WooCommerce 3.8 Beta 1

WooCommerce 3.8 is now officially available for beta testing.

You can:

• Download this release from the WordPress.org plugin repository
• Download directly from GitHub or
• Use the WooCommerce Beta Tester plugin, which allows you to test this and all future beta and release candidates.

What’s new in 3.8?

WooCommerce 3.8 is the third and possibly last minor release of 2019. Being a minor release, everything is backward compatible. As we work towards smaller and more frequent releases, this release has fewer changes than usual.

WooCommerce Blocks

We are excited to announce that this version of WooCommerce includes WooCommerce Blocks 2.4. This is an upgrade from WooCommerce Blocks 2.3, which was bundled with WooCommerce 3.7.

WooCommerce Blocks is our eCommerce-focused block collection for the Gutenberg editor that has been part of WordPress since 5.0.

Version 2.4 introduces new blocks to display product reviews and a product search, plus fixes to existing blocks.

Check out the WooCommerce Blocks 2.4 release notes for a detailed look!

If you want to follow the latest developments, you can install the feature plugin as well.

Nudge for WordPress and PHP Version

Note that there is no change in the minimum requirements for this version.

However, sites not currently running on PHP 7.0 and WordPress 5.0 will see a notification to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Why?

In WooCommerce 3.9, the next release, we are scheduled to update the minimum version of PHP to 7.0 (now 5.6.20) and WordPress to 5.0 (now 4.9) to keep up with changes in the WordPress and PHP ecosystem.

Additional Enhancements

And there’s more in WooCommerce 3.8:

• Wording Available on backorder for products that are available on backorder.
• Opt-out for usage tracking in the Setup Wizard, which adheres to WordPress.org plugin team guidelines.
• Full support for PHP 7.4, with integrated testing for PHP 7.4 enabled in the development cycle.
• A new template content-widget-price-filter.php for displaying a product price filter widget. This was earlier embedded in a core file and has moved to a dedicated template file.

The release also contains tweaks, new hooks and fixes, all of which you can find in the ReadMe.

Testing Instructions

A Wiki in GitHub has been published to help people interested in testing the new release. Go to: Release Testing Instructions for 3.8.

Release Schedule

We expect to release 3.8 on this timeline:

If you’d like to help us test, use the WooCommerce Beta Tester plugin and new testing instructions Wiki. Feel free to read our write-up on How to beta-test WooCommerce and jump right in!

Community Chat

All testers are welcome to join us at the next Community Chat scheduled for October 31 at 16:00 UTC in the #core channel of the WooCommerce Community Slack.