This week WooCommerce team prepared two new important updates which start a new release branch.
WooCommerce 5.6 RC 1 became available on the 3rd of August and can be used by beta-testers to review the update and prepare for the new version, which will be released in less than two weeks - on the 17th of August.
This release candidate already contains a number of features that will become part of the new branch:
- improvements for filtering by product attributes;
- updated sample page for refunds and returns policy;
- WooCommerce Blocks 5.4.1 and 5.5.1;
- updated package for WooCommerce Admin - 2.5.0;
- enhanced support for Twenty Twenty-One theme;
- shipping phone (in addition to billing phone) is now supported in email templates and order editing page;
- a new action hook fired when an email is sent - woocommerce_email_sent;
- updated hook woocommerce_logout_default_redirect_url - now it is applied in all the places that use WooCommerce’s logout endpoint;
- fix for the rendering issue of the blocks included on the shop page.
Another essential thing is WooCommerce Blocks 5.6.0, which became available on the 2nd of August. This new release branch implements the new version support policy, which we described in this article. So, the new update will be compatible with WooCoommerce 5.5 and WordPress 5.8 (and later).
The total list of the changes includes the following:
- new version support policy;
- updated payment method icons size constraints;
- updated pagination arrows;
- filter snackbarNotices is deprecated in favor of snackbarNoticeVisibility;
- bugfixes for memory leaks, cart totals display, SKU search, cart blocks margins.
So the people who need these updates may already start using the new releases to get these benefits.
