WooCommerce 3.4, GDPR, GeoLite2 and more news

This release features several tools, tweaks, and configurations:

• User data anonymization, deletion and export tools.
• Settings to enable automatic data cleanup or deletion.
  
• New customizer settings for checkout fields and policy notices on the checkout page.
  
• Modify the registry to ensure that personal data is not recorded.
  

These features are linked and require WordPress 4.9 to work.

For more information about these features, you can read the detailed breakdown.

Also here You can find a series of posts on the main WooCommerce blog explaining how to prepare your site for GDPR, which all shop owners should read, and developers should pass on to their customers.

Integration with GeoLite2

WooCommerce uses the MaxMind GeoLite database for geolocation during checkout to automatically select the correct country for the customer. The GeoLite database has been discontinued by MaxMind, and GeoLite2 is the replacement. This version adds compatibility and integrates WooCommerce with GeoLite2 to ensure geolocation continues to work correctly in the future. The entire process is automatic and there is no need for the store owner to take any further action for this to happen.

The library that integrates with GeoLite2 requires a minimum PHP version of 5.4. As a required step, WooCommerce will not support geolocation with GeoLite2 on PHP versions below 5.4.

In the sites that are running those versions of PHP the geolocation will be done through APIs. API-based geolocation is a slower method, and it is recommended that you upgrade your PHP version if you are running below 5.4.

If you need help to upgrade the PHP version, here you can find a guide.

Features for store owners

Here are some other new features that you might find useful when using WooCommerce:

• A multisite dashboard widget that displays order information from all sites.
• Wildcard email support for coupon restrictions. By using the wildcard character, you can set coupons restricted to groups of similar email addresses (.edu email accounts, corporate email accounts of a certain business, etc.).
• Users can now set their display name on the My Account page.
• Admin product search improvements, including the ability to search for multiple products in the same query.

Features for store builders and developers

If you're building customer stores or just building on top of WooCommerce, here are some new details at your disposal:

• We've moved all of the Photoswipe styles into their own CSS file so they're easy to remove if needed.
• You can declare a data cleanup in the API configuration call.
• Added support for additional HTML5 input types for settings and checkout forms.
• New filters and actions to increase WooCommerce customization.

In addition to the new features, there are a variety of minor tweaks and fixes in this minor release.

Upgrading to 3.4

3.4 is a minor update and should be compatible with sites running any version of WooCommerce greater than or equal to 3.0. We still recommend testing and backing up before upgrading to be safe.

Note: There are some post-upgrade database update routines that need to be run after the upgrade. These can run for a while if you have a large amount of data in your database.

If you are a developer and have somehow lost the beta and RC, the following information may be helpful.

Deprecated items in 3.4

• WC_Geo_IP it has been deprecated as the GeoLite database has been discontinued.
• The spine Product Type column in the admin products screen has been removed and released as plugin. Here you can find more information. If you want to keep the column, just install the plugin and you're done.
• WC_Widget_Product_Tag_Cloud::_get_current_taxonomy has been deemed deprecated and has been replaced by WC_Widget_Product_Tag_Cloud::get_current_taxonomy.
• WC_Widget_Product_Tag_Cloud::_topic_count_text has been deemed deprecated and has been replaced by  WC_Widget_Product_Tag_Cloud::topic_count_text.

Version 3.4 beta was released on April 18, 2018 and remained in beta until May 9, 2018. During this time it was tested internally, own extensions and themes, popular premium themes, some managed updates were made for real customers on sites to note any conflicts or bugs before the public release and test the update on WooCommerce.com.