WordPress 3.8 compatibility in WooCommerce

Written by Coen on December 13, 2013 Product News.

mp6

Yesterday was a big day in WordPress land. WordPress 3.8 was released and is downloaded well over 500.000 times already. You might have updated already and noticed a big visual change in the administration panels. This new version of WordPress introduces a completely new look and feel. Not only does it look different, it also makes the administration panels fully responsive and much more usable on your phone or tablet.

We’ve been working hard to get WooCommerce 2.1 fully compatible with this new look and feel, but that’s not ready yet. We’re aiming to release this new version in late January, so with a little over a month ago we’ve made some options available to make your WooCommerce store ready to be used with WordPress 3.8 already.

Make sure your frontend works fine

For most stores, the frontend will be fine; there’s nothing you need to do there. If you are using one of our themes, the frontend of your store will continue to work just fine. Your customer won’t even notice that you’ve updated the WordPress version.

If you are going to use the new Twenty Fourteen theme, which is now the new default theme in WordPress 3.8, we have a snippet available for you to do this: Add Twenty Fourteen compatibility to WooCommerce. You just add this snippet to your child themes functions.php file and you are good to go. This will introduce a new wrapper for the Twenty Fourteen theme that WooCommerce can use until you update to WooCommerce 2.1.

WooCommerce 2.1 will contain this wrapper by default, so if you are going to wait until that’s released, there is nothing you need to do.

Some minor visual issues in the backend

As I said before, WordPress 3.8 introduces a new look and feel for the administration panel. This involves new or updated colours and UI elements. Most of these elements are being used by WooCommerce as well, so it blends in with your whole administration panel experience. Unfortunately, this also means that we need to tweak our administration panels as soon as new versions of WordPress introduce big changes like this.

While you are using the current stable version of WooCommerce in a WordPress 3.8 installation, you might come across some visual issues in the administration panels. This involves checkboxes that are not properly aligned, or some parts might not look completely in line with the new design. We are aware of these issues and have decided to fix everything in the upcoming WooCommerce 2.1 release.

Important: These issues are purely visual. All features continue to work as they have been before. We have tested this extensively and are confident WooCommerce 2.0.20 works fine on WordPress 3.8. In the unforeseen case there are bugs or broken features found, we will patch the current stable release and will publish a fixed version as soon as possible.

Doing it right with WooCommerce 2.1

The main reason to not fully patch WooCommerce 2.0 is that we don’t want to spend too much time on something that is going to be discontinued within a month after we release it. We’ve put a lot of work into making sure WooCommerce 2.1 looks top notch in the new administration panel design and we’re proud of what the future will bring.

WooCommerce 2.1 is now in the second beta phase and we could use some help with testing it. We’ve already got some great feedback and fixed contributions already, but there is always room for more. Make sure that when you report issues on GitHub to mention that the issue is in the beta release and that you test it against the latest available beta.

Now is the time to start testing your plugins and themes that use or support WooCommerce with this new version too. You’ll want to make sure that your product works with both WordPress 3.8 and the upcoming WooCommerce 2.1 release.

Please don’t wait until the final version has been released, the current development version is pretty stable already. It still can’t be used on production websites, but it’s good enough to test your own products compatibility with.

We’re excited for WooCommerce 2.1!

We are very excited for WooCommerce 2.1. With the new administration panel look and feel introduced in WordPress 3.8 and all the changes we’ve made to blend in with all this, it’s going to be one of our most exciting releases so far.

cta-banner-10-product-page-v2_2x

30 Responses

  1. Maria Scarpello
    December 13, 2013 at 10:58 pm #

    Awesome post Coen! Thanks for keeping everyone updated on the progress here. Onwards and upwards!

  2. McBourne
    December 14, 2013 at 7:05 am #

    Glad you posted this, I didn’t have to wait more than 2 minutes wondering if I should upgrade yet. Keep up the great work!

  3. Brian
    December 14, 2013 at 7:48 pm #

    Very excited about this! Love how the dashboard widget is going to look!

  4. julian
    December 15, 2013 at 5:48 pm #

    Hi – visual error on 3.8 and 2.0.20. I can’t activate product attributes for variations. Can’t see the check box! Products where it has been previously ticked (pre 3.8) are fine. Can’t see the option for new products!

    • julian
      December 15, 2013 at 5:53 pm #

      Oh wait, I found them…

      • BerrytangleFarm
        December 24, 2013 at 11:48 pm #

        Where did you find them? I’m having the same problem.

  5. Moses
    December 16, 2013 at 6:46 pm #

    I’m using woo with the new 2014…after embedding the snippet in the functions.php
    2 issues so far – the shop page makes the sidebar in the content area disappear and
    and on the iPhone…the css is messed up

    • James Koster
      December 17, 2013 at 1:13 pm #

      I’ve tweaked the snippet to fix the sidebar issue.

      WooCommerce < 2.1 is not 'responsive' out of the box.

  6. Jason C.
    December 16, 2013 at 11:39 pm #

    So is there a way to be informed when it is safe to update our woocommerce sites to 3.8?

    • Coen Jacobs
      December 17, 2013 at 12:53 pm #

      Well, this article should explain that it’s safe now and that we’ll do everything to make sure that the current stable release of WooCommerce 2.0.x remains compatible.

      As soon as WooCommerce 2.1 gets released, which will be announced via this blog as well, the core plugin is 100% compatible including the new admin UI.

  7. Tom Horton
    December 17, 2013 at 10:02 pm #

    I have upgraded to WordPress 3.8, with WooCommerce 2.0.20, and unfortunately I am coming across problems.

    For example, when I load the “index” page on a WordPress site the background graphics load OK. However, on the WooCommerce shop home page (of the same site), I get a stretched version of the background, despite using the same coding.

    Another problem as well is that I tell the WooCommerce software to use it’s own CSS, but no matter which way I code the WordPress template I have created, it will not do it.

    Do you have any ideas as to what I am doing wrong, or whether there are some fixes coming out in the next release of WooCommerce?

    Thanks.

  8. reberholt
    December 18, 2013 at 10:51 pm #

    After this update all the catagoris on my site are missing and i see people on the wordpress forum speeking about this and some other sites too, How soon will you make a update ? this is a relly relly big problem ?

  9. Igor Miguel
    December 19, 2013 at 7:07 pm #

    Hello, I’m having problems with my product variables, after the choice of size variation, the purchase button no longer appears, what should I do? I’ve searched the reason of this problem in many places, but I have not found yet.

    Here’s the link for the product with the problem: http://chimpsbrasil.com.br/wordpress/produto/t-shirt-chimp/

    Thanks for the help!

    • Igor Miguel
      December 20, 2013 at 5:06 am #

      I´ve forgot to say that it only happend after update to wp 3.8

      • Igor Miguel
        December 26, 2013 at 10:08 pm #

        Problem solved! I was using an outdated script with jquery, it was just updated it and everything is back in work!

  10. tampalab
    December 23, 2013 at 12:27 am #

    Hi,
    After I updated new 3.8, showing number of products is limited to 100 in shop page. Before that it was changeable from reading panel (in settings) by the blog pages field. Now it is not working for some reason.

  11. BerrytangleFarm
    December 24, 2013 at 11:43 pm #

    My web host forced my site to update to WordPress 3.8 without my knowledge, causing a cascade failure because of the way they upgraded.

    I’m now unable to create a product with variations.

    Deactivated all plugins and the problem still persists.

  12. USASharp
    December 25, 2013 at 11:03 pm #

    Hello, I have two problems:

    1. In Safari and Chrome, there is an additional of 87px appearing directly underneath the Product Image; it’s fine in Firefox and Opera:

    http://usasharp.graphicsolutiongroup.com/product/knife-rack-plastic/

    2. I have tried to suppress the “See Similar” from appearing; but nothing works; what do I have to do, please, to get rid of that, please?

    Thank you,
    Maureen Femino

  13. jefferis
    December 31, 2013 at 3:50 pm #

    I had to deactivate a brand new install of WP 3.8.4 and WooCommerce to get images to upload properly. Can you view screencasts? It is easier to show you:

    http://screencast.com/t/nB9xpnrLJP
    The images upload without size dimensions and post into pages as 1px by 1px. Also, other plugins for Woo were not working either like Bulk Photo import.

  14. Glenn Cogar
    January 6, 2014 at 11:17 am #

    Product images missing after upgrade to WP 3.8. I have recovered back to WP 3.6.1 and WooCommerce 2.0x

  15. vrob
    January 6, 2014 at 7:11 pm #

    Hi Woo–can you update the status on this now that it’s been a few weeks since this post?

    Questions:

    1. ETA for WC 2.1?
    2. Are the compatibility issues still “purely visual” or are there some bigger issues like the ones being reported about product images disappearing or variations not working?

  16. Ian
    January 7, 2014 at 9:56 pm #

    Our site uses Canvas – you can add a product without variations but it won’t add if you have variations.

    When are we gonna see the fixes please as cannot run the site now!

    Cheers

  17. deepak patel
    January 9, 2014 at 11:47 am #

    January is here. Can we expect the 2.1 release in January still or a new announcement will be made?
    Please clarify asap.

  18. Anna Casingena
    January 14, 2014 at 12:47 am #

    Dates in the featured and new section cannot be inserted. How can this be done, please

  19. Polina
    January 22, 2014 at 8:48 pm #

    I have wordpress 3.8 and WooCommerce 2.0.20

    Product images don’t show up AT ALL, also currency stays at British Pound, even after changing currency to dollar in settings.

    This presented a big issue for me, as i dont have too much experience in downgrading wordpress versions.

  20. Moses
    January 24, 2014 at 10:33 am #

    Hello
    Im using twenty fourteen with woo
    the framework is not working even after the fix and especially the short code tool is missing from the pages …
    also on mobile devises the core woo pages don’t display the content

    any good news on having woo being totally “in love” with 2014 ???

  21. santa
    February 10, 2014 at 9:13 pm #

    i have upgraded to 2.1 and facing add to cart button not working. well anyone here check it and help to solve this

    http://www.logomats-uk.co.uk/shop/rubber-flooring/rubber-tiles/

    • Martin Wilson
      February 11, 2014 at 2:16 am #

      Hi Santa,

      I’ve got the exact same problem with not being to add products with variations the cart after upgrading to 2.1, how did you fix your issue?

      Cheers
      Martin

  22. Mark
    February 11, 2014 at 12:16 am #

    Great. Upgraded to 2.1 and it’s broken my site. Ruined homepage and custom fonts.