WooCommerce Update 3.7 – New Product Blogs and higher PHP Requirements

WooCommerce Logo

WooCommerce released version 3.7 with new product blocks.

This week, WooCommerce released version 3.7 and presented more product blocks and higher requirements for the PHP and WordPress versions. We introduce the most important changes in this blog post.

WooCommerce 3.7 can be downloaded from WordPress.org or updated in the WordPress backend.

Innovations in the WooCommerce 3.7 update

In 2019, WooCommerce released two minor releases – version 3.6 and 3.7. Both have in common that they are fully backwards compatible. Existing systems should therefore have no compatibility issues with these updates – in so far as the correct PHP and WordPress version is respected. Although 3.7 is the smaller update of both, it brings some exciting features with it!

Product Blocks

Since WordPress version 5.0, Gutenberg has been the standard editor for WordPress and has replaced the previous TinyMCE editor. Gutenberg aims to make it easier for website owners to create rich media sites – without page builders or deeper HTML and Javascript knowledge. And to make that work, you need blocks. Lots of blocks.

That’s why WooCommerce already introduced Product Blocks in version 3.6, and now provides us with more Blocks in version 3.7.

Featured Product Block

Source: WooCommerce

Some of the new improvements:

  • A new Focal Point Picker in Featured Product Block
  • Searching for products in the “Recommended product” and “Handpicked product” blocks is faster
  • A new block for product categories
  • Featured Category Block
  • New “Products by Tag” block showing products by tag

New Requirements for PHP and WordPress Versions

In order to use the new blocks, however, WordPress must run on a version 5.1+ or have the latest version of the Gutenberg Editor installed.

With the new release, the requirements for the PHP version have been increased to PHP 5.6. In addition, WordPress 4.9 is required to use the latest version of WooCommerce. It has also been announced that in the next update WordPress 5.0 will be necessary.

Website admins are well advised to keep WordPress and the plugins in use, if they want to use the full range of features.

New Package Management System

For developers, it should be particularly interesting that with the change to PHP 5.6 PHP packages are used in the future.

New WooCommerce features will be developed in the future as plugins outside the WooCommerce core. For example, the product blocks as well as the REST API function have already been removed from the core and published in independent releases.

New Package Management System

For developers, it should be particularly interesting that with the change to PHP 5.6 PHP packages are used in the future.

New WooCommerce features will be developed in the future as plugins outside the WooCommerce core. For example, the product blocks as well as the REST API function have already been removed from the core and published in independent releases.

Further improvements

  • There are many minor improvements in WooCommerce 3.7, such as:
  • The wording for the “thank you” e-mail can be changed in the e-mail settings
  • The coupon code generator has gotten new features
  • Moved tax classes from using WordPress options to its own wc_tax_rate_classes table for storage.
  • Template file changes

A detailed list of all new features can be found in the official WooCommerce blog or in the readme.