Store Editing Snaps: July 31 – August 11

Hello and welcome to another round of Snaps from the WooCommerce Store Editing team! 🎇

Every couple of weeks, we give an update on all the work being done on WooCommerce Blocks from behind the scenes.

Let’s take a look at some highlights of what we’ve done since our last update.

Note that the linked #numbers that accompany each item below point to the relevant issues and pull requests on the GitHub repository.

What We’re Working On 🚧

We’ve worked on a number of things in the last two weeks but here are some specific items we want to highlight.

Store Customization

This project aims to create a brand new Store Customization experience by introducing new key features, such as an updated design hub, onboarding experience, and more. While many different teams are working on this initiative, our primary focus in this phase is to start implementing AI-driven flows, helping users design their stores with the power of AI.

During this cycle, the goal is to have AI manage the images displayed in patterns, ensuring they dynamically change depending on what the user decides to add as a description for their business in the settings.

Patterns with content powered by AI in WooCommerce Blocks (#10503)

Last week, we worked on the technical implementation plan and discussed the details.

Products Collection Block

This project aims to create a Product Collection block that mirrors the functionality of the Products (Beta) block. The key difference with this block is that it will be built as a standalone/forked block, and not as a variation of the Query Loop block. This will offer us greater flexibility for customization and a better overall user experience for our merchants. 

The work here will build the foundation to cover the current Products block functionalities, make improvements to the Inspector Controls, and implement a set of basic patterns for a new block.

Enable Compatibility Layer for Product Collection (#10332)

With this PR Product Collection block started to support all of the hooks that Products (Beta) block does. The full list of hooks supported by Product Collection is available in the PR.

Use Interactivity API for pagination (#10361)

Up until now changing the page in Product Collection block meant page reload. But not anymore. Thanks to Interactivity API, we improved the performance of the Product Collection block. Users can change the page without page reload. You can check it out on the video below:

You can find out more about the Interactivity API in this post.

WooCommerce Blocks Releases ✨

• 10.8.0 – Many of the changes noted in this post are included in the 10.8.0 release of the WooCommerce Blocks feature plugin from August 4th. You can find the full details in the release notes.
• 10.8.1 & 10.8.2 – These are fix releases that include bug fixes and enhancements for WC Blocks.

Other Notable PRs / Issues ✅

• Add ESLint eslint-plugin-playwright package (#10487)
• fix: compatibility layer doesn’t work when Products block is the top level block (#10455)

Thanks for following along with us – until next time! 👋