Welcome to the inaugural edition of Developer Digest!
This is your handy guide to everything developer-related on the Shopify platform. Each month, we’ll get you up to speed on new API betas, major deprecations, developer products, events, best practices, and more. By providing you with the ins and outs of the platform, we hope to equip you with all the tools necessary to succeed as a Shopify Developer.
Let’s get started.
Grow your business with the Shopify Partner Program
Whether you offer web design and development services or want to build apps for the Shopify App Store, the Shopify Partner Program will set you up for success. Join for free and access revenue share opportunities, developer preview environments, and educational resources.
Sign upApp Bridge
We’ve launched a new way for apps and channels to be embedded directly into the Shopify Admin, including Shopify mobile and POS. This new library is called Shopify App Bridge. This consolidated tooling brings together the functionality previously provided by the Embedded App SDK and the POS SDK, and makes building and testing embedded apps easier. It does this through:
- Modern development workflows (npm, TypeScript support, and more)
- Support for Redux DevTools
- More and better error reporting
- Strict versioning using semver
This update will be rolled out to all current consumers of the EASDK this month, and since it’s backwards-compatible, no new work is needed to get it set up. It’ll also be available as open source on GitHub in early 2019.
Embedded apps that use App Bridge will also be able to use a new navigation menu builder, available as an app extension in the dashboard.
These improvements will help cut down your development time and ensure your app navigation is consistent across platforms—desktop, mobile, and Shopify POS.
Learn more about using App Bridge.
Multi-currency API
Selling in multi-currency on Shopify Payments is set to release in early December, allowing customers to check out in their local currency.
When this feature launches, it will automatically detect a customer’s country, and offer prices in that customer’s local currency; an experience that will carry on through checkout. This pricing will automatically adjust based on foreign-exchange rates and display buyer-friendly prices with simple rounding rules. This update will support nine key currencies at launch.
If you have an app that surfaces any monetary values to your users or their customers (for example, you create invoices that show the cost of an order), you'll want to update your app to use the new multi-currency APIs to support merchants with multi-currency workflows. Learn more about the multi-currency API changes that can impact the merchant and customer experience your app offers.
Product Cost API open beta
Shopify is making it possible to capture the cost of a product. With Product Cost, all inventory items have a new cost attribute. This new attribute is expected to deliver entirely new value to merchants through features such as smarter insights and analytics, inventory planning, marketing recommendations, and campaign performance analysis—but we need your help!
We are requesting that apps begin passing product cost to Shopify. Merchants will have the product cost data to take full advantage of the new value propositions listed above.
Storefront API updates
Over the last few months, we’ve been hard at work improving the Storefront API to enable you to build custom storefronts on Shopify’s platform. All changes are available in the Storefront API, and we are continuously updating the JS Buy SDK and Mobile Buy SDKs to accommodate them.
A few new features to look forward to:
- Configurable Options, which now include the ability to read product and customer tags
- Discounts Applications exposed in the checkout and order types
- Support for Android App Links
For a list of all changes, improvements, and deprecations please visit our latest update post.
Update your technical contacts
As Shopify evolves the platform, we do everything that we can to ensure that we cause as little disruption as possible for our partners. However, as we release new features, it is inevitable that we make changes that impact app developers. To effectively communicate these changes, we require that you provide us with your up-to-date developer contact information. We've recently added emergency technical support to every partner account and highly suggest you fill it out as soon as possible.
Learn more about getting technical updates.
Guidelines on Polaris usage
We’ve witnessed amazing applications from our UI kit since the inception of Polaris. With a growing community of developers, however, there are few legal responsibilities we want to make clear.
Although we give the right to use Polaris to develop and distribute applications that integrate or inter-operate with Shopify, external, stand-alone applications that do not embed directly inside Shopify must not be identical and must be dissimilar and visually distinct from Shopify products and services. This means that your external, stand-alone applications cannot look the same as the merchant admin, partner dashboard, or other first-party Shopify-made apps.
Embedded apps are allowed to be visually similar (but not identical) to Shopify products and services. Basically, no one can use Polaris to mislead consumers as to Shopify's sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of them or their app.
For more information on our license agreement, restrictions, and liabilities with Polaris open source, visit our legal page.
You might also like: What’s New at Shopify: Oct. 12, 2018.
The more you know 💫
As a quickly growing company, we realize the importance of keeping you informed on all the changes within the Shopify platform. With more transparency and access to resources, we hope to simplify your journey as a developer. Better resources for you means a better roadmap to success—and really, that’s what it’s all about.
What did you think of our inaugural Developer Digest? Give us your feedback and thoughts in the comments below.
