WooCommerce 4.0 – Overview
WooCommerce 4.0 – Overview

WooCommerce 4.0 is officially available now. This is the first major release of 2020.
The latest major release comes after the two recently launched minor releases – WooCommerce 3.8 and WooCommerce 3.9.
Since WooCommerce 4.0 is a major release, it is not completely backward-compatible with sites running on different versions of WooCommerce 3.x
We recommend that you test the latest version on a staging site before upgrading your live store. Also, you need to create a backup of your code and database.
WooCommerce 4.0 – What’s New
New WooCommerce Admin
According to the team behind WooCommerce 4.0, the new admin is the first step towards modern JavaScript-driven experience of WooCommerce core.
The new admin panel comes with a number of features. They are:
- New dashboard
- New and improved reports
- Improved notification experience
- New store management tools
The improved WooCommerce admin provides you with reporting of crucial data related to your online store.
You can easily analyze, filter and compare your online store’s data in terms of sales, revenue, product, customer management, and analytics.
New Activity Panel
WooCommerce 4.0 features a new Activity Panel that facilitates an improved order management workflow and consistency between the desktop and mobile experience to all customers.
Due to javascript requirements, the new Activity Panel will only be available for stores running WordPress 5.3+ WooCommerce Admin will automatically be disabled for stores running older versions.
Action Scheduler 3.1
Action Scheduler has already been in use in the WooCommerce core as a background runner.
WooCommerce 4.0 comes with Action Scheduler 3.1, the latest version of Action Scheduler which uses custom tables to give a seamless experience even on stores with large volumes of orders and posts in the database.
Note: StorePro customers will get an automatic upgrade according to their respective WooCommerce plans.
Additional Updates
Additional Updates
Apart from many tweaks and new hooks, the latest major version of WooCommerce also has additional enhancements such as:
- An improved order edit screen
- Latest fixes of WooCommerce Blocks package
- Updates related to BREXIT and VAT
- Enhanced email handling
- Optimizations for saving variations and Cash on delivery payment gateway
WooCommerce 4.0: Template File Changes
The following template files have been updated in this release.
File | Changes |
cart/shipping-calculator.php | Wording of Country updated to Country / Region in shipping calculator |
global/quantity-input.php | Added placeholder attribute for the quantity input |
emails/customer-reset-password.php | Added missing tag for the end of paragraph |
emails/email-styles.php | Updated img CSS |
emails/email-header.php | Set table width to 100% |
single-product/add-to-cart/grouped.php | Added placeholder attribute for the quantity input |
Summary
WooCommerce 4.0 is designed to give a seamless experience to online store owners. Features like new dashboard and store management tools will be quite effective in managing your WooCommerce store better. We hope the new version of WooCommerce will bring a lot more value to your online store in terms of user experience and store management.
Source: WooCommerce