More than 450 million people visited Shopify in 2020. In Gross Merchandise Volume, the company has processed more than $120 million. Shopify is a huge company that is growing rapidly.
Shopify announced new features Tuesday, June 29, 2021. These new features are intended to make the platform easier for everyone who runs a Shopify store. Online Shopify 2.0 provides a huge list of new features for Shopify merchants.
Shopify says that Online store 2.0 is the result of the Liquid Language rebuild.
The revamped online shop will make it easier for developers to add custom features to their storefronts. Netflix was granted early access to the platform and used it to create Netflix.shop, the first ecommerce store.
This is a quick overview of the Online Store 2.0.
Overview
The Online Store 2.0 features new features, including a fresh editing experience. Merchants can now create storefronts, add theme extensions, and manage apps within them with the new editor. The new editor was created to consolidate all features and functionalities.
According to internal estimates, the development of the reference theme Dawn (the new standard storefront theme) will be 35% faster that the default theme. Shopify stated that the new theme would be available for developers starting July 15, 2021.
Shopify revealed that it will significantly increase its infrastructure investments as well as developer tooling. Merchants don’t have to worry about re-platforming in order to create headless commerce storefronts and customize their storefronts.
Shopify’s new online store 2.0 is designed to be more accessible to developers and tech companies. This was signaled by the offer of early access to Store 2.0 to Netflix (mentioned previously).
Online Store 2.0 is all-embracing. Shopify now offers everyone the opportunity to create, customize and scale their online store.
The New Theme Architecture
Merchants had limited blocks in the original online store. Stores used to have different templates, which were mapped to different products. Merchants now have the ability to add sections to every page with the 2.0 version. You could add sections only to the homepage in the past.
You can activate the templates for each page by using a JSON template file. This specifies the page settings. This allows you to list all sections, collections pages, custom pages, blog post, and other pages.
You can specify the sections you want to see in the JSON template files.
Template files determine which sections will appear as defaults and in what order on the theme you install. After the template has been added, you can add dynamic sections to your theme presets using the theme editor.
App Blocks and Theme App Extensions
You can add many features and extensions to your theme app extensions for developer. This extension allows you to extend the functionality of the merchant’s website.
Apps could not be integrated with themes before. Developers had to create integration logic for existing themes. It was difficult to create features that work consistently across themes. This is no longer true.
App Modularity
App modularity is another highlight. This means that developers can now add and remove UI components via the theme editor. You don’t need to have access to the theme’s source code.
This makes it easy to manage the app’s supporting resources. Shopify 2.0 makes it easy to manage and store your app’s supporting resources.
Metafields changes
Merchants can now add meta fields or properties to the updated theme editor. You don’t need APIs or any type of coding to do this.
Merchants have the freedom to add any content to their product pages. This allows them to include additional information to help potential buyers such as a size chart and ingredient list. Meta fields allow you to update any information that isn’t likely to be displayed in the store editor.
These are just a few of the many ways they modified meta fields.
- Flexibility – Metafields allow for greater flexibility. This allows you to safely import commerce data.
- Standard Meta fields: The standard meta fields make it easier for custom themes to work out of the box in stores across all market verticals.
- Presentation hints You can add presentation tips to meta fields that render store data
Choose File
Metafields supports many media types, including images and PDF files. Metafields allows you to upload selected media to product pages, rather than hard-coding it to a theme.
You can access the images via the settings/files section. They are available for immediate use.
The file picker allows you to quickly and easily choose the right file for you, such as a product warranty or sizing charts. This will place the meta field within the theme.
Files API
File API is available with API version 2021-07. It allows you to create, modify and delete generic files. This allows merchants to reuse files from different apps. These files are added to Shopify admin’s files page.
Developers will have access to the Files API, which allows them to view settings and files. This version includes the GraphQL API, which makes it simple to upload and select media files via settings/files. Apps have access to this area of the admin, which can be used for populating meta fields via content.
Apps can now use this space to store files and images not directly associated with products, such as images used in themes.
Liquid Input Setting
The Liquid input setting has been updated to allow you to add custom Liquid codes to pages directly from the editor.
The HTML setting has the Liquid setting. You have access to Liquid variables. Merchants have access to both global and template-specific Liquid variables.
Merchants no longer have to manually modify any theme code when creating apps with Liquid.
You can consult the developer documentation or the Dawn custom-liquid section to view the new theme.
This allows you to take independent decisions regarding the store, allowing you to spend your time focusing on creative integrations or solutions.
New Developer Tools
Developers have many options to create new apps and themes through the online store 2.0. Developer tools now integrate with the new tool and allow for testing, development, and deployment of new themes.
Shopify GitHub integration allows you to easily use the Shopify CLI tool and theme check. These tools allow you to test themes in the sandbox, which streamlines development.
Shopify Github Integration
This integration with GitHub allows you to easily track and manage new themes and maintain them. Connect your GitHub account to the online shop. The changes are pushed onto GitHub and then pulled to a repository that is in sync to the current state of selected theme.
Shopify GitHub integration allows you to connect your Shopify admin account to the Shopify admin, and to connect Git branches with themes in the store. Native support for version control allows you to track, manage and make changes to the theme code.
Developers can collaborate with GitHub by editing themes using native version control. This integration allows developers to collaborate securely when editing themes. It also supports version control. Developers can create workflows that allow changes to the themes to be reviewed, merged on GitHub and then populated to a live theme.
Shopify CLI
Shopify’s CLI tool has undergone some changes. CLI was previously used by app developers to generate Ruby on Rails and Node.js apps. However, with the new changes, developers now have the ability to create custom themes using CLI.
The full list of functions that you get is here:
- Within development themes, you can create, preview, or test modifications to the themes.
- Hot-reload CSS or Liquid section changes that you create with the dev server.
- Start a new theme project with the new theme Dawn.
- Push and publish themes directly from the command line
- Do a theme check.
- Collect test data to determine the theme for customers of products and draft orders.
The Shopify development themes are temporary hidden themes that can be used to develop your Shopify store. You don’t need to worry about visitors to your store seeing the development themes.
The limit for development themes is not met. These themes are automatically deleted after seven days of inactivity. These links are also deleted after you complete the Shopify-logout process. You can push the theme to your store if you need a preview link that won’t be destroyed by Shopify-logout.
You can view changes to a development theme in real time, interact with it, and modify the theme using the editor. The new CLI tool allows you to have full control over the theme’s final appearance.
These tools make it easy to develop an Online store 2.0 and can help you get started quickly.
Theme Check
Theme Check, an integral part of Liquid or JSON, scans themes for errors. After the scan is completed, the tool highlights best practices for the Shopify platform as well as the Liquid language.
It integrates with editors such as Visual Studio and detects problems with the code.
To help you understand the error messages that persist, a link to the failed test will be provided. You don’t have to install both the Shopify CLI tool and the Theme Check separately.
Additional Features Worth Noting
Bulk Mutation API
Shopify’s Bulk OperationRunMutation endpoint allows you to export bulk data to a store.
You can also run a bulk transformation operation instead of the GraphML simulation. This allows you to import all data without any bottlenecks due to large files.
These are the options available:
- ProductCreate
- collectionCreate
- ProductUpdate
- productUpdateMedia
- ProductPageUpdate
- ProductVariantUpdate
- metafieldUpsert
- priceListFixedPricesAdd
- priceListFixedPricesDelete
Get Discounts with the Resource API
For discounts, the checkout resource returns the application_type property. This field shows how the discount was applied.
Valid values include script, automatic, discount_code and manual.
Themes for Liquid Input Settings
Merchants can now add custom Liquid codes directly to the editor using the new Liquid input options. It is very similar to the HTML setting.
Merchants have access to both global and template-specific Liquid object templates with no edits to their theme code. Dawn is the new reference theme. Dawn is an open-source theme that offers flexibility and ease of use. It makes use of several Online Store 2.0 features, such as JSON templates and application blocks.
To sum up:
Shopify offers three components to its store:
- The themes and the online editor
- Save Content
- Developer Tools
The new online editor and content-management system will have the greatest impact on store owners who are not developers.
Shopify has an updated template language that uses a similar editor to WordPress’s Gutenberg. It was released back in 2018 This brings it closer to page editors on platforms such as Squarespace or Wix.
Shopify’s editor is capable of replacing a variety of Shopify apps, including the popular Shogun page-builder.
Small and medium-sized businesses can now create page templates and populate data without having to write code. The editor uses Shopify’s page sections and blocks.
The content management system, which is another important area, has received a facelift with additional features. The new update will bring you the brand-new custom content typing. You can create content once and then publish it in all channels, including the online shop.
