We are proud to announce that WooCommerce 3.8 is live. In development since August 2019 and tallying 516 commits by 28 authors, this version represents a move towards smaller, stable, and more frequent WooCommerce releases.
WooCommerce 3.8 is a minor release, which means everything should be backward compatible if updating from a previous version. That said, we strongly recommend that you ensure your theme and plugins are compatible and make sufficient backups for peace of mind. More at: How to Update WooCommerce.
What’s new?
WooCommerce Blocks
This version of WooCommerce ships with a new suite of product blocks, including:
- Reviews by Product
- Reviews by Category
- All Reviews
- Product Search
These blocks have been added to our eCommerce-focused collection under WooCommerce in the Block Editor, which has been part of WordPress since 5.0, aka Gutenberg.
WordPress and PHP Version
Note that there is no change in WordPress and PHP requirements for this version.
However, we are scheduled to upgrade the minimum supported version of PHP to 7.0 and WordPress to 5.0 with the next release. If your site is running versions lower than that, you will see a nudge to upgrade to the latest and greatest.
The next release of WooCommerce is scheduled for early January, so please set aside time to prepare. We put together a guide to follow at Update PHP and WordPress.
Beyond these enhancements, the release also contains new hooks and a few tweaks and fixes, all of which are detailed in the ReadMe.
If youโre a developer and missed the beta and release candidates (RC), the beta announcement walks you through what has changed and what was deprecated.
How WooCommerce 3.8 was tested
We have been in code freeze since the 3.8 beta release on October 3, so no new features were added, only fixes to functionality.
As with 3.7, better test plans were in place. We:
- Had more testers on an array of hosts running popular extensions and themes.
- Tested all our extensions and themes internally.
- Ran managed upgrades on staging sites for real store owners to detect conflicts or bugs before the public release.
- Tested the release on woo.com.
Updating to WooCommerce 3.8
In addition to making a backup of your site, we recommend testing on a staging site before upgrading to 3.8 on your live site.
There is no database update for this version, but anyone upgrading from a version prior to 3.7 should review WooCommerce 3.7 Has Landed and run the database upgrade routines explained in section Updating to WooCommerce 3.7.
Much ๐ to All Contributors
A big thanks to everyone in the WooCommerce community who contributed via bug reports, commits, spreading the word, and participating in community chats.
rodrigoprimo | claudiosanches | vedanshujain | kloon | yash-webkul |
peterfabian | itzmekhokan | webdados | rcstr | miguelfspinto |
superdav42 | nikhil-webkul | Tyratox | itowhid06 | mikejolley |
justinshreve | nicomollet | mohsinrasool | pinalj | mpjason |
ChromeOrange | uok | gedex | mohit-webkul | nerrad |
Ayesh | aslamshekh | steveo2001 | mithublue | marccoup |
aaronkirkham | keefyhub | sisou | Spaggel | TimothyBJacobs |
strayobject | wayheming | Jon007 | janakkaneriya-multidots |
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