WooCommerce

We’re excited to announce that WooCommerce 5.1 is now released! This is the third minor release of 2021 and has

1. 279 commits from 37 contributors in WooCommerce core.
2. 109 commits from 22 contributors in the WooCommerce Admin package.
3. 175 commits from 18 contributors in the WooCommerce Gutenberg Products Block package.

This is a minor release, which means everything is backward compatible with the previous version.

As always, we recommend creating a backup of your site and making sure that themes and plugins are compatible before updating. You can check out this update guide for more information.

What’s new in 5.1?

1. WooCommerce Blocks 4.4: Blocks package have been updated to 4.4.3. Please take a look at the release post to see what’s new and improved.
2. WooCommerce Admin 2.0.2: WooCommerce Admin package has also been updated to 2.0.2 with this release of WooCommerce. This new package contains lots of bug fixes and stability improvements. Changes can be found here.

Notable fixes and improvements

1. jQuery 3 deprecated items: This will be an ongoing effort to fully remove all deprecated jQuery 3 items from core. #28753
2. Updating order tax: Previously after recalculating totals when tax setting has changed (such as name and/or rate), the tax name does not update in the order meta. This has been fixed. #28983
3. Notices not going away: Previously when trying to close an admin notice such as the “Database has been updated” notice, this notice keeps reappearing. This has been fixed. #28500

You can find the complete changelog for this release in the changelog.txt file.

Filters and actions

We have added two new filters in this release.

Database Changes

This release does not introduce any database changes.

Template changes

This release does not introduce any changes to templates.

Reposted from WooCommerce

We’re excited to announce that WooCommerce 5.0 is now released! This is the second minor release of 2021 and has

1. 255 commits from 30 contributors in WooCommerce core.
2. 163 commits from 26 contributors in the WooCommerce admin package.

This is a minor release, which means everything is backward compatible with the previous version.

As always, we recommend creating a backup of your site and making sure that themes and plugins are compatible before updating. You can check out this update guide for more information.

What’s new in 5.0?

Versioning

Previous to this release, we’ve partially followed the Semantic Versioning (Semver) schema. Going forward we’ve decided to follow the WordPress versioning schema. This means that although we’re releasing version 5.0 (which usually means a backwards compatible breaking release under Semver), we will maintain backwards compatibility.

See more details in Developer Advisory: Changes to WooCommerce Versioning Scheme.

WooCommerce Admin 1.9.0

This release updates the WooCommerce admin package to 1.9.0 from 1.8.3. Mostly bugfixes and improvements are included in this update, including:

• Help tooltip will now appear when a task has not been completed the second time to give additional help for the merchant. (#5826)
• Home screen task extensibility. Allows 3pd to add their own tasks. (#5794).
• Added “unread” indicator to inbox messages. This helps to quickly see which inbox messages have not been read. (#6047)

Notable fixes and improvements

1. Product Review Count: Previously in 4.9, we fixed the product review count from this PR #28624. This worked for all new comments being created however it did not correctly fix the issue that already happened. So we’ve put in a migration script which will fix the review count when new reviews are added. #28814
2. Deprecate legacy reports: Since WooCommerce 4.0, it has added a new and improved WooCommerce Analytics. We’re encouraging users to start using the new WooCommerce Analytics and thus we have soft deprecated the legacy reports with a notice in the legacy reports section. #28799
3. CSS Variables: We’ve added WooCommerce prefixed CSS variables to the stylesheet. This provides easier extendibility when developers need to utilize the same WooCommerce default styling without needing to recreate the CSS. #28709
4. Restoring products, orders and coupons: Previously after trashing orders, products or coupons — when restoring, it puts these items into “draft” status. Now it will restore to the same status as what it was before to prevent issue. #28690
5. Changing product type with attached files: Previously when an order is placed with a product that had downloadable files and when you change the product type to say a variable product, the permission for the downloadable files would be lost and access would be denied. This has been fixed so that it now recognizes the change of product type and when you go to use the same downloadable file, it would recognize it and recreate the permissions for the same customer. #28521

You can find the complete changelog for this release in the changelog.txt file.

Database Changes

While there are no schema changes to the database tables, we want to highlight that there will be a script that runs in the database that fixes any potential issues with the product review counts. #28814. This in turn will bump the database version to 5.0.0.

Template Changes

This release does not introduce any changes to template files.

Filters and actions

We have added one new action in this release.

We have added two new filters in this release.

Reposted from WooCommerce.com

We’re excited to announce that WooCommerce 4.9 is now released! This is the first minor release of 2021 and has

1. 387 commits from 30 contributors in WooCommerce core.
2. 169 commits from 25 contributors in the WooCommerce admin package.
3. 91 commits from 14 contributors in the WooCommerce Blocks package.

This is a minor release, which means everything is backward compatible with the previous version.

As always, we recommend creating a backup of your site and making sure that themes and plugins are compatible before updating. You can check out this update guide for more information.

What’s new in 4.9?

WooCommerce Admin 1.8.3

This release updates the WooCommerce admin package to 1.8.3 from 1.7.0. Mostly bugfixes and stability improvements are included in this update, including:

1. Multiple compatibility changes are added for IE 11 including fixing an issue where sometimes the admin screen won’t render.
2. Stock management and reviews management panels have been moved to the WooCommerce home screen. These used to be accessed via icons on the right side of the navigation bar.
3. For stores based in India, another payment option Razorpay has been included in the onboarding task list.
4. We are introducing a new customer survey utility to gather feedback from users around various product features. This will only be shown to users who have opted in to share usage data with us.

WooCommerce Blocks 4.0.0

WooCommerce blocks package has been updated to 4.0.0 in this release from 3.8.1. This update contains changes to behind the scenes logic in checkout flow so that the flow in which data is processed is more logical, along with some other bugfixes and improvements.

You can also view detailed release notes for WooCommerce Blocks 4.0.0.

Notable fixes and improvements

1. API performance improvements: WooCommerce REST API responses have been made faster for product and order endpoints. To make use of increased speed, make sure to add the _fields parameter in the API call to specify only what you need, and WooCommerce will try to optimize internal SQL queries to reduce the load on the database. #27335
   
   Note that we have reverted a part of this enhancement that was earlier included in the Beta after a bug was reported. We are intending to add this back in a future release after fixing the bug. #28745
2. UK and Isle of Man removed from EU VAT zones: As a part of the Brexit effort, we have removed UK and IM from EU VAT zones. If you or your client’s store deal with EU taxes, then make sure to consult your accountant as just this change might not be enough. #28538
   
   We have also published a guide for navigating Brexit here: Ready for Brexit: A Guide for WooCommerce Store Owners
3. Stock management fixes: Fixes have been made to make stock management more robust and prevent duplicate stock reduction. Thanks to all for reporting those issues promptly and in great detail. #28620
4. Product review count: An issue related to incorrect review count has also been fixed. If you were impacted by this bug, then add/remove a product review manually to correct the review count. We are also working on another fix to update the product review count retro-actively for convenience. Again, thanks to all for reporting this issue promptly and in detail. #28624
5. Better coupon error messages: When the coupon usage limit is reached after an incomplete or failed payment where the coupon was used, we will show better error messages. If the users are logged in, we will ask them to go to the MyAccount page (if enabled) to cancel or pay for the orders and recover/utilize the coupon. #28592

You can find the complete changelog for this release in the changelog.txt file.

Database Changes

This release does not introduce any changes to the database.

Template Changes

This release does not introduce any changes to template files.

Filters and actions

We have added two new actions in this release

We’re excited to announce that WooCommerce 4.8 is now publicly available! It has been in development since November 2020 and Core contributions include about 257 commits from 29 contributors!

This is a minor release, which means everything is backward compatible with the previous version.

Given the release of PHP8, WordPress 5.6, and the Twenty Twenty-One theme, the focus of this release is on compatibility and quality of life improvements.

As always, we recommend creating a backup of your site and making sure that themes and plugins are compatible before updating. You can check out this update guide for more information.

What’s new in 4.8?

Variations Report

This new report grants merchants insight into the sales of individual product variations. (#5167)

Homescreen Layouts

Merchants may now choose between two different layouts for the homescreen. (#5429)

Notable Fixes & Improvements

There are many fixes and stability improvements in this release:

• Limited the status page’s warning for untested extensions to major releases. (#28114)
• Added support for the Twenty Twenty-One theme. (#28134)
• Reduced the memory usage of AJAX product search. (#28177)
• Added shipping, tax, and fee lines to refund REST API responses. (#28241)

You can find the complete changelog for this release in the changelog.txt file.

Database Changes

This release does not introduce any changes to the database.

Template Changes

This release does not introduce any changes to template files.

Filters and actions

We have added one new filter:

We are excited to announce that WooCommerce 4.7 is now publicly available! It has been in development since October 2020 and has been updated with 393 commits from 22 contributors.

This is a minor release, which means everything is backward compatible with the previous version.

Black Friday is coming up and we’re keeping this release small, focusing on stability and compatibility, with most of the updates being fixes.

As always, we recommend creating a backup of your site and making sure that themes and plugins are compatible before updating. You can check out this update guide for more information.

What’s new in 4.7?

The WooCommerce 4.7 release contains updated versions of WooCommerce Admin (1.6.3) and WooCommerce Blocks (3.5.0 & 3.6.0), fixes, and localization improvements.

Notable fixes and improvements

1. Updated product_cat/tag taxonomy template file names to product-cat, and product-tag. (#27736).
2. Excluded draft pages from the “Shop page” setting. (#27890).

You can review the complete changelog for this release on the changelog.txt file.

Filters and actions

We have added one new filter:

Database changes

This release does not introduce any changes to the database.

Template changes

Several files were added or updated in this release, including:

Note that content-product_cat.php, taxonomy-product_cat.php, and taxonomy-product_tag.php are still supported by WooCommerce.