WooCommerce 3.9 is now officially available for beta testing!
We’re working toward smaller and more frequent releases, and WooCommerce 3.9 will be the first minor release of 2020. Since it’s a minor release, everything is backward compatible. The official version will be available on January 7, 2020.
To try it out download it from the WordPress.org plugin repository, or install the WooCommerce Beta Tester plugin to test out this and all future beta and release candidates.
What’s new in 3.9?
WooCommerce 3.9 is the first minor release of 2020. Being a minor release, everything is backward compatible. As we work towards smaller and more frequent releases, it will be released on January 7th.
WooCommerce blocks
This version of WooCommerce includes WooCommerce Blocks 2.5. WooCommerce Blocks is our eCommerce-focused block collection for the block editor that has been part of WordPress since WordPress 5.0.
WooCommerce 3.9 adds a new “All Products” block (requires WordPress 5.3) that mimics the WooCommerce core shop page but allows easy customization — and it’s powered by JavaScript and the REST API, so customers stay on the same page while browsing your catalogue.
You can still customize the elements of this page using inner blocks, and use it in conjunction with other new blocks to filter products.
Check out the WooCommerce Blocks 2.5 release notes for a detailed look! And if you want to follow the latest developments, you can install the feature plugin as well.
New PHP and WordPress minimum requirements
As of WooCommerce 3.9, we are bumping the minimum required PHP version up to PHP 7.0. This sets set us up for using newer and more performant functionality, benefiting all WooCommerce stores. The minimum required WordPress version will also increase to WordPress 5.0.
We have added upgrade nudges in WooCommerce 3.8 pointing users to our new document you can follow to make sure you have the latest and greatest versions. Stores running anything older than PHP 7.0 and WordPress 5.0 will not be able to update to WooCommerce 3.9.
Additional enhancements
And there’s more in WooCommerce 3.9:
- There’s “Show” button for password fields, like WordPress core introduced in version 5.3.
- A new WooCommerce onboarding experience will be available to, 10% of new users (we’re testing this new experience and starting small.
- It introduces a Payment Gateway API to support “pay button” allowing proper setup of those buttons and making it easier to customize their appearance.
The release also contains tweaks, new hooks and fixes, all of which you can find in the readme.txt.
Template file changes
The following template files have been updated/changed in this release.
| File | Changes |
| emails/email-addresses.php | Phone numbers will become clickable, to easy call your customers. |
| myaccount/lost-password-confirmation.php | Added new woocommerce_before_lost_password_confirmation_message, and woocommerce_after_lost_password_confirmation_message actions. |
| notices/error.php, notices/notice.php, notices/success.php | Templates update to support our new notices format. |
Deprecated functions and methods
- Deprecated the
WC_Cart_Totals::round_merged_taxes()method and replaced it with a new methodWC_Cart_Totals::calculate_item_subtotals(). - Deprecated the argument
$messagesin notices templates, and as a replaced it’s possible to use$notices.
Release schedule
| Beta | 10 December 2019 |
| RC | 21 December 2019 |
| Release 3.9 | 7 January 2020 |
Testing instructions
We published a Wiki in GitHub to help anyone interested in testing this new release. Check out our release testing instructions.
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