WooCommerce 3.7 and Gutenberg 6.3 updates

The past week was all about two big plugins releasing important updates. Both WooCommerce and Gutenberg got significant improvements. Gutenberg saw another accessibility improvement and WooCommerce now has even more integration with, well, Gutenberg . Let’s dive in and see what’s what!

WooCommerce introduces more Block Editor integration

WooCommerce 3.7 was released last week and it brings deeper integration with our new Block Editor. While WooCommerce already provided the option to use a Featured Category, Featured Product, and Best Selling Category blocks, for instance, this version added three more blocks:

• Product Categories List block; this block allows you to show product categories in a list or dropdown.
• Featured Category block; this block lets you select one or multiple categories to feature on your site, and it displays the category and a link to its category archive page to customers.
• Products by Tag(s) block; this block gives you the option to feature a selection of products linked to a specific tag or set of tags.

Of course, the rest of the plugin also saw overall refinements. You can now, for example, find all WooCommerce Blocks more easily when you click on the plus symbol to create a new block by typing “WooCommerce”.  Read up on what these integrations look like in the WooCommerce 3.7 introduction post.

Gutenberg version 6.3

One of the areas where the Block editor still needs improvement is the accessibility of the editor. The block user interface introduces navigation from within the block itself, as well as from one block to another, which can be complex. This makes it very challenging for screen reader users to navigate the content of their posts. Gutenberg 6.3 fixes this with what they call a Navigation Mode. Or in their words:

To address that issue, we’re introducing the Navigation Mode. By default the editor is loaded in this mode, it allows you to move from block to block using a single Tab press. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate between blocks. Once you reach the block you want to edit, you can enter the Edit Mode by hitting the Enter key. The Escape key allows you to move back to the Navigation Mode.

Riad Benguella

This is a great start to make the editor more accessible for many different types of users. You can read more about why accessibility matters here.

As with the WooCommerce update mentioned above, this new Gutenberg release also comes with smaller improvements. Things like support for text alignments in table block columns, and border color support for the separator block. As usual, you can find out more about what’s new in Gutenberg 6.3 in their release post.

Bonus links

• For all you Front End heroes out there, Sarah Drasner maintains and shared a wonderful collection of useful Pens for everyday Front End development.
• Ultimate Blocks published a blog post with more than half a dozen Gutenberg courses to learn everything you need to know about the Block Editor.

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