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The ideal changelog for WooCommerce

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This post will be in english to show our friends at WooCommerce how to create a way better understandable changelog. At the moment, the changelog is one long list of mostly unclear Github titles linked to it’s ticket. And yes, also that ticket is sometimes unclear.

I want to highlight this is not an official changelog as i had to cut 20% of the items (because of time). I just want to drop in this idea as a new changelog although i know it’s hard to integrate in the current technical changelog setup. However, it can be used in the release posts of the dev blog for sure.

By the way, i also want to highlight why clear changelogs are important for the future of WooCommerce. Besides a small release post on the dev blog, WooCommerce themselves doesn’t promote or celebrate their new features. Example: Order Attribution! No word about that awesome feature on the regular woo.com site and all social media channels. Instead WooCommerce relies on it’s community to spread the good news show. But the monthly pace of updates (with it’s latest issues) and the hard-to-crack changelog makes it undoable for the community to fit that role.

If we look at the website of Shopify, they have a big “What’s New” button straight into their header. It leads to a magnificent landing page that shows the proudness of their latest updates. Shopify knows how to sell themselves way better then WooCommerce. And i’m not even talking about the activity on social media channels, just compare both Youtube channels and check when the latest video is created on Woo’s channel…

If WooCommerce wants to stay compatitive with Shopify, it needs to level up the next things:

  • starting with an clear changelog like my example
  • work the HARDEST on compatibility awereness (i have an idea how to achieve this, but it’s out of scope of this changelog article)
  • level up with social media, main focus on Youtube
  • level up with knowledge sharing, a fantastic example right now is the Training Team of WordPress. That’s quit impressive.

Changelog WooCommerce 8.6

Focus of 8.6

Here comes a text about the focus of this version update. Use catchy text that can be picked up by bloggers and tech newssites. This is the place to sell your software.

Here comes a text. Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.

Here comes a text. Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.Here comes a text.

Highlights of 8.6

Fixed an issue where the notices shown in classic themes were using the updated styles. #44283
Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight. Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight. Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight. Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight. Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight. Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight. Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight. Heres comes a text explaining this hightlight.

Fix – Fixes handling for cookie consent for order attribution. #43012
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Fix – Remove old noticed on classic checkout when applying coupon code #43244
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Add – Introduce the transient files engine #42877
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Database update required

8.6 requires a database update, the following updates are run:

  • here comes a list what exactly is changed in the database
  • here comes a list what exactly is changed in the database
  • here comes a list what exactly is changed in the database

Performance

  • Performance – Remove customer order count from order attribution checkout data. #44359
  • Performance – Improves the performance of the is_new_install check by eliminating expensive post counts where possible. #43767
  • Performance – Load the gtag script used by Google Analytics asynchronously in WooCommerce Blocks. #43040

WooCommerce Blocks

Here comes a text about WooCommerce Blocks.Here comes a text about WooCommerce Blocks.Here comes a text about WooCommerce Blocks.

  • Extra Attention
  • Add – Add support for additional fields in the Checkout contact step. #43088
  • Add – Add the Product Gallery block #43586
  • CYS: fix php warning raise by the Product Collection block. #43546
  • Fix – Ensure the email field ID remains as email in the Checkout block. #43734
  • Fix – Fix: Display rating stars instead of plain text for Cross-Sells products on the Cart block #43069
  • Fix – Fix: Pagination Block Visibility in Product Collection Block #43132
  • Fix – Fixed the alignment issue of the Add to Cart button in WooCommerces Product Hero pattern. #42913
  • Fix – Fix incorrect layout of Product Collection placeholder in Firefox browser #43264
  • Fix – Fix incorrect wpBody margin top value set by TaskReminderBar component. #43020
  • Fix – Fix on-sale badge covering product title when product image is disabled #43334
  • Fix – Hide the shipping calculator link on the Cart editor with no default address and zone. Display the shipping calculator link on the front end for multiple zones with a fallback. #43803

Classic Themes

  • Don’t trigger jQuery add to cart function when the button is clicked on classic themes #43325

Block Themes

Here comes a text about the use of block themes, what are block themes, etc.

  • Add store notices to the Cart and Checkout block templates. #43753
  • Fix – Fix: CYS – change heading color. #43076
  • Add – Auto-inserts Mini Cart block into Tazza theme headers patterns and template parts. #42900
  • Add – Redirect supported product types to the new experience based on the product template associated to it #43341
  • Add – [Experimental] Reintroduce a wrapper block for the interactivity powered filter blocks. #43688
  • Add – [Experimental] support passing a placeholder text to the interactivity Dropdown component. #43211
  • Add – [Experimental] Use variations of collection filter to provide new interactivity based filter blocks. #43216

Analytics

I believe it’s a good idea to have a seperate chapter for Analytics

  • Add – Add date_type parameter to analytics revenue stats endpoint #42938

HPOS

Extra important information can be highlighted here. Links to HPOS explaining documents, also for extension builders how to be compatible, and for merchants how to check HPOS compatibility.

  • Fix – HPOS: Remove buggy check in the data cleanup tool. #43727
  • Fix – Update a few Tracks events to be HPOS compatible. #42879
  • Enhancement – HPOS: add missing filters on order list table class. #43815
  • Enhancement – HPOS: Add more select options when searching orders for Order ID and Customer email. #43865

Admin

  • Fix alignment of date fields in the order panel #44174
  • Fix – Fix activity panel showing incorrect currency #43733
  • Fix – Fix bug when searching orders with a term starting with d, s, or f. #43085
  • Add – Add default fallback marketing channel and tool recommendations. #43001
  • Add – Adds a faster way to install products from the In-App Marketplace #43983

Product Block Editor

Explain what the Block Editor is, how it can be activated.

  • Fix – [Product Block Editor]” use proper flag to handle the Linked Product feature visibility #43119
  • Fix – [Product Block Editor]: update the conditions to hide the Cross-sells section #43140
  • Add – Add Include downloads to show/hide the Downloads section #43864
  • Add – Configure the empty state to for the upsells and cross-sells sections #43163
  • Add – Introduce a product type selection within the new product editor experience #41823
  • Add – Product Collection – Add Price Range Filter #42858
  • Add – Product Collection: introduce the new flow of adding Product Collection block along with a preconfigured set of Collections: New Arrivals, Top Rated, Best Selling, On Sale, Featured #42696
  • Add – Register linked product list block #43145
  • Add – Remove the required validation constraint from the LINK TO THE EXTERNAL PRODUCT field #43564
  • Add – Remove Variable product from the product template list #43422
  • Add – [Product Block Editor]: add Linked product sections. First approach. #43013
  • Add – [Product Block Editor]: add Upsell advice #43116
  • Add – [Product Block Editor]: add Linked products tab #43009
  • Add – [Product Block Editor]: render empty state for the Cross-sells section #43143

CLI

  • Add – Add CLI command wp wc hpos diff to compare an order between datastores. #43173

REST API

  • Add – Add linked-products product endpoint #43720
  • Add – Template layout REST API endpoints. #43067
  • Update – Improve the logging/noticing of Legacy REST API usages #43851

From WooCommerce 9.0: Legacy API is out of the core, a plugin is available. More info how to check if an extention is still using the Legacy API.

Feature ideas

  • Add – Create product-pre-publish-modal feature flag #43861

WooCommerce innovates e-commerce store, check our running ideas, our idea board or suggest a new idea

PHP warnings & errors

PHP adaption is the most important thing! Nothing else, that’s it. If 7.4 or 8.0 kicks of your server tommorrow and your shop crashes, nothing else matters. Invite WooCommerce users to report PHP warnings, not only for the core plugin, for every extension. Explain them how, link to a tutorial.

  • Prevent a PHP Warning when sending order emails to the shopper and merchant. #44178
  • CYS: fix php warning raise by the Product Collection block. #43546
  • Fix – Fix PHP warnings and remove opinionated styles from the Banner button. #43354
  • Fix – Fix strpos php8 compliant and payment gateway recommendation rule default value #44007

For developers

Here comes a text for developers. Can also be the link to WooCommerce Slack or the monthly dev chats.

  • Dev – Add additional lint to woocommerce-blocks that ensures bad imports are not introduced. #43310
  • Dev – Add e2e test for shopper coupon usage contraints #43590
  • Dev – Add E2E tests to Product Collection’s Editor filters: Featured, Created, Price Range #43473
  • Dev – Add Github reporter for Playwright CI runs #42974
  • Dev – Adds tests for core profiler #44022
  • Dev – Adds tests for shopper cart quantity limit and cross sell products #43333
  • Dev – Adds tests for shopper cart restricted coupons usage #43819
  • Dev – Adds tests for shopper checkout block flows #41218
  • Dev – Add tests for searching for multiple term ids #43089
  • Dev – Apply Rector suggestions for PHP 8.1 #43236
  • Dev – Apply type checks and instantiate arrays before assignment #43229
  • Dev – Apply type checks based on Rector’s suggestions #43235
  • Dev – Change the HPOS and non-HPOS e2e tests to use 5 shards each to reduce queueing #43672
  • Dev – Do not set WOOCOMMERCE_BLOCKS_PHASE in the build-zip.sh script, pass it when calling the script in relevant workflows. #43169
  • Dev – E2E tests: Add checks for product images #43775
  • Dev – E2E tests: add new spec for remove product #43518
  • Dev – E2E tests: add new test for custommer commenting on a post #43419
  • Dev – Fix “rm: .git/hooks: No such file or directory” error in pnpm install. #43142
  • Dev – Fix ESLint configuration regarding import path aliases. #43421
  • Dev – Fix eslint parser #43859
  • Dev – Fix for compatibility dashboard e2e test failing #43437
  • Dev – Fix the WooAF release date and typo in WooAF changelogs. #43254
  • Dev – Migrate backend mini-cart tests from Puppeteer to Playwright. #43093
  • Dev – Migrate performance -> cart tests from Puppeteer to Playwright. #42943
  • Dev – Move HPOS disabled e2e CI run to sharded execution #43537
  • Dev – Product Collection: Add E2E tests for Editor filters: by tag and by stock status #43548
  • Dev – Remove unused BlockTemplateRegistry (replaced by LayoutTemplateRegistry). #43589
  • Dev – Shards e2e tests for execution on CI #43056
  • Dev – Type check $available_methods before using it #43237
  • Dev – [Experimental] Rename experimental “Collection Filters” to “Product Filters” #43363
  • Dev – [Experimental] Use CheckboxList component in interactivity attribute filter #43217

Please join our monthly dev chats of WooCommerce Slack #developers channel

Very minor edits

The idea for this chapter is to list all very minor -less important- items, just to make sure the other chapters are not to crowdy which makes the more important items less visible.

  • Add rudimentary try catch for all remote endpoint spec evaluators #44037
  • Ensure table rows on settings pages don’t have invalid HTML #44094
  • Fix – Added __woocommerceNamespace attribute, which resolved migration issues when transitioning from Products (Beta) block to Product Collection block.
  • Add supports entry to pseudo-gateway for WooPayments pre-install promotion. #43436
  • Fix – Corrected build configuration for packages that weren’t outputting minified code. #43716
  • Fix – Fix an error in plugin auto-installer triggered in certain installation failure scenarios. #43108
  • Fix – Fixes possible duplication of certain Tracks events when HPOS is active. #43318
  • Fix – Fix typo in text domain #43054
  • Fix – Fix Store "core/interface" is already registered. error in the block editor. #43221
  • Fix – Remove the double quotes from the AI generated content before saving it #43249
  • Fix – Remove wp-data & wc-blocks-checkout dependencies from Order Attribution script. #43857
  • Fix – Store API: Add support to query product_variations by attribute slugs. #42983
  • Fix – Use the new AI images endpoint response structure. #43285
  • Add – Add tracking for incompatible extensions #42816
  • Add – Add Sales property to MarketingCampaign class; Display Sales value in Campaigns card in Marketing page. #43284
  • Add – CYS – Core: Create dummy products. #43784
  • Add – CYS: Implement noAI flow. #43368
  • Add – Delete old marketing recommendations transient upon update to WooCommerce 8.6.0. #43162
  • Add – Track core profiler individual plugin installation success/failure #43309
  • Add – [CYS – Core] introduce route guards for the AI flow #43481
  • Add – [CYS – Core] Update the homepage with default patterns when the assembler is loaded. #43457
  • Add – [Experimental] Refactor interactivity dropdown to remove FormTokenField. Also fix multi select for rating filter. #43183



Over de auteur: Dave Loodts

Full-time creatieve maker van doelgerichte websites en webshops sinds 2006 en gek van WordPress en WooCommerce. Actief lid in WordPress Community sinds 2014. Mijn grootste voldoening: ondernemers die succesvol aan de slag gaan met m'n WooCommerce tips.

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