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.
WooCommerce 3.8 is the third and possibly last minor release of 2019. Being a minor release, everything is backward compatible. As we work towards smaller and more frequent releases, this release has fewer changes than usual.
WooCommerce Blocks
We are excited to announce that this version of WooCommerce includes WooCommerce Blocks 2.4. This is an upgrade from WooCommerce Blocks 2.3, which was bundled with WooCommerce 3.7.
WooCommerce Blocks is our eCommerce-focused block collection for the Gutenberg editor that has been part of WordPress since 5.0.
Version 2.4 introduces new blocks to display product reviews and a product search, plus fixes to existing blocks.
Note that there is no change in the minimum requirements for this version.
However, sites not currently running on PHP 7.0 and WordPress 5.0 will see a notification to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Why?
In WooCommerce 3.9, the next release, we are scheduled to update the minimum version of PHP to 7.0 (now 5.6.20) and WordPress to 5.0 (now 4.9) to keep up with changes in the WordPress and PHP ecosystem.
Additional Enhancements
And there’s more in WooCommerce 3.8:
Wording Available on backorder for products that are available on backorder.
Opt-out for usage tracking in the Setup Wizard, which adheres to WordPress.org plugin team guidelines.
Full support for PHP 7.4, with integrated testing for PHP 7.4 enabled in the development cycle.
A new template content-widget-price-filter.php for displaying a product price filter widget. This was earlier embedded in a core file and has moved to a dedicated template file.
All testers are welcome to join us at the next Community Chat scheduled for October 31 at 16:00 UTC in the #core channel of the WooCommerce Community Slack.