Version 3.7: Google Products Integration & UPS WorldShip
FoxyShop version 3.7 introduces two exciting new features: Direct UPS WorldShip integration and direction Google Product Search Support.
UPS WorldShip
If you are using UPS’s desktop shipping program, WorldShip, you can now export data right from the FoxyShop Order Management page into WorldShip. This will speed up your label-creation process quite a bit. To turn on this feature, just check the “Enable UPS WorldShip Label Export” box on the FoxyShop Settings page. Then go to the order page, set your search criteria, and click the “UPS Export” button. Then save the XML file in your WorldShip import folder and WorldShip does the rest. If you need some special fields, there are a number of WordPress filters in place so you can hook in and adjust the exported XML as you need to.
Google Product Search Integration
FoxyShop has always allowed you to export a TXT file and upload it to Google’s Product Feed. This takes time and effort and has to be done once a month. No more! FoxyShop now has a built-in integration that will let you update and renew your product catalog directly within your admin. The Google products can be synced directly with your existing store contents. Please read the documentation for thorough instructions on proper usage and upgrade notes.
Also added in this version is a new metabox for Google Product Fields. These fields have also been added to the bulk update feature so you can update many at once. Keep in mind that if you previously had Google Product Fields added to your products (Google Product Category, MPN, Brand, GTIN, etc.) they have been converted to hidden fields so they’ll only be available in the new meta box. Technically: the fields now have an underscore in front of them.
Other Updates
- The packaged jQuery version is now 1.7.1.
- The FoxyShop Import/Export tool now includes saved variations. Handy if you want to transfer all your settings.
- The related product WP_Query loop wasn’t resetting and the last related product was taking over the default POST query. This has been fixed.
- Fixed an uninstall issue and some potential missing datafeed keys on new installs.
Version 3.6.1: Dynamic Sitemaps
In FoxyShop version 3.6.1, the product sitemap is now a dynamic url rather than a hard-coded xml file. This means no more fighting with file permissions and the sitemap won’t be rewritten every time a product is saved. This will result in a performance boost. If you’d like to customize the url slug, just define the constant FOXYSHOP_PRODUCT_SITEMAP_SLUG
in wp-config.php. If you were actively using the old sitemap-products.xml, the file won’t be deleted–but it won’t be updated either so you’ll want to update your Google Webmaster Tools and any other locations that were referencing it. If you really need to, you could write an .htaccess rule so that old requests route to the new location. I also fixed a namespace error in the xml declaration – apparently Google adjusted their sitemap requirements and the old namespace url was invalid.
There’s also a couple of new features for you intrepid 0.7.2 users. on the settings page you can now automatically pull your shipping category list from FoxyCart with the API. You can also update your receipt template with a new tool on the FoxyShop tools page.
jQuery has been updated to the new 1.7 since everything looks good with the new version. And then there’s the usual smattering of small CSS tweaks and code optimizations. Everyone is encouraged to upgrade!
Version 3.6: No More Double Serialization
There are several places where FoxyShop stores array data in the WordPress database. In order to store an array in a database, it has to be “serialized” or turned into a string. I’ve just discovered that FoxyShop has been double-serializing the strings which causes some rare problems with some configurations. Version 3.6 fixes the double serialization issue.
Important Note: If you are using a customized datafeed template in your theme directory you will need to make a change to your theme file. After upgrading, open up foxyshop-datafeed-endpoint.php in your theme directory and change all the instances of unserialize
to maybe_unserialize
. Also, search forĀ serialize($foxyshop_subscription)
and change it to $foxyshop_subscription
(there’s two instances of this) and serialize($val)
becomes $val
. (This is removing the serialization happening before content is written back to the database which we don’t want to do anymore.)
I really apologize about this. It is my goal to never force any sort of manual action like this. If you aren’t sure whether you need to worry about this, let me know and I’ll give you some direction. If you aren’t comfortable making these changes to your customized file, I will help you. Please send me a support request for more info.
To avoid anything like this in the future, the inventory update, SSO subscription update, and WordPress user update have all been moved to internal functions that now live in the core. You’ll still be able to easily build anything you want or need to into the datafeed endpoint, and you can even access the new core functions with action hooks. So if you can switch your custom functionality to using the new template it’s best, but if you can’t I completely understand.
FoxyCart 0.7.2 Is Now Available
The new version of FoxyCart (0.7.2) is now available and you can upgrade in your FoxyCart admin. FoxyShop fully supports 0.7.2 and even makes use of some of the new features. So if you have kept your FoxyShop installation up to date, you can now safely upgrade to FoxyCart 0.7.2.