In this edition of What’s New for Developers at Shopify, you’ll get important updates to continue your development work. In this edition, learn about discount Functions, choosing your own app category, Shopify CLI 3.20, and more.
Apps powered by discount Functions available in the Shopify App Store
Apps that leverage the product or order discount Functions APIs can now be published in the Shopify App Store. Functions allow developers to inject custom code into Shopify’s backend logic. With the product and order discount Functions, you can build popular discount promotions like volume discounts or free gift with purchase offers, and allow merchants to configure them in the Shopify Admin.
Please note that shipping discount Functions are still in a developer preview. Also Plus merchants cannot access Functions at this point in time.
To learn more about building with Functions, visit our discount app tutorial. Check out the video below to learn about Shopify app developer Optizio’s experience with Shopify Functions and get inspired for your own builds.
Developers can now choose their own app store categories
You can now self-categorize your app once using the app submission form in the Partner Dashboard. Categories can be chosen by selecting up to two tags from our updated app categories that best describe the main function of your app.
You can later appeal to change your app’s categorization if its capabilities change.
For more information, please visit our developer documentation.
Introducing support for themes with the latest update to Shopify CLI 3.20
In addition to migrating over theme commands, Shopify CLI 3.20 supports a new authentication method that powers the usage of theme commands on continuous integration/deployment pipelines to perform actions like pushing, pulling, and publishing a theme.
Moving forward, you should use the new version of Shopify CLI (version 3), which provides a more streamlined theme development experience.
Deprecating custom and standardized product type in favor of product category for sales tax purposes
We’ve added a new productCategory field to the Product object. The product category specifies a category in the Shopify Product Taxonomy.
We’re deprecating several fields:
- The
standardizedProductTypefield is deprecated in favor ofproductCategory - The
customProductTypefield is deprecated in favor ofproductType
Previously, the product category data was not powering any platform features. Now, the product category will be used to determine the rate at which a product is taxed in the US. In the future, it will apply to how products are taxed in other regions/markets.
For more information, refer to the Product object or learn more about product tax codes at the link below.
Improve the performance of your shipping app
Checkout performance is a major factor in helping merchants get more sales, which is why we strive to ensure that shipping rates at checkout load at the optimal speed and without perceptible delay. To help app developers create optimal checkout experiences and return shipping options fast, we have consolidated a list of six best practices to improve the checkout performance of your shipping app.
Tap to Pay on iPhone with Shopify POS
Merchants selling in-person in the US can now accept contactless payments directly on their iPhone, without needing to invest in hardware. If you work with merchants in the US, this update can help them break into in-person sales for the first time, or enhance the way they sell in person, anytime, anywhere.
Stay in the know
That’s all for this month. To stay up to date with changes that impact the Shopify platform and app development, subscribe to the Shopify developer changelog by email or by RSS for real-time updates as they happen. And if you’re not already subscribed to our monthly What’s New for Developers at Shopify newsletter, do so below so you never miss a thing.
