Extending WooCommerce Like A Pro

WHO IS CHRIS?
• Back End Developer at
Modern Tribe (we’re hiring)
https://tri.be

• Husband & Father

• Craft Beer Lover

• Musician

• Beach Bum
 WHO IS CHRIS?

• Works on enterprise level

WooCommerce sites every
day

• Five years experience

focused on WooCommerce

• … and still haven’t

mastered it
 @CHRISFLANNY
WHOISCHRIS.COM
FIRST TIME GIVING THIS TALK
TRYING NEW THINGS
THIS TALK IS PHP FOCUSED
INTERRUPT ME
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

It’s impossible to present on just WooCommerce development

A lot of this can be applied to WordPress development in general

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

• Approaching WooCommerce - what’s the goal?

• Building A Framework - make a mini app

• Finding What You’re Looking For - hookin’ up

• Let’s Code - demo

• Staying Compatible - avoiding disaster

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

WHAT’S THE
GOAL
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

HAVE CLEAR END PRODUCT

• Wireframe and strategy before writing any code

• Make a list of where and how your code will

touch WooCommerce
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

WHAT DO WE TOUCH
• Product/Variation Meta

• Order Meta

• Order Item Meta

• Customer Meta

• Templates

• Currency

• Pricing/Taxes

• Fees/Coupons

• Reports
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

WHAT DO WE CREATE
• Gateways

• Custom Order Status(es)

• Custom Tables

• WP REST API Endpoints

• Imports/Exports

• Changes In Checkout Flow

• Problems
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

TOUCHING STUFF

• Touching one or two Woo things? Build a simple

plugin
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

SIMPLE PLUGIN

• PHP 5.2 compatible

• Use a single plugin file if snippets

• No reason to make a child theme for small UI

changes when hooks are available
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

SIMPLE PLUGIN

Let’s see an example

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

BUILDING A
FRAMEWORK

Keep S**T Organized!

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

THE TRIBE WAY

• I do it the Tribe way. You do it your way as long as

it makes sense.

• Square One

• Containers /

Dependency Injections
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

KEEP THE THEME IN THEMES

• If you are theming your shop then do it in a theme

or child-theme

• Use the WooCommerce template structure

• Keep logic out of template files and in a plugin

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

NAMESPACE AND AUTOLOAD

• If you can…

• If you want to extend ANYTHING like a pro then

you need to do it the right way

• Highly important if you work with a team and just

as important if you work solo
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

USE VERSION CONTROL

• Even in solo development using version control gives huge advantages

• Historical data

• Not tied to a single machine

• Deploy code, never FTP

• Great skill to have

• Commit the entire WP install if a single project/site, install WP with

composer
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING
• Take the time to mark up all of your code.

• Small methods, simple parameter and return definitions

are fine

• Explain complex logic

• Explain odd classes

• Document functions with the hooks that are calling them

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

STRUCTURE
WooCommerce Post Types WooCommerce
Extensions Taxonomies Classes
Assets Meta

WC_Product
product
product_category

WC_Cart
Core
order_item

Gateways
Util
shop_order

WC_Order
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

STRUCTURE

Let’s see an example

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

HOOKIN’ UP
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

SO MANY OPTIONS

• Nail down exactly what you want to happen when

you want it to happen

• Find the most appropriate filter or action

• Think thoroughly what’s happening before and

after your code during execution
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

PRIORITY
• Any number of functions could be running your data
through it

• Getting odd results run a search on the codebase for the

filter

• Dynamic hooks make this a lot more difficult


class-wc-webhook.php

add_action( $hook, array( $this, 'process' ) );

• Good reason to keep 3rd party Woo plugins limited

 MULTIPLE PATHS
• Woo typically calls the same hooks via ajax or submitted form data but not always

• Biggest multi-path culprit I’ve found is the [shortcode] checkout form

// Runs during order_review_update WooCommerce ajax when checking out.

add_action( 'woocommerce_after_checkout_validation', [ $this, 'validate' ] );
// Runs after form submission from shortcode form.
add_action( 'woocommerce_before_pay_action', [ $this, 'validate_shortcode' ] );

$products = WC()->cart->get_cart();
if ( isset( $_REQUEST['pay_for_order'], $_REQUEST['key'] ) ) {
$order = new \WC_Order( wc_get_order_id_by_order_key( $_REQUEST['key'] ) );
$products = $order->get_items();
}
 MULTIPLE PATHS
• Woo doesn’t filter out products with hidden catalog visibility outside of main shop loop

• Important to remember when using the REST API for front end display
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', [ $this, 'hidden_search_query_fix' ] );
…
public function hidden_search_query_fix( $query = false ) {
if ( ! is_admin() && isset( $query->query['post_type'] ) && $query->query['post_type'] === 'product' ) {
$tax_query = $query->get( 'tax_query' );
$tax_query[] = [
'relation' => 'OR',
[
'taxonomy' => 'product_visibility',
'field' => 'name',
'terms' => 'exclude-from-catalog',
'operator' => 'NOT IN',
],
[
'taxonomy' => 'product_visibility',
'field' => 'name',
'terms' => 'exclude-from-catalog',
'operator' => '!=',
],
];
$query->set( 'tax_query', $tax_query );
}
}
 REPORTS
• Possibly my biggest issue with Woo core

• Giant SQL queries requiring complex injections to filter results

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

CLOSURES FOR FILTER

$filter_english_state_name = function( $states ) use ( $address ) {
$states[ $address['country'] ][ $address['state'] ] = $address['state'];
return $states;
};
add_filter( 'woocommerce_states', $filter_english_state_name );

unload_textdomain( 'woocommerce' );
WC()->countries->states = null;
WC()->countries->load_country_states();
$formatted_address = WC()->countries->get_formatted_address( $address );

remove_filter( 'woocommerce_states', $filter_english_state_name );

WC()->load_plugin_textdomain();
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

SO THAT WAS COOL

…but entirely unnecessary

unload_textdomain( 'woocommerce' );
WC()->countries->states = null;
WC()->countries->load_country_states();
$formatted_address = WC()->countries->get_formatted_address( $address );
WC()->load_plugin_textdomain();
WC()->countries->load_country_states();
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

USE THE RIGHT TOOLS

• Use a proper IDE, PHPStorm or similar

• xDebug & Breakpoints

• Recursively Search Directories

• Use a local dev setup

WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

LET’S CODE

https://github.com/ChrisFlannagan/extending-woocommerce-example
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

STAYING
COMPATIBLE
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

USE CORE WOO FUNCTIONS

• Don’t manipulate or get Woo data with $wpdb

• WC() is pretty awesome

• Don’t overstep WC_Product with custom Product

wrapper class
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

CHANGE LOG IS YOUR FRIEND

• If project centric, don’t update WooCommerce in

production until you have completely QA’d it.

• Look for deprecated functions, then search your

code

• Always update locally first with debug display and/

or log on
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

FIXING BREAKS

• Woo is very good about inline documentation on

deprecated functions and including the new
method in the old one

• Woo templates change so your custom templates

will need to as well.
WhoIsChris.com | @ChrisFlanny

THANKS!!