March 25, 2024

Genesis Connect for WooCommerce Plugin

This plugin allows you to seamlessly integrate WooCommerce with the Genesis Framework and Genesis child themes.

This plugin replaces WooCommerce’s built-in shop templates with its own Genesis-ready versions, specifically the single-product.php, archive-product.php and taxonomy.php templates needed to display the single product page, the main shop page, and Product Category and Product Tag archive pages.

To allow easy customization of these templates, and ensure that you do not lose your customizations when the plugin is updated, you can place your own copies of these templates in your child theme’s ‘woocommerce’ folder and customize these copies as much as you like. You can also create your own taxonomy-{taxonomy}.php and taxonomy-{taxonomy}-{term}.php templates in the same location and this plugin will find them and use them to display your shop’s Product Category and Product Tag archives. See the Template Hierarchy to learn more about naming requirements for taxonomy templates.

Additionally, the plugin makes Genesis Simple Sidebars and Genesis Simple Menus compatible with WooCommerce.

This version is compatible with WooCommerce 3.3+

Technical Info

For more technically minded users, this is what the plugin does:

Unhooks the WooCommerce template loader function
Adds its own template loader function to control the templates used by the single product, archive product and Product Category and Product Tag (taxonomy) archive pages.
Adds Genesis Layouts and SEO support to the WooCommerce Product custom post type
Provides three Genesis-ready templates to display the shop pages, located in the plugin’s templates folder:
- single-product.php
- archive-product.php
- taxonomy.php
These templates use WooCommerce core functions to display the shop loops which:
- unhook WooCommerce’s built-in breadcrumbs
- unhook the Genesis Loop and replace it with the relevant WooCommerce shop loop
- remove WooCommerce’s #container and #content divs, which are not required or wanted by Genesis
The shop loop function in each template is heavily based on its WooCommerce counterpart, but has been modified to accommodate certain Genesis features such as the Taxonomy term headings and descriptions feature.
The templates contain the genesis(); function and therefore are fully customisable using Genesis hooks and filters.
The template loader allows users to use their own templates in the child theme’s ‘woocommerce’ folder. These user templates, if they exist in the child theme’s `woocommerce’ folder, will be loaded in place of the supplied Genesis Connect for WooCommerce templates
Using appropriate filters, modifies the Genesis breadcrumbs output to mimic the breadcrumb structure provided by WooCommerce’s built-in breadcrumbs.

More about breadcrumbs

By default, the Genesis breadcrumbs do not provide the same breadcrumb structure as those built-in to WooCommerce. Genesis Connect for WooCommerce modifies the normal Genesis Breadcrumbs output on shop pages to mimic the structure of those built-in to WooCommerce.

Note that the templates provided in this plugin automatically unhook WooCommerce’s built-in breadcrumbs via this code in each template:
remove_action( ‘woocommerce_before_main_content’, ‘woocommerce_breadcrumb’, 20 );

Filters

This plugin provides some filters which may be useful for developers.

genesiswooc_custom_query

Located in gencwooc_single_product_loop() in templates/single-product.php.
The filter callback function should return a query object or false.

gencwooc_product_archive_crumb

Located in gencwooc_get_archive_crumb_filter() in lib/breadcrumb.php.
Allows further modification of the single product page breadcrumbs.

gencwooc_single_product_crumb

Located in gencwooc_get_single_crumb() in lib/breadcrumb.php.
Allows further modification of the product archive (shop page) breadcrumbs.

More info about WooCommerce CSS handling

For the benefit of theme developers and customizers, here is a summary of possible scenarios for dealing with WooCommerce CSS:

Case 1: If the WooCommerce > General settings > Enable WooCommerce CSS option is checked, the default stylesheet supplied with WooCommerce will be loaded (see wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/assets/css/woocommerce.css).
Case 2: If WooCommerce > General settings > Enable WooCommerce CSS option is unchecked, no stylesheet is loaded.
Case 3: If the user (or theme developer) sets define( 'WOOCOMMERCE_USE_CSS', true ); in the child theme functions.php the options setting is ignored and the default WooCommerce stylesheet is loaded, ie has same effect as checking the settings box.
Case 4: If the user (or theme developer) sets define( 'WOOCOMMERCE_USE_CSS', false ); in the child theme functions.php the options setting is ignored and NO stylesheet is loaded, ie has same effect as unchecking the settings box. Note: the value of WOOCOMMERCE_USE_CSS always takes precedence over the WooCommerce Settings page option!
If either Case 1 or Case 3 applies, if themes/my-child-theme/woocommerce/styles.css exists it will be loaded in place of the default woocommerce stylesheet (plugins/woocommerce/assets/css/woocommerce.css).
If either Case 2 or 4 applies, as no built-in stylesheet is loaded, all WooCommerce CSS styles need to be added to the theme’s main style.css stylesheet
Note for Genesis child theme developers: For new themes, theme developers can use define( 'WOOCOMMERCE_USE_CSS', false ); and place all WooCommerce styles in the theme’s main stylesheet, or do nothing and let the user handle this via Case 1 or 3.
The above information is based on WooCommerce 1.4.4

Installation

Upload the entire genesis-connect-woocommerce folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
DO NOT change the name of the genesis-connect-woocommerce folder
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
That’s it. Navigate to your shop pages and you should see the new templates in action.

Note: You must have a Genesis child theme activated before installing and activating this plugin.

FAQ

Can I customize the Genesis Connect for Woocommerce templates?

It’s not recommended to customize the plugin’s templates because, if you do, you will lose any customizations the next time the plugin is updated. Instead, take copies of the plugin’s single-product.php, archive-product.php and taxonomy.php files, and place these copies in a folder called woocommerce in the root of your child theme’s main folder, like this: wp-content/themes/my-child-theme/woocommerce/

Make sure you keep the same file names!

Important
While the templates provided with this plugin will be kept up to date with any future changes to WooCommerce, please bear in mind that, if you create your own custom Genesis Connect for WooCommerce templates, it is your responsibility to enure that any code you add to your custom templates is compatible with WooCommerce.

The plugin’s templates provide a great starting point for your own customizations and can be found in the plugin’s templates folder.

I want to use WooCommerce’s breadcrumbs, not Genesis breadcrumbs

There’s no need! Genesis Connect for WooCommerce modifies the default Genesis breadcrumbs to give the same crumb structure as WooCommerce’s built-in breadcrumbs. The modified Genesis breadcrumbs will reflect all your existing Genesis breadcrumb customizations too.

What if I want the main Shop page to be the site’s front page?

Go to the Dashboard > Settings > Reading page select A Static Page and select “Shop” as the front page.
It is recommended to turn off Genesis breadcrumbs for the Home page in Dashboard > Genesis > Theme Settings > Breadcrumb options.

Does it work with Genesis Simple Sidebars?

Yes.

How does the plugin handle WooCommerce’s CSS?

Genesis Connect for WooCommerce does not modify WooCommerce’s way of working with CSS. By default, WooCommerce provides its own woocommerce.css file containing basic styles for the shop pages which is located here: wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/assets/css/woocommerce.css.

To use this stylesheet, check the “Enable WooCommerce CSS styles” checkbox in the WooCommerce Settings page > General tab. Alternatively, you can add this code to your child theme’s functions.php file: define( 'WOOCOMMERCE_USE_CSS', true );

Note that this code takes precedence over the checkbox in the WooCommerce Settings page > General tab; in other words, when you use this code, the checkbox is ignored.

If you decide to use the WooCommerce CSS and wish to customize its styles, do not edit the woocommerce.css file. Instead, make a copy of this file, rename it style.css and place it in your child theme’s woocommerce folder, and make all your edits in this file. This ensures that you do not lose your CSS customizations when WooCommerce is updated.

Alternatively, you can add your WooCommerce styles to your child theme’s main style.css stylesheet. In this case, you should disable the WooCommerce built-in stylesheet: either uncheck the “Enable WooCommerce CSS styles” checkbox in the WooCommerce Settings page > General tab, or a better option, add this code to your child theme’s functions.php file: define( 'WOOCOMMERCE_USE_CSS', false );

If you are using a Genesis child theme specially designed for WooCommerce, refer to the theme’s documentation to find out if all of the above has been been taken care of for you already.

Where is the plugin’s settings page?

There isn’t one! This plugin does not need one as all of its work is behind the scenes, integrating the display of WooCommerce within Genesis themes.

Changelog

1.1.2

Declared compatibility with High Performance Order Storage.

1.1.1

Removed use of wp_make_content_images_responsive featured product widget images; srcset is applied via wp_calculate_image_srcset in wp_get_attachment_image used by genesis_get_image.

1.1.0

Added php codesniffer via composer package for WordPress code standards.
Fixed spacing and syntax issues for WordPress code standards.
Renamed Gencwooc_Featured_Products file to adhere to WordPress code standards.

1.0

Released 7 August 2018.
Add WooCommerce version check support.
Reinstate Genesis Featured Products widget. (Enable with add_theme_support( 'gencwooc-featured-products-widget' );.)
Prevent ‘ID was called incorrectly’ error if Genesis Featured Products widget is in use.
Remove product Microdata to prevent conflict with JSON-LD from WooCommerce 3.
Prevent deprecation notice if Genesis Simple Sidebars is in use.
The Genesis Featured Products widget now hides products with a price or sale price of ‘0’ if ‘hide free products’ is ticked.
Prevent blank pages if WooCommerce Shop page is not set. (Thanks, Tim Jensen!)
Prevent fatal error on WooCommerce pages if non-Genesis theme or mobile plugin such as WPtouch is active.
Add support for Genesis Scripts to products. (Thanks, Graham Washbrook!)
The shop page now uses the default site layout if “Default Layout set in Theme Settings” is selected.
Show a notice instead of dying if WooCommerce is not active.
Show a notice instead of failing silently if a Genesis child theme is not active.
Use the default template for product oembeds.
Show the Genesis archive headline and intro text on product taxonomy archives if set. Fall back to the archive name and description.
Allow network activation on WordPress multisite networks.

0.9.10

Update theme templates for WooCommerce 3.3.
Add Featured Products Widget.

0.9.9

Released 12 January 2017
Adds the Genesis Connect Addons tab to the WooCommerce settings page.
Adds an option to control the products to show per page on the Shop page template (can be overriden by theme).
Removes the add_theme_support( ‘genesis-connect-woocommerce’ ); requirement.
Update activation check function to only verify that Genesis is active.

0.9.8

Released 9 July 2014
Updates genesiswooc_content_product() to reflect WooCommerce 2.1+ templates and correct handling of WooCommerce page title filter function.

0.9.7

Released 22 December 2013
Removed link from Shop breadcrumb when viewing Shop page.

0.9.6

Released 18 December 2013
Fixed bug re missing argument in the_title filter (in template-loader.php). Props Gary Jones.

0.9.5

Released 14 March 2013
add_theme_support( ‘woocommerce’ ) added to ensure compatibility with WooCommerce 2.0+.

0.9.4

Released 19 July 2012
Tweaked archive-product.php and taxonomy.php loop functions to provide compatibility with WooCommerce 1.6.0.

0.9.3

Released 14 May 2012
taxonomy.php and archive-product.php now use woocommerce_get_template_part() instead of gencwooc_get_template_part().
gencwooc_get_template_part() updated to reflect latest version of woocommerce_get_template_part(). Note: gencwooc_get_template_part() will be deprecated in a future version and is only retained for backwards compatibility.

0.9.2

Released 15 March 2012
single-product.php – Single product title template file now hooked in as per WooCommerce 1.5.2.

0.9.1

Released 6 March 2012
Fixes call to undefined function error in sp-plugins-integration/genesis-simple-sidebars.php.

0.9.0

Initial Release.