {
		...
	}
	protected function hikashop_retrieve_url_id(&$vars,$name){
	...
	}
}

The goal is, that the router itself can dig up the right data it needs. In worst case, you could find out everything just by having the product ID. Joomla hands in everything else just to improve performance. Generally on the projects I've been working on, the URLs have been quite an issue with Hikashop and improving this area would really be good.

Do you have any information in regards to which versions of Hikashop are used on which Joomla version? Ideally I would advise you to stop support for Joomla 3 with the EOL of Joomla 3, but if you want to provide longer support, at least limit it to Joomla 3.10. Considering that Joomla 3.0 has been released over 10 years ago and Joomla 3.6 is also over 6 years old, I would reduce support there now.

Regarding my above code: You can still improve that by simply calling the new router class inside the old functions, similar to how Joomla does it.

function contentBuildRoute(&$query)
{
	$app = JFactory::getApplication();
	$router = new ContentRouter($app, $app->getMenu());

	return $router->build($query);
}