It has been a little over a month and a half since the last release Block Visibility Pro. Since that time, development has primarily focused on improving the current eCommerce integrations, both for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads. We have also added a brand new Metadata control, some very handy copy/import functionality for visibility settings, and new reduced pricing for the Freelance and Agency licenses of the Pro add-on!

Let’s dive in…

eCommerce Enhancements

Time-Based Rules

Both the WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads controls have been available in Block Visibility Pro since its release. Both provide visibility conditions for displaying blocks based on shopping cart contents and customer history. WooCommerce also includes a few product-based rules. Here’s a breakdown of the available rules before version 1.2.0.

While this is a lot of different visibility conditions, one major area of customer history was missing. Time!

As a store owner, there are many scenarios where you might want to display specific content to customers based on when they placed an order. Or perhaps when they last purchased a specific product. Here are a couple of examples:

• Display an incentive to all customers that have not purchased anything from your store in the last year. Perhaps pair this with an email campaign that draws them back to your website.
• Display welcome or support messaging to customers that have purchased a product in the last 10 days.
• Create upsell messaging for customers that purchased a specific product, or product from a specific category, in the last two months.

The options are endless, and this type of dynamic content can enhance customer relationships with your brand and drive additional revenue. Therefore with version 1.2.0, we are pleased to introduce 6 new time-based rules for both integrations.

These new time-based rules can be combined with other rules and even other visibility controls like Date & Time, to create extremely dynamic content.

Variable Pricing

Block Visibility Pro also now supports variable pricing for both WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads. Variable prices for any variable product will now display in the product rule selectors. This is extremely useful when you want to display blocks based on which product variation a customer has in their cart or purchased previously.

Below is an example from this very website that uses Easy Digital Downloads. Block Visibility Pro has variable pricing for the Person, Freelance, and Agency license options.

Metadata Control

Version 1.2.0 also includes the new Metadata control. It has been one of the most common feature requests in the last few months. This control allows you to conditionally display blocks based on post metadata and user metadata. Metadata is often referred to as “Custom Fields” in WordPress, particularly post metadata. Below is an example of how the control can be configured within the plugin.

If you are a current Block Visibility user, you might be wondering how this differs from the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) control that was originally included in version 1.8.0 of the core plugin. While there are millions of websites using ACF, there are many more that use standard custom fields or other metadata management plugins like Meta Box.

The Metadata control is simple yet very powerful. Unlike the ACF control that only evaluates fields created with ACF, the Metadata control lets you build rules based on any metadata key. Future releases may include deeper integrations for Meta Box and similar third-party plugins, but the Metadata control is a good starting point.

Copy & Import

Next up is a “quality of life” enhancement. When you have many blocks with active visibility settings, especially when you need to apply similar settings to multiple blocks, the lack of a “copy and paste” feature becomes painfully and frustratingly evident. We are pleased to announce that in version 1.2.0, each block now contains a “Copy” and “Import” buttons in the Control Set Toolbar.

Simply click the “Copy” button, and the currently configured visibility settings will be copied to your clipboard. Under the hood, your clipboard now contains the complete blockvisibility attribute for that block.

Next, select the “Import” button on the block where you would like to apply the copied settings. A modal will appear, allowing you to paste. There you can review and/or modify the settings as needed. Finally, click “Import” and voila!

While this functionality is a step forward, the next major release will also include visibility “Presets”. Presets are essentially a group of visibility controls that can be applied directly to a block. If a preset is modified, any block currently using that preset will also have its visibility modified. Presets have been a very common feature request, so stay tuned… 😉

New Pricing

Last but not least, the price for the Block Visibility Pro add-on has been reduced at the Freelance and Agency levels by over 30%. Personal licenses also now include an additional site activation.

We want the Pro features in as many hands as possible, especially those that are building websites for others. Full Site Editing is on the horizon, and we are excited about what the future holds for WordPress. Once everything in WordPress is a “block”, the applications for Block Visibility are truly endless!

If you are evaluating Pro for yourself or a client, and you would like a test copy to confirm that the plugin meets your needs, simply send us a message. And let us know if there is a feature you would like to see added to the plugin. Future development is currently being driven primarily by customer feedback and requests!

Other Enhancements

As with any new release, version 1.2.0 included a number of minor bug fixes and optimizations. Of note, the rule and rule set functionality that is now used in many visibility controls was overhauled. This will allow for more flexibility and new features in the future. For a complete list of all the enhancements, check out the Changelog.

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Well, that’s a wrap. Thank you for your interest in Block Visibility Pro. If you haven’t already, give the core Block Visibility plugin a try. It’s free!

Until next time…