Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) put out a big release today, following several maintenance releases and the last major release in July. Version 3.1 introduces 10 new core blocks available to users who are running WordPress 5.8 or newer:
- Buy Button
- Order History
- Products
- Registration Form
- Login Form
- Download Terms
- Receipt
- Confirmation
- Cart
- Checkout (Beta)
These blocks enable store owners to do more than their shortcode predecessors. Although the shortcodes still work, the block versions allow for much easier customization with a better UI. One example in the announcement is the Order History block. The previous Purchase History shortcode output a simple table of orders, but the new Order History block has a card style view and allows users to easily modify the number of columns and how many orders are displayed per page.
The other blocks have been updated in a similar fashion, with extended functionality and greatly expanded customization options.
It’s important to note that the new Checkout block was released in beta. It is not turned on by default for new stores yet. Users who want to test the block will notice that EDD has reordered some of the fields to improve conversions, improved the user context detection (only showing necessary fields to users), and redesigned the payment method picker.
Email Summaries is a new feature for store owners in 3.1. It sends a weekly or monthly email to the admin or other custom recipients with a store update that includes metrics like gross and net revenue, new customers, and average order amount. It can also be disabled in the admin.
A few other notable changes in version 3.1 include the following:
- New setting to require users to login to download files
- Success Page has been renamed to Confirmation Page to differentiate it from the receipt
- More detailed views and filtering options for Reports
- reCAPTCHA keys added to Downloads » Settings » Misc so users can automatically enable reCAPTCHA for the lost password and the registration forms
- New color options for purchase buttons
- New “View Receipt” link in the orders table
Easy Digital Downloads is installed on more than 50,000 WordPress sites. The ten-year-old plugin is continuing to evolve and become a more block-friendly tool for selling digital products. Check out the announcement post for a full tour of all the new blocks and their capabilities.
I’d love to see blocks for single downloads such as Price, Purchase Form / Buy Button, Terms etc.
If those blocks existed we could create block themes with a single-download template , or add the template to an existing theme, and arrange the indivdual blocks however and wherever we want for display on the individual download page.
I can’t help but think that the Products block is OK but if single product blocks did exist, we could do so much more such as integrating with the core Query Loop for use in download archives.
The core Post Title and Post Featured Image blocks work just fine, so no need for single download blocks for these.
If anyone from EDD does happen to read this, are single download blocks something that will become available? The only information I can find is from a more than 3 year old blog post that states it is on the todo list.