Easy Digital Downloads 2.6 released
After more than six months in development, we are thrilled to announce that Easy Digital Downloads version 2.6 has been released! This is a major release that includes numerous significant improvements, which we would like to show you now.
Native import options
Six months ago, with version 2.5, we introduced improved export options for products. Now, in 2.6, we have completed the second half of the project by adding native support for importing payments and products.
From the Downloads > Tools > Import/Export screen, site administrators are now given options to import products and payments from CSV files.
The import process is built to easily handle hundreds or even thousands of records so even the largest of CSV files can be imported without problem.
These import options replace our old CSV Manager plugin in order to provide a more pleasant, easier to use, and native system for importing records into your store.
You can find complete instructions on using the new import options on our documentation site.
Additional customer emails
Almost everyone has, or at least knows someone, that has more than one email address. It’s very common for customers to purchase with one email address then come back and purchase again with a second email address.
In 2.6 we have introduced support for registering additional email addresses on customer records.
Email addresses can be manually added or removed by site administrators. If a customer makes a purchase while logged in but they use a different email than is already associated with their account, the second email will be automatically attributed to their existing customer record.
This makes managing customer records much simpler as you will no longer have multiple records for a single customer.
Refund processing for PayPal Standard
While not usually something store administrators take great pleasure in handling, refunds are a very real part of running an eCommerce store. As much as we would love to, we can’t make the actual refund more enjoyable, but we can make refunds easier to process.
In Easy Digital Downloads 2.6, we have added support for processing refunds directly from the View Order Details screen for purchases made through PayPal Standard.
You can learn more about enabling refund processing for PayPal Standard in our documentation.
Customer metadata
With 2.6, we have introduced a complete metadata API for customers that allows Easy Digital Downloads and extensions store metadata associated with customer records.
What exactly does this mean? If you are an extension developer, it provides a great way to store additional information on customer accounts. For store owners, it means many of your favorite extensions will soon be receiving updates that make them better.
The customer metadata API is an underlying infrastructural component that we have needed for a long time, so we’re thrilled to have it included in 2.6.
Improved inline documentation
While we strive to make Easy Digital Downloads live up to its name, there are always times when certain things are not quite clear. To help alleviate any uncertainty, we have introduced improved descriptions and help texts throughout the plugin. Along with the improved descriptions, we have also added tooltips in many places that offer verbose definitions of options.
Other notable changes
REST API V2. We have introduced the second version of our REST API. This version includes several noticeable improvements, including support for categories and tags on the products endpoint, product search, and date ranges for the customer endpoint. See the API versioning documentation for information on how to use version 2.
Better mobile checkout. When purchasing with a debit or credit card from a mobile phone, the card number input field will now properly set the phone’s keyboard to a numerical keyboard.
Prices on oEmbed. When embedding a download product on another site, using WordPress core’s oEmbed feature, the product prices are now shown.
Resolved schema problems. Up until 2.6, there have been numerous reports of schema micro data not being correct, resulting in validation errors by Google. These have been resolved.
Improved accessibility. To make Easy Digital Downloads more accessible to more users, we worked directly with a member of the WordPress accessibility team to help resolve accessibility issues throughout the administrative interfaces.
Developer improvements. Numerous enhancements have been made that are targeted at developers. If that is you, head over to our Developer Notes post.
In total, version 2.6 includes 47 distinct improvements and 37 bug fixes. The complete changelog can be found on WordPress.org.
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AWESOME!!! 🙂 Glad to see these major improvements.
I’m hoping this paves the way to making the official Stripe add-on even better, specifically the issue of Guest (non-logged in) users creating a new Stripe Customer for every single purchase, even with the same email address. This really clutters up the Stripe database and makes it harder to track customers through other systems, since they all have multiple customer IDs (instead of just one).
Here’s to wishing you even greater success! Great updates here.. Thanks again!
It definitely will! Addressing that issue is very high on our priority list now.
I expect nothing less of you and your team. You guys are amazing, and have done something great here. Thank you.
Congratulations on the new release.
The PayPal refund from the dashboard is really a time saving. Many thanks.
Thank you Waseem. We love that feature too.
Wonderful information about new release; it’s really good to know about EDD 2.6. I have found the best features about this new release but I really like mobile checkout feature very much.
I am also Easy Digital Downloads Developer and it’s really great news for me. Thanks for updating.
This release indeed has a lot of improvement.
We use EDD to sell our ProfilePress plugin and extensions. Couldn’t be more satisfied with it.
Keep making giant stride Pippins and friends.
Cheers to a greater future.
Still no proper free trial into paid subscription options in this update?
This 2.6 updates was for the core Easy Digital Downloads plugin. Subscriptions are managed through the Recurring Payments add-on, so any update that adds features to subscription management will be part of a Recurring Payments update.
We do still plan to add improved trial subscription support.
Congratulations to team 🙂
Yes…multiple email addresses! Thank you!
Well done on the release! Some excellent improvements. It’s given me some ideas on how I can improve my own products. I particularly like the Tooltips which is a smart way to declutter the settings page.
Thank you so much for a brilliant plugin!
I’ve not gone active with it as of yet, but I just wanted to express my gratitude to you for such a great solution 🙂
Easy Digital Downloads – there is a constant flow of updates. If you do not update the digital download will not work. This is not a hands free product – you must constantly monitor daily or twice daily to make sure you are current on your updates. I sell an ebook and the reality is I am continuously emailing my book because the download did not work – why, not updated. I am really no further ahead than just emailing the ebook and just forgetting about the digital download.
My question is – when are you going to figure this out and minimize your updates – lump them together – the constant updating is frustrating and I can’t trust my product is getting to my clients – so why would I use it?
Hi Leslie,
Updates are released for two primary reasons: to fix bugs and to introduce new features.
In no scenario are updates “required” for continued functionality unless the update specifically fixes a bug that is affecting you. While we do always recommend all users update to the latest versions, this should not be something that you need to “monitor daily” in order to keep your site running. For example, choosing to wait a week before installing an update will not prevent your site from functioning exactly as it was.
It sounds like there might be a configuration issue on your site that is resulting in the downloads failing. I would love to help you track that down and resolve it so that you can have a smoother, reliable, and more enjoyable experience using Easy Digital Downloads. I’m going to send you an email now; if you’d like assistance with it, simply reply to the email and we’ll get you taken care of.
Hello EDD team. I was hoping on a featured to be released in future that would save me so much time. I use EDD to give out free products as bonuses sometimes when doing affiliate promotions. And sometimes I get 20+ products wanting their bonuses, then I have to manually create a purchase for the 20 customers and insert the 5-10 products each time into a new payment. I was hoping to be able to duplicate a payment with products and settings and just change the name and email and click create 🙂
Do you know of any plugins that can duplicate payments to draft? Or is there someone I could pay to build this for me?
Mozie
We do not have a feature for that at this time, sorry.