Here’s another quick update on what we’ve been up to in March.
There were a few unforeseen challenges we experienced this month, which is why we had to delay some things into April. Namely, our custom block to list collections and the next Alpha version of picu Pro – including Taxes for E-commerce. Read on to find out more about the current status.
E-commerce Status: Taxes
If you are waiting for our upcoming E-commerce functionality, you only need to hold your breath for a little longer. While we encountered some technical challenges around how we handle taxes, and that delayed our initial timeline for a bit, we’re happy to report that we’re in the final stages now and expect to finally release our last Alpha Version 3 in the upcoming two weeks and then plan for a final release until May.
Compatibility Improvements
Good news for our WPML users! Some of our customers reported compatibility issues when working with a site that uses WPML for translations (and the WPML Media Translations extension, specifically) but we quickly identified the issue and a fix should be ready for release with the next version, to ensure smooth operation between both tools in the future. Thanks also to the WPML’s developers & partnership team, who helped us to look in the right places and getting this fixed asap!
In the beginning of march, we also got notified of some compatibility issues when running picu together with a certain feature of the SiteGround Speed Optimizer plugin, which could lead to unexpected behavior for clients in the frontend. We reported this issue and a possible fix back to the development team at SiteGround, but luckily we also found and implemented a workaround in 2.5.3, that will fix this immediately!
Security Enhancements
In some rare cases, a server can be (mis)configured to allow so called Directory Listing, which allows anyone to see the contents of folders on your site without permission. This is generally considered a bad practice and should be avoided, but we still wanted to make sure that your proofing images are stored as safe as they can be. This is why in version 2.5.4 we implemented an additional safety measure to better protect ‘our’ directories. And because we felt this is an important security feature, we built this change into our core plugin to make it available for everyone for free.
Also, with version 2.5.0, we implemented a new feature to allow basic formatting in emails using markdown. Unfortunately, we implemented this using a library which ultimately caused the WordFence security plugin to output a warning. While there technically wasn’t a big threat or anything, this wasn’t exactly what we intended to do either so we quickly ditched this library and chose another, more modern, one instead! Thanks for everyone who reported this!
Bienvenue, francophones!
We’re excited to announce that since early March, picu is now fully translated into French! Every feature, menu and function of your online proofing workflow can now be accessed and used entirely in French. Merci beaucoup to everyone who contributed their time, it’s very much appreciated!
New Blogposts
We’ve published three new articles on our blog, with topics that are hopefully relevant to you as a photographer:
- Online Marketing for photographers: A comprehensive look at digital marketing strategies specifically designed for photographers looking to grow their online presence
- Automation for photographers: Somewhat related to the first one above, this takes a look at how automation can transform your daily operations and save valuable time in your workflows.
- WordPress Blocks for photographers: The Block Editor has changed the game. Blocks make it easier to customize layouts, display portfolios, and more. We’ve collected some of our favorite blocks to build a photography portfolio.
Next Up in April 2025
As you can see, sometimes even the best plans and intentions don’t help much, if urgent bugs get reported and you need to throw all plans overboard and help customers who are stuck right now. We feel confident though, that we’ll finally on track again to make the progress needed on the E-commerce front next month!
Here’s what we have planned for April:
- Alpha-3 Release including “Taxes” for E-commerce
- Release of our custom block to list collections
- Preparations for the first official e-commerce release
Please feel free to get in touch, if you have any questions or remarks, we love to hear from you.