Classic Commerce Roadmap - version 1 & 2

#1

Classic Commerce is a fork of WooCommerce 3.5.3 and a ClassicPress-user community-led project. This roadmap might be adjusted periodically to remain aligned with user needs and desires.(Adjustments will be done on the development Repository)

It’s very important to note that:

  1. Classic Commerce is not an official ClassicPress project; it has been driven by ClassicPress users as an independent project.

  2. Version 1.x of Classic Commerce is compatible with ClassicPress 1.x and will be fully backward compatible with WooCommerce 3.5.3. We won’t introduce any changes or features that would cause plugins or themes to break. We are also making changes that won’t break your shop if you decide to use this on WordPress 4.9.x.

Why Classic Commerce?

Just like ClassicPress Version 1.x, one of the goals of Classic Commerce is remove the use of Gutenberg blocks in the e-shop plus the requirement to use Jetpack.

What have we been doing in the past few months?

For ClassicPress to grow and remain competitive in the market, we have noticed that there is a need to have an e-commerce solution tailored for it. With the new direction of the block editor, we can not foretell what the other e-commerce solutions will do, or how they would interact, or even if they would work with ClassicPress.

Because of this chasm, J Parker forked WooCommerce 3.5.3 to allow us to continue using this powerful piece of e-commerce software while keeping it compatible with ClassicPress. We have since been removing WooCommerce and Jetpack dependant services and plugins, consequentially trimming the initial install wizard and plugin dead weight (bloat) as well.

In addition to that huge task, we have been rebranding and archiving the functions and classes that come with the fork for easier and better tracking of the development of the software.

The PHP minimum requirement has been bumped up to match ClassicPress required 5.6.

Privacy has been enhanced by removing user data tracking options. With WooCommerce, you are requested to share feedback, but the plugin user doesn’t know the use of this data. To cover privacy issues, we have removed this request from the current version in our GitHub repo.

Key extensions needed for an open source e-commerce solution are currently being evaluated.

What we haven’t done:

  • We have not changed the functionality of the software as forked, so all the extensions compatible with WooCommerce 3.5.3 are still usable (we call out for massive testing and feedback on this).

  • Change any functionality hooks. All actions and filters are intact as before.

  • There has been no special work on the interface layouts and styles of the software.

Proposed Roadmap

Version 1.x

Our intention is to have an early December version 1.0.0-alpha1 release and this is the proposed roadmap.

  • 1.0.0-alpha1 - Remove user data tracking options, Jetpack, WC service integrations etc
  • 1.0.0-beta1 through beta3 - begin identifying and implementing/fixing key extensions like payment gateways, shipping, etc
  • 1.0.0-rc1 - release candidate with basic store functionality working
  • 1.0.0 - basic but usable and well-tested e-commerce solution, open for new extension developers
  • Stay backward compatible to WooCommerce as possible.
  • Make possible i18n through a new .pot file to allow translation of plugin from default English development.

Version 1.1.0

  • Build more key extensions like payment gateways, shipping, etc
  • Backport changes from WooCommerce (non-breaking changes)
  • Fix usability annoyances in the admin area.
  • Boost plugin security (includes backporting fixes from 3.5.4 to current WC versions).
  • Make possible i18n through a new .pot file.

Version 2.x

  • Backport changes from WooCommerce ( breaking changes)
  • Replace deprecated WooCommerce service integrations API with an open API, so anyone can “dock on” their 3rd party integrations, SaaS or stand-alone plugin solutions.
  • Remove backward compatibility for WooCommerce below version 3.0.0

How can you help?

We need:

  • Testers of the releases. Reporting issues and feature requests.
  • Developers to push this forward.
  • Project Managers to guide the mammoth of a task.

What are your thoughts?

11 Likes
Woocommerce no longer compatible?
#2

A couple of points worth mentioning…

I have been trying this out on a local test site I’ve been working on, which is a migration of an existing Magento e-commerce site to Wordpress/WooCommerce. I was really surprised to find that I could install Classic Commerce and it all seems to work perfectly - the c.600 products are all still in place and everything looks the same. You can’t run both WC and CC of course, but you can switch between them.

I am also building a new site for my piano teacher and he plans to sell a CD (both as a physical product and a digital download). For the moment I have installed both WC and CC. I started with CC because I wanted to check out the setup procedure, which all went well. CC comes with a basic paypal option included and we have been testing the functionality using paypal sandbox. It all looks fine - payments processed, emails sent out, links provided for the downloads, etc.

So I would definitively encourage people to give it a go and start testing. I think it is looking very promising!

6 Likes
#3

Thanks Oz. Need to find a bigger data source for testing myself. I have tried it on some old WC sites and seems very fine. All the customizations are running well.

3 Likes
#4

Good!

I’ve done a quick test on a weird setup. Only 500 products but they are cross referenced by codes and types (about 500.000 records for that), with advanced product filter, a catalog mode plugin, heavily customized theme, ecc…

Everything was fine!

Thank you!
Simone.

5 Likes
#5

I will try and give it a good test when I get a moment. Just one thing that occurred to me. Integration with Facebook is a key requirement for one of my sites and I know a couple of my other clients are interested in it too.

For this, I use this plugin, developed by Facebook:

I’ll also want to integrate CC with the Classic SEO plugin so I’ll be in touch about that shortly.

Looking good!

6 Likes
#6

It’s important to note that Classic Commerce will be much the same as ClassicPress in regard to compatible plugins/extensions. That is, anything that still works with the forked versions (WooCommerce 3.5.3 and WordPress 4.9) should also work with CC and CP.

BUT it is up to the user to test this, and to keep monitoring it, to make sure that subsequent developments in plugins don’t break the functionality. Hopefully with CC we will start discussing which plugins/extensions are good, and which have stopped working, and eventually we might start forking some of the more crucial ones and writing our own.

We seem to be doing this really well with CP, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t also happen with CC.

2 Likes
#7

Yes, fully understand that. The reason I mentioned FB integration was purely because I know you’re looking for feature requests and that you plan to build more extensions.

So could you take integration with Facebook as a feature request to be considered whenever is next appropriate. Thanks.

#8

Might be a good idea to post it here so we keep it all in one place:

Edit: In fact, it might be useful if @wadestriebel made the first post a wiki, then we can keep that going as a “must-have” plugin list with suggested working options.

3 Likes
#9

It is now a wiki post :slight_smile:

3 Likes