WooCommerce 3.5 was released last week, after a long anticipation, it’s finally out. It is a relatively small update that has been under development since May, and the test phase started in September. This version of the popular WordPress e-shop plugin, currently owned by Automattic, which is the WordPress itself, has retrospective compatibility to version 3.0 of the plugin, but users are always advised to test all their themes and extensions before updating.
About WooCommerce 3.5
Eshop owners who will upgrade to WooCommerce 3.5 can expect a number of changes in standard transaction e-mails. These mails have been re-written to appear friendlier and more humane. The content of the following e-mails has been adjusted: on-hold, processing, completed, refunded (full and partial), invoice (pending and non-pending), customer notes, password reset and new account. The standard content in the admin e-mails has also been rewritten where necessary.
The WooCommerce REST API has also been improved, which is good and interesting news for the developers.
Furthermore, WooCommerce 3.5 introduces support for the Custom Product Tables feature plugin, which is being developed to improve webshop performance and scalability. Saving product data in custom tables can result in 30% faster loading times in certain cases.
The “Preview Changes” button in the publish meta box, which you have always seen when editing products, has been completely removed in version 3.5. If you miss this button, Rémi Corson has created a quick CSS snippet to put it back.
New backend
WooCommerce also gets a new backend, but we have to wait for that. The beta version of the new plugin will probably be available at WordPress.org in early 2019. The official version will, if everything goes according to plan, be rolled out in the first quarter of 2019.
Want to know more about WooCommerce 3.5?
If you want to know more about what’s new in WooCommerce 3.5, you can consult the release post at WooCommerce.WordPress.com.