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Major: Freemium Add-ons, Themes Monetization, Premium Version Updates, Bug Fixes
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@vovafeldman vovafeldman released this 30 Aug 11:59
· 2392 commits to master since this release
1.2.2.8
8463dc2

We released a new version of our WordPress SDK. You will notice a huge jump in the versioning from 1.2.1.7 to 1.2.2.8. The reason for that is because we finally merged the themes and plugins SDK together. This is a HUGE code update and while we are confident that it’s in a good shape after many days of testing, we still ask you to run a sanity check before you deploy it to production. Just to be clear, everything remains backward compatible, and in fact, the theme’s SDK was already running in production among dozens of themes and thousands of websites (we also released it for our plugins a week ago and didn’t get any tickets related to the SDK, so far). Bringing the SDK versions into a shape which we can merge them into, is something that we’ve been working on for about 6 months. The fundamental difference we had to incorporate in our design is rely on IDs instead of slugs since a plugin and a theme can have the exact same slug, which may cause conflicts. While the scenario of a plugin and a theme with the same slug, both using Freemius and installed on the same site has a very tiny probability of occurring, we are building a solution for the long term and it was important for us to avoid this possible conflict.

Themes Monetization

After six months of ongoing conversations with the WordPress.org themes review team, we’ve finally sealed all the details and the expected UX, to offer our monetization capabilities within the WP Admin for themes. Not going to dive into the technicalities, but we adjusted the SDK to seamlessly integrate with tabs (instead of menu items) and the customizer, so you can now upsell your premium theme version right from within the WP Admin, without even having a website.

Call for Freemium Theme Developers

If you are interested in giving it a spin, we’re currently gathering a closed group of development customers. The benefit of joining as an early adopter is that we’ll help you with the quick integration and make sure it's all working as expected, and you'll be able to give us your feedback, which will be taken into account as we finalize the beta version. To apply contact us via [email protected]

License Update from GPLv2 to GPLv3

Josh Habdas started an issue on GitHub regarding our SDK’s GPLv2 license, raising the concern that our licensing isn’t compatible with GPLv3 and AGPL. After doing some research and advising with an attorney, we adjusted the SDK’s license to GPLv3 which actually gives more freedoms to developers.

Version Updates Population

After receiving a few complaints from developers saying that they have released a new version and their customers can’t see the update, we ran a thorough profiling of the premium updates mechanism. We found that due to a layer of caching on top of our API requests manager, together with WordPress core’s 12 hours updates cache, customers with a valid license had to wait up to 36 hours to see an update in their WP Admin dashboard. Not optimal at all.

Therefore, We reduced the cache expiration for that request to 1-hour, which will reduce the wait time to up to 13 hours. In addition, when forcing an updates check from the Updates page in the WP Admin, we immediately invalidate the relevant cache and pull a fresh result directly from the server. This means that the update will be available immediately after clicking the “Check Again” button:

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UX

  • After several support tickets, we found a repetitive UX issue where customers do not notice the Billing tab when opening their Account page, which means that they don't know how to update their business information for invoicing. Thus, we moved the billing and invoices section right into the Account page.
  • After numerous internal discussions and advising with the WordPress.org Themes Review Team, we eventually decided to add the opt-out option from usage-tracking for themes, right in the theme’s details dialog box:
    image

Selling Add-Ons

  • We made a significant performance optimization to the Add-Ons marketplace when selling add-ons from the WP Admin.
  • The SDK now supports a proper upsell for freemium add-ons within the WP Admin. Before, this section only worked properly for free or premium only add-ons.
  • Activating a premium add-on that was purchased via Freemius Checkout from the developer’s site now auto redirects to the license activation form. In previous versions, if an add-on was purchased outside the WP Admin, we automatically deactivated a premium only add-on with a corresponding message that it requires a license. Simply because we never implemented that use-case and were relying on an in-dashboard upgrade which automatically fetches the license key via the API.

Bug Fixes

  • The auto-deactivation process of the free version upon activation of the premium one was only working for opted-in users. The problem is that if a user skipped the opt-in, and later purchased a premium version from the developer’s website using Freemius Checkout, when that user would try to activate the premium version, the free version remained activated. This caused unpredicted behavior.
  • In the last release, we mistakenly added a bug that caused the opt-in/out functionality in the plugins’ page to fail. This issue is now fixed.
  • Fixed a few bugs related to environments with Symlinks.

Official release notes: https://freemius.com/blog/cart-abandonment-recovery-themes-monetization/

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