Storefront 2.2.0 beta 1

I’m happy to announce that Storefront 2.2.0 beta 1 is now available. You can download it and begin testing by clicking here.

What’s changed in 2.2.0?

The focus of 2.2.0 was primarily to improve New User Experience. Making use of WordPress 4.7’s Starter Content feature, new Storefront users now benefit from a much richer experience when they first start using the theme. The improved NUX can be broken down in to three main additions;

WooCommerce installation and Customisation prompt

After activation Storefront will perform a quick check to see if WooCommerce is installed or not. If not, a prompt will be displayed asking you to do so via a single click. After which you’ll be guided through WooCommerce setup via the wizard that exists in core.

Of course, in most cases folks won’t see this prompt. Storefront is a WooCommerce theme and generally WooCommerce will already be activated. In those cases, users will instead be prompted to customise the look and feel in the Customizer.

Customizer guided tour & Starter Content

When the user enters the Customizer they will be greeted with a step by step guide to set up some of the core design options in Storefront.

Storefront 2.2.0 guided tour

Depending on whether the store is fresh or established, Starter content may be included. For brand new stores that means the following tasks will be performed automatically:

• Example products imported
• Homepage created, ‘homepage’ template applied and set as a ‘static homepage’ in WordPress settings
• ‘Full width’ template applied to cart and checkout pages
• Default widgets removed

Starter content in-situ

Revamped landing page in wp-admin

Once the user finishes customizing their store and returns to wp-admin they’ll be greeted with a revamped landing page. This landing page has been tidied up and now focuses on informing folks on how they can enhance their Storefront experience, either through free plugins, Storefront Powerpack or commercial child theme designs.

Design refresh

The other big change in 2.2.0 is a design refresh we’ve performed which lightens the overall aesthetic, gives more prominence to product photography and transforms the homepage content into a hero component.

You can read more about the design refresh in this post.

Beta testing

If you’re using any Storefront extensions, plugins or child themes we thoroughly recommend that you check for updates available for those first and perform any that you find. Many of our own child themes for example have had patches to provide compatibility with 2.2.0.

If you’re keen to test the guided tour / starter content features then you’ll need to set up Storefront on a fresh installation of WordPress.

If you find issues we encourage you to open an issue on the Storefront github repository with a clear description.

The design refresh is the biggest change for existing users. Custom child theme authors / users will need to pay careful attention to this and potentially patch their own products.

Gimme!

You can download Storefront 2.2.0 beta 1 right here.