Today we’re excited to show you the latest iteration of our Free Downloads extension for Easy Digital Downloads. This release will fix over 15 bugs and include some commonly requested features that make managing your free products far more effective.
Refactored/Redesigned Modal
Some of the most common issues with Free Downloads were caused by our reliance on a 3rd party JavaScript library to control the modal that was presented to end users. In 2.2.0, we’ve completely refactored this modal from the ground up and removed the dependency on 3rd party JavaScript to render it. Don’t worry though, it should look nearly the same as it previously did. We maintained as much backwards compatibility as possible. If you are using a custom template, you will want to take a look at the included modal and redirect templates, however, to make sure that you are supporting the new features we’ll be discussing down below.
Email Verification
Free Downloads 2.2.0 includes a feature that requires customers to ‘confirm’ their email prior to being provided with access to your digital goods. When users enter their email address, they will be told they will get an email to confirm their download. Once received, the user just needs to click the provided link, and Free Downloads will handle the rest, either delivering the product immediately, or redirecting the user to the desired page. When combined with an email marketing extension, this feature can help improve the quality of your subscribers as it requires the user have a functioning email address to complete the process.
Improve integration with EDD_Payment
Two important parts of effectively running an store, even with free products, is reporting and user experience. In this latest version, all Free Download requests correctly create payment records in your Easy Digital Downloads powered store. No matter if the user is logged in or a guest, you will have a data point for their purchase. We’ve also added the `payment key` to all redirect URLs, which will allow store owners to customize these pages to give a more personalized experience to their customers.
Other Fixes and Improvements
While the above items are new features added, there were a slew of issues that were fixed alongside them.
Bug Fixes
- Possible file download errors when using Dropbox Filestore
- Registration fields now respect the ‘Disable Guest Purchase’ setting in Easy Digital Downloads
- Better reliability when adding multiple purchase links for free products on pages
- File download logs are now created for each download request
- The caching system around auto-downloading multiple files has been improved
- The form for the Free Downloads modal no longer loads on every page
- Improvements to the ‘Bypass if Logged In’ setting
Other Improvements
- Add more actions into the purchase form, to allow customization without creating a custom template
- Minified JavaScript and CSS for improved performance
- Improved usability of modal by auto-focusing on the first input field
- Allow disabling of both purchase confirmation and admin sales notifications individually
- Better error messages for troubleshooting
Free Downloads 2.2.0-beta1 is currently available to all valid license key holders. You can test this beta by enabling beta releases on your store.
Full Changelog
Version 2.2.0-beta1, November 1, 2017
- New: Store owners can now require that users verify their email address to complete their download.
- New: Allow store owners to chose which emails to disable, purchase confirmation and/or admin notifications.
- New: Rebuilt the modal from the ground up to be more flexible.
- New: Purchase keys are now added to all custom redirect URLs.
- New: Add more actions to the modal.
- New: When opening the modal, the first input field is not automatically focused.
- New: Use EDD_Payment to create all payment records.
- New: JavaScript and CSS assets are now minified for performance.
- New: File download logs are now recorded when a user downloads their files via auto-download.
- New: Removed depencey on jBox for modal generation.
- Tweak: Added better debug handling.
- Tweak: Hooks were added to the Free Downloads form.
- Tweak: Better error messages were added.
- Fix: Improved handling of Bypass If Logged In when no files were attached to the download.
- Fix: Downloads failed when query string parameters existed and Bypass If Logged In was enabled.
- Fix: Certain cases caused the Bypass If Logged In to happen for logged out users.
- Fix: [edd_free_download] shortcode executed the pop-up even when logged in.
- Fix: Corrected an issue where logged in users would get a 404 on mobile.
- Fix: Modal form no longer loads on all pages.
- Fix: Improved the cache for multi-file downloads, when auto-download is enabled.
- Fix: Registration forms on Free Downloads modal now honors Easy Digital Downloads ‘Disable Guest Checkout’ setting.
- Fix: Corrected an issue causing files delivered via Dropbox Filestore to fail.
- Fix: Cached zip files sometimes contained a 404 document.
- Fix: The Bypass If Logged In setting didn’t work correctly with variable pricing.