Howdy, Woo Developer Community! 👋 Here are some updates of recent happenings that you may have missed over the past month. Some items are detailed in previous posts on this blog, and other items are pulled from sources like GitHub. We’ve packaged everything into a digest to help keep everyone in the loop.
Developer Resources
- ICYMI, there was a security patch for WooCommerce pushed out on July 14, 2021 to address a critical security vulnerability that was reported to us. If you haven’t already, please make sure any stores you oversee are running the latest version in your respective release branch.
- Developers and merchants are advised to adopt the PayPal extension, as PayPal Standard will not be loaded in new installs by default.
- WordPress 5.8 was released on July 20th, 2021, and there has been lots of recent work to prepare WooCommerce for the enhancements that it brings.
- New improvements to the security around download handling may produce errors in some environments. You can learn more in a recent developer advisory about the changes.
WooCommerce Core
- WooCommerce 5.5 was released July 13th, 2021. It includes numerous fixes and enhancements, such as updated versions of WooCommerce Blocks, WooCommerce Admin, and Action Scheduler. As we shared previously, this version of WooCommerce marks the drop of support for Internet Explorer 11.
- Subsequent patches were released for the security issue mentioned above and to fix a handful of other high-priority items, such as issues with download handling and an API query that was causing performance issues in some stores.
- The Beta release of of WooCommerce 5.6 was released on July 27, 2021. This release incorporates new versions of WooCommerce Blocks and WooCommerce Admin, new options for enabling a lookup table to improve filtering by attributes, and additional fixes and enhancements. As we mentioned previously, WooCommerce 5.6 will follow a modified release schedule. The final release is slated for Tuesday, August 17, 2021. You can help test out the Beta and Release Candidate versions using the WooCommerce Beta Tester plugin.
WooCommerce Admin
- The Beta version of WooCommerce Admin 2.5 was released on July 9, 2021. It includes stability improvements, fixes, and tweaks that incorporate community feedback around the ability to disable WooCommerce Admin features, such as the Analytics module. You can read more about all this release includes in the changelog.
WooCommerce Blocks
- WooCommerce Blocks 5.5 was released on July 6, 2021. It introduces enhancements such as screen reader text on price ranges and documentation for the
IntegrationInterface, which developers can use for registering scripts, styles, and data with WooCommerce Blocks. - With the release of WooCommerce Blocks 5.6, developers should note that WooCommerce Blocks is switching to an L0 version support policy. You can read more about the rationale for this decision and what that means for WooCommerce in the recent developer advisory.
We want to hear from you
If you’re reading this, drop us a line in the comments below to let us know how you’re liking this community news format. We want to make sure we’re sharing information and engaging with the community in an impactful and efficient way. And as always, feel free to ask us questions in the comments below or join us for Developer Office Hours on Wednesdays at 14:00 UTC in the #developers channel of the WooCommerce Community Slack.
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