Shopify ($SHOP) had their Shopify Unite event today to address their latest product updates, and there were several of note.
The new docs are extremely thorough so I'd recommend clicking through - here's a link to their docs.
Shopify Themes and CLI improvements
- It had been a while since the CLI and theme ecosystem had seen an update, so this one was well overdue. A few things to note regarding themes:
- They're going to be allowing theme submissions again starting July 15th.
- They've made updates to Theme architecture under the name 2.0. With Online 2.0, there are some pretty cool features:
- Sections on every page
- dynamic sources
- app blocks
- CLI updates are pretty extensive as well - there's finally git integration and provides the ability to create a private app and publish themes from the command line.
- Shopify has also equipped devs with a new starter theme for migration - Dawn. I haven't dug into it yet but I'm assuming it's an updated and more opinionated version of Slate/Themekit.
Notable to APIs
- Shopify announced that they've been in the process of overhauling their APIs
- One of the bigger updates is the availability of Metafields within the Storefront API.
APP updates
- One of the more exciting announcements during Shopify Unite was their adjustment to revenue share (or commission) with their app store developers. Now, developers can earn up to $1m each year commission free. And after that initial $1m in rev, Shopify takes 20%. A great incentive to indie developers to build on their platform!
- Updates to Checkout API and Subscriptions were noted during the presentation. For checkouts, soon you will be able to:
- Add new UI to checkout, such as custom content, messages or interactive elements
- Capture additional information from the buyer in checkout
- Validate information input by buyers
- Create custom discounts
Hydrogen
Tobi teased a new metaframework Shopify is working on specifically for storefronts. It's built on top of React and from the looks of things will provide a quick out of the box framework specifically for building storefronts. They way they framed it during the presentation was (paraphrasing here) - traditional server side sites tend to slow down, static sites are quick but are difficult to truly be "dynamic" enough to handle updates in data. It sounds like this framework will aim to bridge that gap - utilizing their own cloud provider Oxygen.
Some really exciting updates they've shared today, can't wait to start poking around at it.