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Currency Switcher 4.x is now available, supporting WooCommerce 2.7

Currency Switcher 4.x is available!

As announced last week, we are delighted to announce that we have just released our next major update for our popular Currency Switcher for WooCommerce. As anticipated, this version includes support for WooCommerce 2.7, and has been tested with the Release Candidate of that version.

Several of our customers opted for a preliminary test and received the new release in advance. They are now enjoying the benefits and improvements it introduces, and they are pleased of how well it works.

Here you can find a list to recap main features in this new version.

Compatibility with WooCommerce 2.7

The latest version of the Currency Switcher is compatible with the new features introduced in WooCommerce 2.7. We tested our plugin against WC 2.7 Beta 1, back in December 2016, then again with the Beta 2 and the Release Candidate version. The results have been great. Of course, we will keep testing it and address any glitch that we will find.

Optimised code, taking advantage of the Aelia Foundation Classes library

Our Aelia Foundation Classes (AFC, for short) is indeed the foundation of most of our plugins. The mini-framework we designed is flexible enough to allow us to keep the main plugins small and lean.

Also, thanks to the features in the AFC, our products can easily check the system for missing requirements, and even install other plugins they might need, with a single click. We consider ourselves “pioneers”: in an environment where packaging bulky frameworks with each plugin is common practice, we went for lean plugins, shared libraries and dependency management. It wasn’t easy, but it worked!

Better performance

We optimised the currency conversion logic in the Currency Switcher to make it easier to use it on shops with a large number of products. The currency conversion logic is now up to 80% faster. This is especially visible on sites with a high number of variable products and/or of variations.

Improved logging

To keep in line with our “lead the way philosophy”, in July 2016 we developed a flexible logging system, which we are going to use in all our plugins. Our new logger  is PSR-3 compliant, powerful and flexible. We were pleased to hear that WooCommerce 2.7 will introduce a similar logger system, as it’s a proof that we have been, and we still are, on the right track. Our plugins will keep using our own logger, and the two systems will live next to each other, transparently.

Improved geolocation

The Aelia Foundation Classes framework loads version 2 of the MaxMind Geolocation database. The database supports a finer granularity than the one included with WooCommerce. That’s what makes it possible to detect not only countries, but also provinces/states/counties and, in some cases, cities. We have been using it in our Prices by Country and Tax Display by Country plugin for over a year, with great results.

Improved reports

We extended the reporting capabilities of the Currency Switcher to allow running reports filtered by currency. Each report will show the exact total of sales made in each currency. Thanks to this feature, it will be easier to find out which currency generates the most sales, and adjust your sale strategy.

Here are some screenshots of the new reports:

Currency Switcher 4.x - Sales report in EUR

The new sales report in the Currency Switcher 4.x, showing the sales made in EUR

Currency Switcher 4.x - Sales report in USD

The new sales report in the Currency Switcher 4.x, showing the sales made in USD

New shortcodes

The Currency Switcher 4.x includes a couple of new, handy shortcodes. You can use them to convert arbitrary values in on the page, or show a product price in the active currency, anywhere on your site. Here’s a brief description of how they work, together with a “live” example.

Try selecting a currency, on the right sidebar, and the values in bold will change automatically.

It’s now possible to force the currency by shipping country

We added the “force currency by billing country” to the Currency Switcher over two years ago, albeit reluctantly. For those not familiar with it, the feature allows customers to select a currency indirectly. Instead of going for the currency, they can select a billing country, and the currency changes to the one used in such country. Since we received several requests to allow binding the currency to the shipping country, we added such option to the new release.

Currency Switcher 4.x - Force currency by shipping country

The Currency Switcher 4.x allows to force currency by shipping country, as well as billing country.

Currencies can now be sorted in the settings page

Some of our customers asked if it would be possible to sort the enabled currencies without having to resort to a filter. We listened to our clients, and such feature is now part of the Currency Switcher. Here’s a preview of the interface that allows the sorting:

Currency Switcher 4.x - Sort currencies

Drag the handle of each currencies to change their order, then save the settings the new sorting.

Of course, if you implemented a  filter for your custom sorting, you can keep using it, it will work just fine.

Dropped support for WooCommerce 2.3 and earlier

The Aelia Team is known for its skill in keeping full backward compatibility in all our products, even after adding or improving existing features. Our Currency Switcher 3.x was fully compatible with WooCommerce from version 2.1.x until 2.6.x, and worked seamlessly on each of those version. After a careful analysis, we realised that WooCommerce 2.3 and earlier have practically disappeared from the market. Thus, keeping the code to support those versions makes little sense. Due to this, the Currency Switcher 4.x now requires WooCommerce 2.4 or newer.

Integrations with 3rd party plugins are now external addons

The Currency Switcher used to include integrations with several 3rd party plugins. We quickly realised that, even though such solution looked convenient, the integrations don’t belong there, as not every merchant needs them. Thus, we decided to extract each integration to a separate, lightweight plugin, so that the user can install only the needed ones. The integrations will work the ones we released so far, supporting plugins such as Subscriptions, Bundles, Composite Products, Product Add-ons and, more recently, Dynamic Pricing.

To make sure that users are aware of the changes, the Currency Switcher will inform merchants when an integration is no longer included in the main plugin. The Currency Switcher will also explain how to download the replacement integration.

When will the Currency Switcher 4.x be available?

The Currency Switcher 4.x is a available now! 🙂

Will I have to pay for the new version?

If you are an existing customer, with an active licence, you can download the Currency Switcher 4.x free of charge. Simply go to the My Account section and you will find the link to download it.

If you are not yet a customer, or if your licence expired, please contact us to get the best deal to get the new version of our product.

As always, please feel free to send us any feedback you have about this new version. We would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to write us, as your feedback is what allows us to provide you with top class solutions.

Thanks for reading, and for your continued support and renewed custom.

Sincerely,

The Aelia Team

Blacklister for WooCommerce – Support for customer’s name, address and phone number

Blacklister for WooCommerce has been updated to version 0.9.1.170222. This update brings the following improvements and fixes:

  • Added support for blacklisting of specific customer names, addresses and phone numbers. The new logic supports both simple matches and regular expressions, on each element of names and addresses. It makes it possible to blacklist specific combination of names, surnames and addresses from different areas.
  • Updated plugin code, to adhere to our newest standards.
  • Added support for auto-updates.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dustin Robinson for his contribution in relation to the blacklisting of phone numbers.

How to get latest version

You can download the plugin from the product page.

WooCommerce Prices by Country – Support for WooCommerce 2.7/3.0

WooCommerce Prices by Country – What’s new

Prices by Country for WooCommerce has been updated to version 1.7.9.170214. This update brings the following improvements and fixes:

  • Added support for WooCommerce 2.7 and 3.0.
    • Refactored currency conversion logic to follow the new guidelines.
    • Replaced obsolete filters.
    • Added support for the new logic for the conversion of variable products.
    • Improved the User Interface in Edit Product page.
    • Dropped support for WooCommerce 2.3 and earlier. The Prices by Country now requires WooCommerce 2.4 or newer.
  • Improved compatibility with Bundles plugin. The logic used to determine if a product is on sale is now more robust. It also solves an issue that was triggered with bundled variable products that were priced and discounted individually.

How to get latest version

New customers

Simply place your order and you will get the latest version.

Existing customers

You should be able to download the updated file using the link you received with your order. If the link doesn’t work, please contact Support to receive the latest version. Thanks.

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Announcing Currency Switcher 4.x, with support for WooCommerce 2.7

Currency Switcher 4.0 is coming, with great improvements

We are reviewing and updating our popular Currency Switcher for WooCommerce, in preparation for the upcoming release of WooCommerce 2.7. Our next major version will be 4.0, and it will include several updates and enhancements, which you can find listed below.

Several of our customers are already enjoying the benefits of this new release, and we received great feedback about the improvements we introduced. Here is a list of the major changes that the Currency Switcher 4.0 will bring.

Compatibility with WooCommerce 2.7

We updated the Currency Switcher to make it compatible with the new features introduced in WooCommerce 2.7. Tests of the new release against WC 2.7 Beta 1 and Beta 2 are completed, and the results have been great. We will keep testing it, to “iron all the kinks”, and ensure a smooth transition from WooCommerce 2.6 to 2.7

Optimised code, using our powerful Aelia Foundation Classes library

Several months ago, we decided to extract libraries and classes that were shared by our plugins, and move them to an external plugin, called the Aelia Foundation Classes. Then, we redesigned our products to use this new library. It was a bold move, but it paid off. Our customers are impressed by the efficiency of such solution, which allows us to keep our software small and lean. We also developed a smart dependency checker is able to detect any missing dependency and install it with one click.

We understand that it’s uncommon, in the WordPress environment, to have plugins depend on frameworks or other plugins, but that is going to change in the future. Dependencies are common in most other frameworks and Content Management Systems, and having to install a single extra plugin is a small price to pay in return for more efficient solutions. Smart dependency management is now a reality!

Better performance

The number of large WooCommerce sites is increasing constantly. In order to allow merchants who run large shops to take advantage of our multi-currency solutions, we reviewed the performance of the core elements of the Currency Switcher. The new currency conversion logic is now up to 80% faster, especially on sites with a high number of variable products, and a large number of variations.

Improved logging

At Aelia, we like to consider ourselves pioneers in introducing great and useful features. When we heard that WooCommerce 2.7 will also introduce a new logging system, we had a moment of pride: we introduced an equally flexible, if not more powerful, logging system in our Aelia Foundation Classes, back in Q3 2016. Our new logging system will be used by all our plugins, running in parallel to the one added to WooCommerce, without interfering with it. It will make it possible for us to assist your customers more effectively, and troubleshoot issues quickly.

Improved geolocation

The Aelia Foundation Classes includes version 2 of the MaxMind Geolocation database, which is updated automatically, on a weekly basis. This is the same database that our Tax Display by Country and Prices by Country plugins already use, which is more flexible than the one used in Currency Switcher 3.x.

Improved reports

Following our valued customers’ feedback, we extended the reporting capabilities of the Currency Switcher. Reports can now show sales filtered by currency, showing the exact total of sales made in each currency. Such feature will make it easy to find out which currency generates the most sales, and adjust sale strategies accordingly.

You can find some screenshots of the new reports below:

Currency Switcher 4.x - Sales report in EUR

The new sales report in the Currency Switcher 4.x, showing the sales made in EUR

Currency Switcher 4.x - Sales report in USD

The new sales report in the Currency Switcher 4.x, showing the sales made in USD

New shortcodes

The Currency Switcher 4.x includes new shortcodes that can be used to convert arbitrary values in on the page, as well as displaying a product price in the active currency anywhere on the site. You can see them in action below.

Try selecting a currency, on the right sidebar, to see the above value changes.

Support for forcing currency by shipping country

The “force currency by billing country” feature was introduced long ago. As the name implies, it allows to force the active currency to the one used in the billing country selected by the customer. Although we normally recommend not to use such feature (the Currency Switcher wad designed to grant customers the freedom to choose the currency in which they want to pay), we have received several requests to extend it, and now the currency selection can be tied to the shipping country, rather than the billing one.

Currency Switcher 4.x - Force currency by shipping country

The Currency Switcher 4.x allows to force currency by shipping country, as well as billing country.

End of support for WooCommerce 2.3 and earlier

At Aelia, we pride ourselves in our ability to include backward compatibility in all our products. Our Currency Switcher 3.x is fully compatible with WooCommerce from version 2.1.x until 2.6.x. Despite such impressive feat, we realised that WooCommerce 2.3 and earlier versions are rarely in use, and maintaining the code to support it makes little sense. Due to this. the Currency Switcher 4.x will require WooCommerce 2.4 or later.

Separation of integrations with 3rd party plugins

Some of the integrations with 3rd party plugins are currently part of the Currency Switcher’s core, although they don’t belong there. They were originally included in our main product as a temporary, quick patch, and it’s now time for some housekeeping. We will progressively extract the integrations to separate plugins, like the ones we released for the Subscriptions, Bundles, Composite Products and Product Add-ons plugins.

To make sure that users are aware of the changes, the Currency Switcher will notify the site administrator when an integration has been removed from it, and propose an alternative solution to it.

When will the Currency Switcher 4.x be available?

The Currency Switcher 4.x is already stable, and can be used on WooCommerce 2.6 (we have been using it on our own site for months now). It also works fine with WooCommerce 2.7 Beta 2, which is the latest public release. We plan to release our major update when WooCommerce 2.7 reaches Release Candidate 1, to make sure that we can address any glitch that might have “slipped through the cracks.”

Will I have to pay for the new version?

If you are an existing customer, with an active licence, the upgrade to version 4.x of the Currency Switcher will be free of charge. If you wish to try the new version before its official release, please contact us. We will be happy to send you the updated version.

If you are not yet a customer, or if your licence expired, and you would like to try our powerful multi-currency solution, simply buy the Currency Switcher and contact us afterwards to receive the free update to version 4.x.

As always, we will be grateful for any feedback you can give us, as it allows us to improve our products.

It was a long read, but we hope it was worth it. Thanks for dedicating us your time, we are looking forward to the new, exciting update!

Sincerely,

The Aelia Team

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VIES Validation Service is down, affecting EU VAT number validation

We have been informed that the VIES service used by our EU VAT Assistant to validate VAT numbers is currently inaccessible. Here is a screenshot from the European Commission website, taken today, 23rd January, at 11:30 GMT:

EU Commission - Website unavailable (screenshot)

EU Commission – Website unavailable

This downtime will affect the validation operations performed by our plugin, which will be unable to validate VAT numbers. Unfortunately, this is outside of our control. We will have to wait until the service is back online, then the EU VAT Assistant will start working correctly again.

Apologies for the inconvenience on behalf of the team managing the EU website.

The Aelia Team

WooCommerce Currency Switcher – Support for Bundles 5.0 and 5.1

Bundles Integration for Currency Switcher – What’s new

The Bundles Addon for the WooCommerce Currency Switcher has been updated to version 1.2.0.161222. This update introduces support for Bundles 5.0.x and preliminary support for the changes introduced in version 5.1 of the plugin. This will make sure that bundle prices will be converted correctly.

Please note that, since version 5.1 of the Bundles plugin is brand new, there might still be bugs that we need to find and address. We would recommend to keep using version 5.0 for the moment, until all issues have been solved.

If you are already using the integration, you should receive a notification about the update soon. If you haven’t installed it yet, you can download it, free of charge, from the plugin page: https://aelia.co/shop/woocommerce-bundles-integration-currency-switcher/.

Although free addons are outside the scope of our support service, if you find any issue please feel free to contact us by using our dedicated support portal. We will review your report and get back to you with our feedback as soon as possible.

Important – You can help!

We are aware of the importance of being able to run a multi-currency shop. In the past three years, we have been campaigning to encourage other developers to introduce native support for multiple currencies, directly in their plugins, instead of having to rely on external integrations (whose capabilities are limited).

As part of our efforts, we contacted the authors of both the Bundles and the Composite Products plugin, as well as many others, to discuss such feature, and provided them with all the information they need to make their plugins multi-currency aware. Unfortunately, the Bundles plugin v5.1 introduced significant changes that seem to go in the opposite direction: some of the new logic added to it is based on the strict (and incorrect) assumption that the shop can only have one currency. Such logic could break if multiple currencies come into play, and cause bundle prices to be calculated or displayed incorrectly.

This is not something that can be addressed by an external solution, such our Bundles Integration. The flaw is in the “single currency” assumption, and it must be fixed directly in the Bundles plugin.

How you can help

If your multi-currency shop relies on the Bundles plugin, you should contact its authors and let them know that having the possibility of running a shop with multiple currencies is of critical importance to you, and that you would like to see such feature introduced in the Bundles and Composite Products plugin. The developers are aware of our solutions, and they have our contact details. We will be more than happy to assist them adding multi-currency support to their products.

Please keep in mind that the more customers require such feature, the sooner it will be introduced! 🙂

Thanks in advance for your time and for your continued support!

The Aelia Team