Notice something different? Meet the new Solidus brand!

Use Cases

Use cases

Product

Developers

Resources

Big player with big needs? See what Solidus can do for you.

Enterprise

Solutions

The foundation to stand up. The flexibility to stand out.

Features

Don’t reinvent the wheel—use our built-in integrations.

Integrations

Pricing plans designed to accommodate your growth.

Pricing

Documentation

Policies

Insights and announcements from the Solidus team.

Blog

Need a bit of help? Engage our trusted partners!

Partners

Join us if you want to chat—we're a friendly bunch!

Community

Solidus is looking for a Developer Relations Engineer!

### About the project

Solidus is the free, open-source platform for eCommerce trailblazers. Built on Ruby on Rails, Solidus is designed to
be incredibly flexible: you start from a strong foundation, but you have the freedom to customize every single aspect
of your store. Today, Solidus is used in production by a multitude of popular stores such as Maisonette, MeUndies,
On and Ace & Tate, just to name a few.

We want to produce amazing content for developers using Solidus. Our documentation will define the best practices to
build reliable custom eCommerce websites using Ruby and Rails.

### About the role

We are looking for a Developer Relations Engineer for Solidus. You would work along the Core Team and the rest of the
Solidus community to maintain and evolve the platform over the years.

#### What you will be doing:

- Scoping and building samples, docs, and developer content with minimal guidance.
- Producing code and documentation that is accessibly written for a well-defined audience.
- Providing support to community members in the platform's Slack channel, on StackOverflow and in GitHub Discussions.
- Contributing with ideas and thoughts to shape the future of the platform.
- Improving developer experience including writing web-based tools to make developers' jobs easier.

#### Requirements and nice-to-haves

You may be the right person if you have the following:

- Experience in developer relations, or other customer-facing roles.
- Experience participating in online and offline developer communities and ecosystems (e.g., open-source platforms, blogs, YouTube video series,
  tech conferences, hackathons, meet ups, technical teaching, and training).
- Experience developing platforms, SDKs, or developer tools.
- Experience with Ruby and Rails, to make small contributions to the platform and embed ecosystem's best practices within developers content.
- Excellent oral and written English and strong communication skills.
- Ability to interact effectively with both business and engineering.

Furthermore, you are most likely the right person if you also have some or all of the following:

- Track record of open-source contributions and community involvement a plus.
- Experience maintaining and evolving large documentation projects over long periods of time.
- Experience in the eCommerce domain.

#### Timezone and location

This is a fully asynchronous position open to candidates from all over the globe.With that said, you will need to attend a few meetings every
now and then, so make sure you have at least a few hours of overlap with CET and ET.

### About the employer

Because Solidus is a community-sponsored project, you'll be paid by the community through [our Open Collective funds](https://opencollective.com/solidus),
which are collected and spent in complete transparency. You will report directly to the
[Solidus stakeholders](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md#stakeholders).

Note that this is a contractor position with no further benefits. You will be expected to manage your time, submit invoices and pay your own taxes.

#### Hiring process

These are the hiring process' steps:

1. Fill [this form](https://solidusio.typeform.com/to/GfMoUbiK) with your information.
2. You'll get in touch with one member of the Stakeholders Group for scheduling an informal video meeting. We'll be discussing your
   past experiences and why you fit the role.
3. If we are a good match, you'll be invited to another video meeting with a representative of the Stakeholders Group for the final decision.

We are looking forward to knowing you!

Solidus is looking for a Developer Relations Engineer!

Solidus is hiring a Dev Rel Engineer

- [3.0.0 on GitHub](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/releases/tag/v3.0.0)
- [3.0.0 on RubyGems](https://rubygems.org/gems/solidus/versions/3.0.0)

We've just released Solidus `v3.0.0`!

One of the primary goals that drives the development of Solidus is allowing easy upgrades.

Easy upgrades allow teams that use Solidus to take advantage of the latest platform improvements, but it's equally crucial
for faciliating community contribution: using a recent version of Solidus lets teams easily contribute to the platform.
Due to this exchange, Solidus mirrors what's really needed by its users as closely as possible and the whole
community benefits from new features and fixes.

Solidus `v3.0` is a release that respects this mindset. In fact, Solidus `v3.0` is nearly identical to the last `v2.11.x` version,
with the only difference that the new one doesn't have the code that we deprecated during the `v2.x` lifecycle: if
you don't see deprecation messages in your application logs, you should be good to upgrade your store with minimal effort.

Despite the easy upgrade path, there are some relevant things to consider when upgrading:

### We do not require all of Rails by default anymore

By requiring `rails/all`, Solidus was loading a bunch of unnecessary code that was probably consuming more memory than necessary.
This change only loads what's strictly needed and allows stores that want to cherry-pick certain parts of Rails to benefit from the more
attentive choice.

### Active Storage by Default

Both Solidus `v2.11` and Solidus `v3.0` come with full support for Rails `6.1`, `6.0` and `5.2`. With Solidus `v3.0` as default on new stores,
we ship fully working `Active Storage` support. In future versions, we will remove the `Paperclip` dependency because `Active Storage` is
becoming the new standard for Rails developers.

This change won't impact your existing store as long as you keep using `Paperclip` as the attachment module with:

```ruby
Spree::Config.image_attachment_module = 'Spree::Image::PaperclipAttachment'
Spree::Config.taxon_attachment_module = 'Spree::Taxon::PaperclipAttachment'
```

### Discarded Paranoia

We finally completed the heroic work started by [John Hawthorn](https://github.com/jhawthorn) to remove `paranoia` and introduce a new gem for
soft-deleting records. This gem is called [discard](https://github.com/jhawthorn/discard) and provides a more explicit interface when dealing
with record deletion. After a deprecation cycle, this is now the only supported way to soft-delete records in the codebase. No more surprises when deleting or destroying records!

### Unified Name in Address

We removed all usage of split `firstname` and `lastname` for addresses since
[this concept is not valid in all cultures around the world](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/).
Now we have a single field in the system called `name`.

In the last version of Solidus in the `v2.x` series, we added the `name` attribute to the database and started to populate it with the
combination of `firstname` and `lastname`. We also provided a rake task to populate the `name` field for existing records, in order to
make the database consistent, and ready to switch `Spree::Config.use_combined_first_and_last_name_in_address` to `true`, which will be
the only supported value in Solidus `v3.0`.

We suggest migrating to this new schema before the upgrade to `v3.0`. You can follow this approach:

1. Upgrade to the latest `v2.11.x` version
2. Run  `bin/rails railties:install:migrations` and `bin/rails db:migrate`
3. Run the dedicated rake task [`bin/rails solidus:upgrade:two_point_eleven`](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/blob/09c53ee00ee25450e76b474d713934b087af2bed/core/lib/tasks/upgrade.rake) that will migrate the address fields
4. Switch the `Spree::Config.use_combined_first_and_last_name_in_address` preference to `true`

This process will make your application behave exactly as it will with `v3.0`, which only removes the support for that preference being `false`.

### Removed preferences

We removed some preferences that were controlling deprecated behaviors. You probably already changed their value to remove the deprecations from your logs but when upgrading, be sure they are not used in your codebase since they do not exist anymore. They are:

- `Spree::Config.raise_with_invalid_currency`
- `Spree::Config.redirect_back_on_unauthorized`
- `Spree::Config.run_order_validations_on_order_updater`
- `Spree::Config.use_legacy_order_state_machine`
- `Spree::Config.use_legacy_store_credit_reimbursement_category_name`
- `Spree::Config.consider_actionless_promotion_active`
- `Spree::Config.use_legacy_address_state_validator`
- `Spree::Config.use_combined_first_and_last_name_in_address`

Please take a look at the [CHANGELOG](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md) for a detailed list of changes.

## Troubles upgrading?

If you have any issue when upgrading, you can find support on
[this thread on GitHub Discussion](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/discussions/4030) or in the `#support` channel of our
[Slack Workspace](https://slack.solidus.io/).

## Thanks!

Thanks to all code contributors that made Pull Requests during the 2.x lifecycle, especially to [John Hawthorn](https://github.com/jhawthorn)
and the rest of what was the Stembolt team.

Thanks to all financial contributors that help the ecosystem supporting the development of Solidus and its community via our [Open Collective page](https://opencollective.com/solidus).

This release couldn't be possible without you all!

We've just released Solidus v3.0.0! One of the primary goals that drives the development of Solidus is allowing easy upgrades.

Solidus v3.0

Hey there, and welcome to your usual This Month in Solidus! Let's dive in and see everything that
happened in the Solidus world this March.

### (Yet Another) Full-Time Maintainer 👷‍♂️

Last month, we announced that Marc Busqué had joined the Nebulab team as a full-time Solidus
maintainer. We were pretty excited about the experience Marc brought to the table, being a
contributor to the popular [dry-rb](https://dry-rb.org) framework and maintaining OSS projects
of his own. In fact, Marc has already started tackling some pretty huge architectural challenges,
with the goal of making Solidus easier to extend, customize and maintain.

This month, we're doubling the excitement, because [Connor Ferguson](https://github.com/cpfergus1)
just joined Marc as our second full-time Solidus maintainer. Connor will help Marc with day-to-day
maintenance tasks as well as more future-looking initiatives, and he has already started
contributing  to finalizing the Solidus 3.0 release.

Which brings us to the next point...

### Solidus 3.0.0.rc2 Is Ready for Testing! 🛠

We released Solidus 3.0.0.rc2 on March 10. This is a release candidate, meaning that it's stable
and extremely close to what the final release will look like.

We need feedback from the entire community on the upgrade path from 2.x to 3.x, so we encourage you
to try the upgrade on your  stores and leave any feedback in [Slack](http://slack.solidus.io) or on
[GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/discussions).

Just a little reminder: Solidus 3.0 does NOT include any new functionality, but rather it removes
all of the deprecations that were introduced during the 2.x releases, so that we can clean up the
codebase and start form a clean slate.

With that said, our goal is to build an ever more stable and extensible Solidus, and we do have tons
of stuff on the roadmap for the 3.x series. We can't wait to share it with you!

### Subscriptions 1.0.0.rc1 ♻️

We do like our release candidates, so much so that we also released
[solidus_subscriptions](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_subscriptions) 1.0.0.rc1 this
month. It would be hard to overstate how much work went into this particular release: our goal was
to build *the* ultimate solution for managing a subscriptions-based eCommerce business, and we feel
like this release candidate is a giant leap in that direction.

The extension as a whole is now more powerful, more flexible, more performant and easier to
understand at the same time. Here's a non-comprehensive list of features and improvements:

- We've added built-in support for the most common subscription use cases and scenarios, such as the 
  ability to cancel failed installments when a new one is generated.
- We've implemented a brand new admin UI that allows you to manage all aspects of a subscription.
- We've added support for subscription events, to make it easy to run analytics and provide customer
  support. These also integrate with the Solidus event bus natively.
- We have parallelized subscription processing, which is now more resilient and allows you to take
  full advantage of your background processing library of choice!
- We have rewritten pretty much the entire codebase from scratch, to focus on simplicity and 
  linearity. We want the codebase to be easy for everyone to understand and extend.

And there's much, much more to it! Just take a look at the [closed PRs](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_subscriptions/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed)
and you'll get a sense of the amount of improvements in this release candidate. If you're already
using solidus_subscriptions, now is the time to consider upgrading to benefit from all the goodies!

With that said, there's much more that we want to do, so make sure you don't miss any of our
updates, and join [Slack](https://slack.solidus.io) and [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/discussions)
to become a part of the conversation.

_Once more, that's it. See you around! 👋️_

Dive in and see everything that happened in the Solidus world in March 2021!

This Month in Solidus: March 2021

Hey there, and welcome to your usual This Month in Solidus! Let's dive in and see everything that
happened in the Solidus world this February.

### New Full-Time Maintainer 👷‍♂️

Yes, you read that right! So far, Solidus has progressed thanks to the generous contributions of its
community, but we felt it was time we gave it a proper full-time maintainer, and
[Nebulab](https://nebulab.it) stepped in to fill the gap.

[Marc Busqué](https://github.com/waiting-for-dev) is a senior Ruby developer based in beautiful
[Cambrils, Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrils). He has an impressive track record of
contributing to OSS, having worked on the renowned [dry-rb](https://github.com/dry-rb) ecosystem.

Marc recently joined the Nebulab team, where he will work with the Core Team on the maintenance and
evolution  of Solidus, splitting his time between keeping the platform in good shape and pushing it
forward with his technical expertise.

Welcome aboard Marc, and best of luck!

P.S. Pretty soon, Marc should be in good company... Stay tuned!

### Solidus 3 is getting closer 🚀

We are working hard to cross the ts and dot the is for the release of Solidus 3.0.

Last month, we organized a Hackathon to get the extensions ready for the next major bump, and
the results were amazing: we got 23 extensions ready _in a single day._ Thanks to everyone who
participated: your dedication to the project is truly inspiring!

With that said, there are still some extensions that could use some love! If you want to help,
just follow the instructions in [this GitHub Discussion](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/discussions/3911),
and ping us on Slack if you have any questions!

### Backend UX Audit 🎨

Last Thursday, the stakeholders have approved a vote to engage [Baymard](https://baymard.com/) for
a UX audit of the Solidus backend.

We are _extremely_ excited about this: Baymard is a world-class UX institute that has worked with
some of the best players in the industry, and we're looking forward to using their expertise to
improve the Solidus backend experience.

Furthermore, this is a major initiative that is being entirely financed by our
[Open Collective funds](https://opencollective.com/solidus) — we couldn't be more grateful to our
contributors for their generosity. If you're a brand or an agency benefiting from Solidus and want
to show your appreciation, joining Open Collective ie an amazing way to do it! 

Baymard can use all the help they can get, so if you have any feedback to share about the Solidus
backend that you think would be beneficial for this audit, don't be shy about stepping forward! You
can reach out to any Core Team member on Slack, who will direct you to the proper channels.

### ShipStation API Integration 📦

[`solidus_shipstation`](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_shipstation) was recently
overhauled to allow users to benefit from the new [ShipStation API](https://www.shipstation.com/docs/api/),
which will eventually supersede the legacy [XML integration](https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025856192-Custom-Store-Development-Guide).

The new API integration provides several advantages over the previous one: it is much more flexible,
providing you with greater granularity of how you import and handle your orders in ShipStation, and
much more performant, allowing you to sync up to 4000 orders/minute from your Solidus store.

Most importantly, we built the new integration so that switching from the legacy XML format is
completely painless, so go ahead and check it out right now!

### In The Works: Certified TaxJar Integration 💸

[SuperGood's TaxJar integration](https://github.com/SuperGoodSoft/solidus_taxjar) has always been
amazing, but it's about to get _so much better!_

The SuperGood team is working towards getting the extension [fully certified](https://developers.taxjar.com/integrations/certification-guidelines/),
which means they will add a ton of new features in the process.

They could definitely use some help, so if you have worked with TaxJar in the past and want to
contribute, hop on GitHub!

_Aaaand that's it for now. See you next month! ❤️_

Dive in and see everything that happened in the Solidus world in February 2021!


This Month in Solidus: February 2021

Hey there, and welcome to This Month in Solidus: 2020 EOY Edition! This update covers everything
that happened in the Solidus world in December 2020 and January 2021.

### Solidus 2.11.4 Is Out, with Rails 6.1 Support

Solidus 2.11.4 was released on January 19, and includes full support for Rails 6.1 as well as a few
other minor improvements and bugfixes.

If you are were planning to upgrade to Rails 6.1, now is a good time to do it!

Thanks to Filippo Liverani from Nebulab for [taking the lead](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3862)
on this!

### Solidus 3.0: A Clean Start, Coming Soon!

In the past few months, most of the work has gone towards [removing all the code that was deprecated
in Solidus 2.x](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3818), in preparation for Solidus 3.

This was a *huge* lift that required the effort of many contributors across several months, and the
end result is pretty amazing: we have removed almost _6,000_ lines of legacy code, which included
deprecated classes, methods, preferences and supporting utilities.

Solidus 3 represents a clean start for the framework and allows us to continue iterating and stay on
top of industry trends, while also providing the same stability and the same guarantees as its
predecessors.

A huge thanks to everyone that was involved in this, and especially to Filippo Liverani, Dumitru
Ceban, Daniele Palombo and Alberto Vena from Nebulab!

### Extensions Updates: solidus_feeds and solidus_subscriptions

In the extensions ecosystem, most of the effort has went into two major initiatives that should make
it even easier to jumpstart a modern Solidus store.

[solidus_feeds](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_feeds) was just released, with built-in
support for the Google Merchant XML format and full decoupling of feed generation and publishing. In
other words, you can easily implement your custom feed formats and take advantage of one of the
existing publishers, or publish one of the existing feed formats to some custom location, all
through a fully configurable API. Thanks to Elia Schito, Nicolò Rebughini and Flavio Auciello from
Nebulab for their hard work on this.

[solidus_subscriptions](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_subscriptions), an old and
beloved extension, has also seen a lot of improvements recently. Most of the work has gone towards
improving the admin UI around subscriptions and streamlining the processing logic to make it more
flexible and resilient than ever. Some goodies were also thrown in for good measure, such as
built-in [ChurnBuster](https://churnbuster.com) support and more choices around failed payment
processing. Thanks to Igor Barbosa, Nicolò Rebughini and Alessandro Desantis from Nebulab!

### GitHub Discussions Is the Place to Be

Up until now, all of the community interactions have happened mostly in our [Slack workspace](https://slack.solidus.io)
(which, by the way, is still worth joining if you're not there yet!). While Slack is great for quick
chit-chat and casual interactions, it's less than ideal for support requests: it's not indexed and
hard to search. As a result, great answers were getting lost, and great questions were being asked
over and over again.

When [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/discussions) became available, it
just felt like the perfect solution to our problems, and we decided to give it a try. You can access
our discussions board by clicking the "Discussions" tab in the main Solidus repository. Some quality
conversation is already happening there, so make sure to swing by and say hello!

### New Roadmap in The Works

With the new year, we immediately started to work on a new **roadmap** for
Solidus! The new roadmap will include a mix of initiatives that we still believe in and didn't get to just yet, and new projects that we believe will set Solidus on the path for success.

If you have any feedback for us, don't be a stranger to jump on [Slack](https://slack.solidus.io) or
[GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/discussions)!

_Until next time! 👋_

Dive in and see everything that happened in the Solidus world in December 2020 and January 2021!


This Month in Solidus: Holidays 2020 Edition

Hey there, and welcome to This Month in Solidus: November 2020! The year is (finally) coming to a close soon, and the time has come to look back at some of the updates we've made in the last month. Let's dive in.

### Extension updates for November

- [**Solidus Dev Support**](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus_dev_support) continues to see a number of improvements thanks to the effort of Elia Schito. Mostly, the changes revolve around setting sensible defaults for new applications - try it out the next time you need to create a Solidus extension!

- [**Solidus Shipstation**](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_shipstation) has seen a few small changes - most notably, there's now an option to export cancelled shipments to Shipstation, and a bug was fixed that was affecting tracking numbers on cartons.

- [**Solidus Tracking**](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_tracking) saw an update that allows you to selectively disable automatic tracking of certain events.

- [**Solidus Importer**](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_importer) now has some QOL improvements that prevent duplicate records or failing commands in certain situations.

- [**Solidus Subscriptions**](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_subscriptions) had a number of updates. A bug on admin form submission was fixed, a config option was provided to allow you to specify whether you want to retry failed payments on the next billing cycle, and a handful of smaller bug fixes were bundled in as well.

### Core updates this November

This month, you might have noticed that not much in the way of new features was added to Solidus. That's intended! We're preparing for the release of Solidus 3.0, and most of the work involves removing deprecated code and small bugfixes. Here are some of the more tangible changes that happened in November:

- [Solidus now requires only the modules it specifically needs from Rails.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3478) Previously, Solidus required `rails/all`, but didn't _use_ all of what it required. This updates that, and ensures that we're only requiring the necessary modules - which should be a boost to speed and memory usage! Thanks to Elia Schito for this update.

- [Fixed variant-to-variant image assignment.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3810) This fixes a bug where a variants image could not be assigned to another variant. Thanks, Felix Holmgren!

- [Fixed a payment refund bug.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3831) A bug was introduced previously where if a payment refund failed, any subsequent attempt to refund the payment would also fail. Alberto Vena introduced a fix with this PR. 

- [Fixed a permission set issue that allowed regular users to see tabs on admin.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3840) When choosing what tabs to display on admin, some tabs checked for `show` ability instead of `admin` - which allowed some tabs like "Zones" to display to anyone with the ability to see "Zones" - including regular users. This only affected tab visibility and not the admin pages themselves, but still - big thanks to Alberto Vena for pointing this out and providing a fix!

### Solidus Governance

With [This PR](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3836), Alberto Vena released the new version of the governance model (written by Alessandro Desantis). This document goes into detail about how Solidus is run - and what you can do to help the project, or even join the Stakeholders group. If you're interested in seeing the inner workings of a large, community-managed open source project, take a look!

### Solidus Meetups for 2020 conclude

We started this off as "Community Day" for Solidus - an hour-long event where we could get the community together, share our ideas, and hear about the cool stuff happening in the world of Solidus. We liked it so much, we decided to keep it going on a monthly basis! One of the greatest things about Solidus is the community that surrounds it, and it's been an awesome experience being able to see old friends, meet new faces, and hear from talented people at these events. I'm looking forward to putting more together for 2021 - stay tuned!

Be sure to check out our [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiFcxyt11T6QIIDPk2w0Jjw) for some our previous meetup and conference presentations. And make sure to subscribe if you want notifications on new videos!

### Solidus Roadmap Survey

Here's your last chance to help Solidus grow! We're working hard on next year's roadmap, and part of that process is the yearly [**Solidus Roadmap Survey**](https://forms.gle/hD1S1YM78JmfZXhe6). The survey is your chance to let us know what direction you want Solidus to go in. Please feel free to share it with your colleagues and clients so they can also chime in with their thoughts. More responses means a more robust roadmap, so we want to get as many responses as possible!

Dive in and see everything that happened in the Solidus world in November 2020


This Month in Solidus: November 2020

PayPal has been working with Solidus over the last year, and they've really contributed to the platform in a big way. Not only have they been the gold sponsor for our last two conferences, they have also helped us revitalize the Braintree extension, create the PayPal Commerce Platform extension, and more to come!

The new PayPal buttons - which we've updated the Braintree extension to use, and have created the PayPal Commerce Platform extension around - provide several exciting financing options to your consumers, in addition to the ability to pay with their credit card or with their PayPal balance.

Why are financing options important? Consumer financing solutions are increasingly popular as shoppers seek interest free solutions for their online purchases. In addition to higher conversion rates, PayPal has seen its merchants’ average order value (AOV) increase on average 25 percent when offering PayPal Credit, their 6 month interest free service. In October, PayPal introduced a second consumer financing solution, Pay in 4, which is an interest free service that offers a shorter payback period.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/7eea5ae55e319a99ae9d52085d24a9aa7b7bf681-1382x482.png?fit=clip&q=60)

Also included in both extensions is the ability to promote PayPal messaging to your consumers about financing options. This is important because statistically, stores that display financing options before checkout have higher conversion rates. The extension allows you to provide messaging on the product page, cart page and payment page, and makes it easy to add banner messaging for consumers to learn more for the home page.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/1fabd079203130ef39668c50fb5b0deed433c802-532x312.png?fit=clip&q=60)

Below, we'll cover how to get PayPal messaging up and running for both extensions.

### Solidus PayPal Braintree

The installation of this extension is pretty simple, and you can read the details in the [extension README](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus_paypal_braintree#installation). Once installed, you'll need to do a few things to get up and running.

On the `Braintree` tab on admin side, you'll find the overall setup for the extension. Here, you'll want to ensure that PayPal is enabled, and the `PayPal Button Messaging` option is set to `true`.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/368290bc51b78a6197252891e07693adc32d2ed5-700x1312.png?fit=clip&q=60)

Next, on the payment method index, you'll want to create a new payment and input all of the relevant information. You'll also need to set the PayPal checkout flow to `checkout` instead of `vault` - PayPal is not able to offer services like `pay in 4` if you're using the `vault` flow, so they do not support using the messaging component for that flow.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/45d999e96d553f28b6248cf78d1f1852a7e87362-726x164.png?fit=clip&q=60)

And with that, you're set up! You should see messaging on the checkout payment page, as well as the cart checkout component if you're using it.

### Solidus PayPal Commerce Platform

Good news for this extension - installation is simple, and PayPal messaging is enabled by default. From Solidus 2.11, you can install this extension during the initial Solidus installation. You can read more about the installation process on the [extension README](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_paypal_commerce_platform#installation).

Once installed, hooking your PayPal account to the store is simple. Go to the admin payment_method index, and you should now see a setup button for PayPal Commerce Platform.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/80c166b42fd9d56f9e3e04448eb6d6501dbaab53-2230x642.png?fit=clip)

Simply click the button, enter your login information, and confirm that you want to use your account to accept payments.

You're done! You'll see both PayPal buttons and messaging components on the product, cart, and payment page.

## Messaging Location

Just a quick note here - The location of the PayPal messaging component on both extensions is for demonstration purposes only - you should move it to a location that makes sense for your website! PayPal recommends keeping the messaging component near the product or order total where available.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/2b29707e7d0e6dd7aad5613e7b5801a1ec94a967-448x930.png?fit=clip&q=60)

## The Future

We're beginning the next phase of integration with PayPal products, and we think you'll be excited about what's coming next - so stay tuned, and keep building cool things!

Our new PayPal extension and updated Braintree extension have some new features. Find out how to enable pay-later messaging and increase your conversion rates.


Add Pay Later Messaging To Your Solidus App

We're excited to share some news with you. As you are probably aware, Solidus has been working with PayPal recently. They've been the gold sponsor for our last two conferences - and more recently, they've helped us revitalize Solidus PayPal Braintree and release the new Solidus PayPal Commerce Platform extension.

We're excited to announce that Solidus PayPal Commerce Platform has just released version 0.2.1, and that Solidus PayPal Braintree has just released version 1.0.0. Both of these extensions are ready to go, all _you_ need to do is find out which one is right for you.

### Two Extensions, Two Paths

Both extensions bring the easily recognized PayPal buttons into your store, but they operate in very different ways. Below is a quick breakdown of what to expect from each extension.

Before we begin though, it's important to note that both of these extensions use the updated PayPal SDK. This will allow your consumers to checkout using PayPal's new Buy Now, Pay Later options, as well as use any payment methods that might be local for them - for instance, your customers from Italy will be able to check out with MyBank, an Italian payment solution.

<img src="/blog/2020/11/24/using-paypal-with-solidus/de.png" />

Both extensions also include the ability to display consumer financing messages to your consumers, which increases conversion rates and average order value - but that'll be covered in another blog post! For now, let's focus on the differences between the two extensions.

## Solidus PayPal Braintree

If you've used PayPal with Solidus in the past, this is probably what you're familiar with. Over the last month, we've provided many useful updates to this extension, as well as update the PayPal SDK to work with the newer PayPal options.

If you're already on this extension, the most important changes are that the extension now works with Rails 6, and you can now pass placeholder text or styling instructions to the Braintree hosted fields, making designing around the credit card inputs a bit easier.

So why use this extension over Solidus PayPal Commerce Platform? Well first, it offers more options for your consumers. Through Braintree, you're able to accept credit cards with 3DSecure enabled, and Apple Pay as well. Through hosted fields, you're also given a bit more control over the checkout experience. 

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/5e03fc1355204f1626cd6668cd4574c0dd44620e-1378x532.png?fit=clip&q=60)

The downside of this extension is that it requires a lot more setup than Solidus PayPal Commerce Platform. The initial setup can take a while, and is geared more towards developers. If you want to use PayPal's consumer credit messaging, you'll have to change your settings around in a particular way to allow that. If you want to utilize the cart checkout, you'll need to add the cart checkout partial. In addition, fraud detection is your responsibility with Braintree - you'll need to be vigilant about response codes.

## Solidus PayPal Commerce Platform

While the Braintree extension offers a few more options, this extension is much more complete right out of the box. Installation is dead simple - in fact, with Solidus 2.11, you can choose to install this while you're installing Solidus. Even payment method creation is simplified - there's a new "setup" button on the admin payment method index that will walk you through setup - just log into your PayPal account, grant your server some permissions, and the payment_method is automatically created, with all the correct credentials already filled in. If you don't already have a PayPal account, the setup process will guide you through account creation.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/9ae09e23f016a1cad8dfb3ff9db6f261ae102db0-798x1028.png?fit=clip&q=60)

In addition to the easy onboarding process, this extension also offers instant checkout from the product page. Your customers will be able to go directly to the PayPal checkout from the product page, allowing for orders to be completed in no time at all. Cart checkout is also available out of the box.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9g5nd6b4/production/ba93d3c083981ea2016457e5231bf2581b417e55-604x672.png?fit=clip&q=60)

Credit card payments are also taken care of fully by PayPal - no need to worry about fraud going this route.

The downsides? This extension doesn't offer Apple Pay like the Braintree extension does - yet - and it doesn't utilize Braintree's hosted fields - meaning you'll have less control over the credit card field styling.

### The Bottom Line

On one hand, we've got a dead simple PayPal integration that has some really cool features and works out of the box, and on the other is a robust (but more complicated) extension that has stood the test of time, and brings Apple Pay into the fold. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide which extension is the right choice for your website - We're just excited to be able to bring these options to the table.

If you're interested in supporting the work we do at Solidus, [please consider making a donation on the OpenCollective](https://opencollective.com/solidus) - every little bit helps! And as a last note - sincere thanks to PayPal for making all of this possible.

PayPal has been working with Solidus in a big way over the last year, find out what's new in the world of payment gateways, and which one makes more sense for your store.


Using PayPal with Solidus

Hello everyone, and welcome to This Month in Solidus — October 2020! Let's dive in to what's new with the platform.

### Extension updates for October

- [**Solidus Dev Support**](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus_dev_support) has seen quite a few updates for this month - there's now a boilerplate for extension configuration files, we've added configuration for `github_changelog_generator` (ensuring consistent changelogs across extensions), and made a few more minor changes and bugfixes.

- [**Solidus Content**](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_content) now supports DatoCMS!

- [**Solidus Subscriptions**](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_subscriptions) now integrates with Churn Buster, event emissions and tracking has been improved, and a tab has been added to the admin user view that displays existing subscriptions for any given user. Handy!

- [**Solidus PayPal Commerce Platform**](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_paypal_commerce_platform) has had a few minor bugfixes, but more importantly you're now able to display PayPal's credit messaging to your users before checkout, which is shown to increase conversion rates and average order value. Version 0.2.1 is now live!

- [**Solidus PayPal Braintree**](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus_paypal_braintree) has also had PayPal's credit messaging added (when PayPal is being used and the checkout flow is set to `checkout`), in addition to a whole lot of minor improvements and an update to PayPal's new SDK (which allows the new PayPal credit options like Pay in 4 to be available). Version 1.0.0 is now live!

### Core updates this October

Here's what happened in October:

- [Updated permission set admin tab display.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3783) Previously, if a user had access to only a subset of the menu items under 'settings', it would prevent the 'settings' tab from showing up. This bugfix - by Elia Schito - fixes that issue!
- [Updated incorrect state generation for Italy.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3722) In any instance where a `Carmen::Subregion` existed for a country, we would use the subregion as the states for that country. However, in some instances, this is incorrect. In Italy's case, we need to be using the subregions subregions. There are more countries with this issue - but this PR provides the framework to fix those countries as they are identified. Sean Denny - that's me - is responsible for this fix!
- [Added a preference for phone number validation.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3685) Now you can indicate in your config preferences whether or not you'd like to validate phone number presence. This one was also mine!
- [Updates the install generator to correctly install extra extensions.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3777) There was an issue where, when you're installing extra extensions during Solidus installation (like [`solidus_auth_devise`](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus_auth_devise) or [`solidus_paypal_commerce_platform`](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_paypal_commerce_platform)), the installation would fail. This fixes that bug. Another one from me - last one, I swear!
- [Fixed promotions that had no actions being considered active.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3749) Calling `active?` on a promotion with no actions will now return `false`. Thanks to Daniele Palombo for this update!
- [Refactored address state validation.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3129) State validation can now be performed by Solidus, or by a user provided class. Also provides a method to switch back to using the old state validation, if needed. Thanks, Dumitru Ceban!
- [The `rates_for_items` method now respects validity period for tax rates.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3768) The `rates_for_items` method in TaxHelpers did not check if the rate was active before applying it, leading to some incorrect tax calculations in some cases. Thanks Simon Kiener for this great bugfix, and for your first PR on Solidus!
- [Products now have a `discontinue_on` field.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3793) In the same way that `available_on` controls when the product starts being active, the `discontinue_on` field will control when the product _stops_ being active. Thanks Thomas von Deyen for this great new feature!
- [Updates internal mapping for event subscriber registration.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3758) The old method of mapping event subscriber registrations could cause issues with Zeitwerk on Rails 6, this change ensures that we won't have that problem! Thanks, Andrea Longhi!
- [Fixed a bug where disabling track inventory would disable all of the variants inventory fields.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3704) If there are multiple variants for a product, and you disable "track inventory" for only one of the variants, all of the variatns inventory fields would be disabled. This fixes that issue! Thanks, Felix Holmgren!


### Solidus 2.11 IS OUT!

This was in our last update, but we felt we should stress again: Solidus 2.11 is now out and ready to be used! This update will be the last until Solidus 3.0. It's important to note that the only change we'll be making in 3.0 is to remove all deprecated functionality - so be on the lookout for deprecation warnings in this release, as you'll need to fix those before updating to 3.0!

Stay tuned for more information about Solidus 3.0 - we're excited to be approaching our next major version release!

### Solidus Roadmap Survey

We're working hard on next year's roadmap, and part of that process is the yearly [**Solidus Roadmap Survey**](https://forms.gle/hD1S1YM78JmfZXhe6). The survey is your chance to let us know what direction you want Solidus to go in. Please feel free to share it with your colleagues and clients so they can also chime in with their thoughts. More responses means a more robust roadmap, so we want to get as many responses as possible!

Dive in and see everything that happened in the Solidus world in October 2020


This Month in Solidus: October 2020

SolidusConf 2020 is over! Wow, what a conference! First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone who attended and supported the conference. It's so great to see the community come together, <s>even</s> especially in these hard times!

Each one of the talks was excellent, and I’m glad that we were able to hear from such talented people! Here’s a rundown of each of the talks and events that occurred during the conference:

## Day 1

### Peter Berkenbosch
##### Building Payment Provider Integrations

Peter Berkenbosch has been a long-time friend of the Solidus community, and someone who has worked very hard on the project, so I think it’s only fitting that we heard from him first!

In [his talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWznleqof8s&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=2&ab_channel=Solidus), Peter explains how to generate new extensions using `solidus_dev_support`, and from there, how to integrate Solidus with any payment provider you’d like. Peter does an excellent job going over some of the more surprising and useful defaults that Solidus provides. Big thanks to Peter for starting the conference off on a high note!

### Taylor Scott
##### The 5 W’s of Application Logging

Taylor Scott is a developer currently working at Sendoso. He’s been active in the Solidus community for years, so we were excited to have him speak at SolidusConf 2020.

[Taylor's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0XAmRxkr3w&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=1&pp=iAQB) went over a subject that I think is valuable to everyone - application logging. It sounds like a simple subject, but done poorly, it can lead to some very hard times. In his talk, Taylor takes us through some of the ways we can improve our application logging, so we always have a grasp on the who, what, when, where, and why of our application.

### Edwin Cruz
##### Marketplace on Solidus, Helping Local Businesses

Edwin Cruz is co-founders and CTO at MagmaLabs, a Mexico-based company that specializes in Ruby on Rails and Solidus. Edwin and MagmaLabs has been an integral part of the Solidus community, and it’s always a pleasure to hear from him!

[Edwin's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtZcxRQAskg&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=3&pp=iAQB) is an intriguing look into what it takes to get a marketplace running on Solidus. He goes over some of the ways that Solidus makes marketplaces easy, as well as some of the difficulties his team faced along the way.

### Sean Denny
##### Don’t Panic: The Solidus Guide to ReactJS

[This one is my talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHZLrhNAEo&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=4&pp=iAQB)! I’ve been working with the Solidus community for the last few years. I want to see Solidus thrive, and I think the best way to do that is to engage with the community as much as possible. I’ve organized the last 3 SolidusConfs, and more recently started putting together monthly meetups for the Solidus community.

My workshop is all about ReactJS and how to work with it in the context of Solidus. In the workshop, we rebuild the entire product show page from erb to ReactJS, and get an understanding of exactly what ReactJS is and how it works. The goal was to create a high-level introduction for working with ReactJS to build beautiful and fast frontends for Solidus, and I think it was a success!

### Rob Johnson
##### Solidus & Subscriptions: Adventures of a Publisher Trying to Disrupt Itself 

Rob Johnson is VP of Digital at Deseret Book and has been working with design, content and development teams since 2009. He was the MC for last years conference, and this year he took his turn on the stage.

[Rob's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1jnBbJgFGI&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=5&pp=iAQB) is an interesting dive into the world of subscription-based sales. How do you offer them? How do you _pay_ for them? Is the cannibalization of sales worth it? And how does a large, multi-million dollar business go about disrupting themselves? The talk was a welcome addition to a lineup that was - until that point - extremely technical, and provided some huge insights into the business behind what we do. I thought it was a fitting end for day 1 of the conference, and set up day 2 nicely.

## Day 2

### Richard Gilbert
##### E-Commerce & Consumer Financing Options

Day 2 started with a bang! We first heard from Richard Gilbert. Richard is head of integrations at PayPal, and has been working closely with Solidus in recent years. PayPal has been a gold sponsor for SolidusConf for the last 2 years, and has been an incredible ally for the platform.

In [his talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy4T4r0zK04&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=6&pp=iAQB), Richard spoke about the importance of offering consumer financing options. Obviously, PayPal has been on the forefront of providing payment options for consumers for quite some time, so it’s great to hear from them - not just about the services they offer (and a sneak peak into what they’ll be offering soon), but also about why consumer financing is important, and some of the best practices surrounding that. 

### Alberto Vena
##### The State of Solidus

Alberto Vena - founder of Nebulab - has a lot of passion for the world of open source. If you’ve been in the Solidus community for any length of time, then you probably already know Alberto well. He’s always ready to help on the `#support` channel, or on any Github issues or PRs, and we’re lucky to have him as part of this community - which is why we were excited to hear from him for the first time ever as a SolidusConf speaker.

Alberto went over the past, present and future of Solidus in [his talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZhF9srB2_0&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=7&pp=iAQB). When planning for the future, it’s important to know where you came from, and his talk did a great job in tying everything together, as well as providing some interesting paths forward for the community.

### Sean Denny, Alberto Vena, Elia Schito
##### Lightning Rounds

One of our long-lasting traditions at SolidusConf is the lightning rounds. This is an opportunity for the community to get up on stage and speak about what they’re passionate about. This year, [we heard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yDLCddmbt4&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=8&pp=iAQB) from Sean Denny, Alberto Vena, and a newcomer to the SolidusConf stage - Elia Schito. 

Sean (that’s me!) started us off with a breakdown of the [Solidus demo.](https://demo.solidus.io) I gave a quick tour of some of the cooler features of the demo, as well as an explanation for how the open admin works. Elia spoke next about some of the work happening in `solidusio-contrib` repositories - such as `solidus_content`, `solidus_importer`, and `solidus_webhooks`. Alberto ended the session with a rundown of the `solidus_starter_frontend` (a new version of the default Solidus frontend) and some next steps for the frontend of Solidus.

### Thomas Sample
##### The 10 Best Ways to SEO Audit Your Solidus Store for Free

Thomas Sample gave the second workshop of SolidusConf 2020, and this one was all about SEO. For those who don’t know him, Thomas is the founder of Karma Creative, a full service digital agency based in New York. He’s very passionate about Solidus, and a fantastic speaker, and that’s why we’re happy to have him back at SolidusConf every year.

[Thomas's workshop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_5HEJtA8I0&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=9&pp=iAQB) goes into detail about some of the tools & techniques that you can use to get your SEO to the next level. Rather than just _tell_ us about these tools & techniques, this year he walked us through the actual implementation. It was an extremely helpful dive into the world of SEO.

### Jared Norman
##### The Agile Fluency Model and eCommerce

Jared Norman is brand new to the SolidusConf stage, but he’s been with Solidus since the very beginning. Jared worked at Stembolt when the decision was made to fork Spree, and has since started his own development agency - SuperGood Software. We wanted to end the conference on a strong note, and Jared delivered in spades. 

[Jared's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M0h2D4IvkE&list=PLLD8ikQvfJqpscVZS3yJuftojeKcsjWeV&index=10&pp=iAQB) was all about Agile. He talks about how the Agile methodology matters to individuals, to businesses, and to Solidus, and what steps we can take to implement the Agile methodology into our own processes, as well as clearing up some common misconceptions.

## Final Thoughts

Each and every one of our speakers at SolidusConf gave their all this year, and I think it really shows. In this difficult time, it’s awe-inspiring to see the Solidus community come together - stronger than ever. 

This was our first time running a fully digital conference. We learned a lot of lessons, and we’re taking those with us for the next conference. But for me, the biggest takeaway is this: Despite all of the difficulties we’ve faced, the Solidus community remains stronger than ever. Thanks for sticking with us, and helping us build the future of eCommerce.

SolidusConf 2020 has concluded! Let's take a look back at some of the speakers and what we learned.


SolidusConf 2020 Recap

Hello everyone, and welcome to This Month in Solidus — September 2020! Let's dive in to what's new with the platform.

### Extension updates for September

- **NextJS Storefront:** There's a new Solidus storefront on the block - [`solidus_nextjs_frontend`](https://github.com/nebulab/solidus_nextjs_frontend)! We're using GraphQL and NextJS to bring you the snappiest frontend we can build. There's still some work to do, but keep an eye out on this project. We've completed the basic structure and GraphQL SDK, and we're working on the checkout now. Thanks to Andrea Vassallo, Rainer Dema, Dino Hamzić, and Alessio Rocco from Nebulab.
- **Data Importer**: Version 0.2.0 is officially out! With this release of [`solidus_importer`](https://github.com/solidusio-contrib/solidus_importer), the order importer has been fully hooked in. Now you'll be able to import orders from anywhere - using the [Shopify CSV](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/import-export/using-csv) format. Thanks to Mattia Roccoberton, Flavio Auciello, and Elia Schito from Nebulab!
- **Data Feeds**: With the release of the data importer, we decided that we also needed a way to export data. This is what the [`solidus_feeds`](https://github.com/nebulab/solidus_feeds/) extension handles! It's still a work in progress, but it adds support for generating Google Merchant feeds, and publishing them to S3. We're releasing our first version soon, then we'll be adding more feeds and uploaders. Stay tuned for more info - and thanks to Elia Schito and Nicolò Rebughini from Nebulab.

### Core updates this September

Here's what happened in September:

- [Added a link to stock movements from the stocks page.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3779) Keeping track of your inventory is a challenge in any business, so to make things easier we've included a link on the stock page, where you can see the recent stock movements for any piece of inventory. Sean Denny - that's me! - is to blame for this change.
- [Made admin order event links translatable.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3772) The approve/cancel/resume buttons on admin orders are now able to be translated - thanks to Thomas von Deyen!
- [Made the email links on admin order index page consistent.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3767) Previously, these links would either go to the user page if it exists, or be a mailto link if the user did not exist. This was confusing, so Github user `brchristian` updated it so the email is not a link if the user does not exist, and also added a mailto icon next to every email address, so we can keep the mailto functionality. Thanks!
- [Fixed an address validation issue concerning states.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3763) There was a bug that happened with address validation where if you switched from a country that has states to one that does not, the address validation would fail because it was expecting the country without states to have a state. This PR fixes that issue - thanks to Dumitru Ceban for fixing this!
- [Fixed a bug where the default tax category was not being displayed on the product page.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3759) Even when a default tax category was picked, the product page still showed "none" as the selected option. This PR fixes that - thanks Valentín Sanjuan! Also, this was Valentíns first PR submission to Solidus. We're always happy to see new contributors!
- [Exposed a refresh() method for sortable tables in JS.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3754) This allows us to call `refresh()` on a sortable table on demand. Thanks to Github user `brunoao86` for this change - and for being another first-time contributor to Solidus. Welcome to the club!
- [Fixed incorrect resource error handling.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3728) On a nil resource, Solidus should throw a 404 error and redirect to the resource index page, however in some cases a 500 error was thrown directing to an error page. This PR fixes that issue. Thanks to first-time contributor Ikraam Ghoor for this change!
- [Removed custom CanCanCan action aliases.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3701) This removes and deprecates usages of CanCanCan custom action aliases, as they're not needed in newer versions of CanCanCan and can (can can) make upgrading to new versions harder. Thanks to Filippo Liverani for this change.
- [Removed an N+1 query on the shipment model.](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/pull/3598) This simply adds `products` to an includes statement, which just so happens to drastically decrease the amount of DB queries needed. Thanks to first-time contributor Alban for this crucial change!

### Solidus 2.11 IS OUT NOW!

*BIG NEWS*! Solidus 2.11 is now out and ready to be used! This update will be the last until Solidus 3.0. It's important to note that the only change we'll be making in 3.0 is to remove all deprecated functionality - so be on the lookout for deprecation warnings in this release, as you'll need to fix those before updating to 3.0!

Stay tuned for more information about Solidus 3.0 - we're excited to be approaching our next major version release!

### Solidus Roadmap Survey

We're working hard on next year's roadmap, and part of that process is the yearly [**Solidus Roadmap Survey**](https://forms.gle/hD1S1YM78JmfZXhe6). The survey is your chance to let us know what direction you want Solidus to go in. Please feel free to share it with your colleagues and clients so they can also chime in with their thoughts. More responses means a more robust roadmap, so we want to get as many responses as possible!

### Solidus Meetup - October 30th

October's meetup is approaching fast! It will be held on October 30th at 10AM CT - [here's the sign-up link.](https://live.remo.co/e/solidus-meetup-2) We'll be talking about tips & tricks when it comes to contributing to Solidus, so swing by, say hi, and don't forget to get those last PRs you need done for HacktoberFest.

Dive in and see everything that happened in the Solidus world in September 2020: Bug fixes, convenient changes, and information on our next Solidus Meetup. Also: Solidus 2.11 is live!


This Month in Solidus: September 2020

- [2.11.0 on GitHub](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/releases/tag/v2.11.0)
- [2.11.0 on RubyGems](https://rubygems.org/gems/solidus/versions/2.11.0)

Thanks to all contributors, testers, and users who made this release possible.

This version's support will end in 18 months: 2022-04-23.

## What's next?

Before digging into the most important changes introduced by Solidus 2.11, we want to give you a couple of big announcements.

### Next versions

Solidus 2.11 is the last minor release for version 2 of Solidus. The next release will be **Solidus 3.0** 🎉.

### Solidus 3.0

Solidus 3.0 will not introduce any new features.

In Solidus 3.0, we are going to **remove all the deprecation introduced by Solidus 2**.

So Solidus 2.11 is your last chance to fix all the deprecations on your application because, with Solidus 3.0, they will stop working.

### What's changed?

Full changelog can be found on our
[GitHub repository](https://github.com/solidusio/solidus/releases/tag/v2.11.0/changelog.md)
but here's a list of major changes:

**Removed support for Rails 5.1**

Rails 5.1 is not maintained anymore, we deprecated it in 2.10 so it's time to remove it entirely.

**Add `billing_address_required` preference**

The new preference controls whether validations will require the presence of the billing address.

**Add BCC email to order confirmation emails**

Spree::Store model now accepts a BCC email field that, when present, will be used in order confirmation emails.

**Order merger and order updater now require valid order**

The order merger and order updater will complete successfully only on valid orders. This new behavior is opt-in with this release, but will become the default from Solidus 3.0.

You can enable this feature right now by setting the preference with `Spree::Config.run_order_validations_on_order_updater = true`.

**Stop calling `Spree::Refund#perform!` after creating a refund**

From Solidus v3.0 onwards, #perform! will need to be explicitly called when creating new refunds. Please, change your code from:

`Spree::Refund.create(your: attributes)`

to:

`Spree::Refund.create(your: attributes, perform_after_creation: false).perform!`

The `perform_after_creation` attribute will be deprecated in Solidus 3.x.

**Allow to configure `guest_token` cookie options**

The guest_token cookie is currently always only allowed for the current domain, including subdomain. If you want to use the cookie on a different subdomain you can use the preference `guest_token_cookie_options`.

**Add event subscribers automatically**

Event subscribers are now loaded automatically when their source file is placed under the directory `app/subscribers` and filename ends with `_subscriber.rb`. This works both for Solidus core, Solidus extensions and the store app.

If you have any custom subscribers with an explicit subscription (i.e. `MyCustomSubscriber.subscribe!`) ensure they're under `app/subscribers` path and remove the explicit subscriptions from your app initializer (i.e `MyCustomSubscriber.subscribe!`).

**Add address default for billing as well**

It's now possible to mark an address as default for billing with the column `default_billing`.

**Getting closer to completely replace Paranoia with Discard**

We're getting closer to fully replace Paranoia with Discard. Paranoia methods have been fully deprecated, so you're encouraged to switch to Discard also in your store codebase.

**Add ActiveStorage adapter**

From Rails 6.1 ActiveStorage will support public blob URLs and Solidus should be ready to offer an ActiveStorage adapter to new stores.

**Introduce `Address#name`**

We're going to introduce the new column `name` for addresses that will replace the existing `first_name` and `last_name`. In preparation of this, we're now introducing a virtual attribute name that works like and replaces` #full_name`.

**Replace `Spree.routes` with `Spree.pathFor`**

The use of `Spree.routes` is now deprecated. You can check in your browser developer tools console for deprecation messages.

**Configurable order state machine with new default**

The order state machine class is now configurable, just like other models state machines. Also, a simplified version of the current state machine will be the new default in Solidus 3.x.

**Include payment methods in installer**

Solidus installer has now a section for installing payment method gems out of the box. Currently, the only available gem is `solidus_paypal_commerce_platform`.

**Remove CanCanCan custom actions aliases**

`CanCanCan` custom action aliases have been deprecated and replaced with default ones to make it easier upgrading to newer versions of `CanCanCan`. A new application preference has been introduced: `use_custom_cancancan_actions` which when set to:

- `true` will still accept using custom aliases (default for existing applications).
- `false` any custom aliases defined previously won't be handled anymore by Solidus.

Ensure double-checking all the custom defined permissions in your application before switching to `use_custom_cancancan_actions` preference to `false`.

**Introduce encrypted preference type**

A new preference type `encrypted_string` has been introduced allowing to encrypt the value assigned to the preference to avoid exposing it in case a malicious user gets access to the DB or a dump. Check the related [guide](https:/legacy-guides.solidus.io/developers/preferences/add-model-preferences.html#details-for-encrypted_string-type) for more details.

**Add "discontinue on" attribute to products**

Adds a `discontinue_on` attribute to products. This accompanies the `available_on` attribute to complete the "Time Based Availability" feature. The `Product.available` scope and `Product#avaliable?` method take this new date field into account to calculate the availability of products.

**Fixed how the default reimbursement store-credit category is fetched**

Before this change the store-credit category for reimbursement was fetched by name using a missing translation (i.e. `en.spree.store_credit_category.default`) that resulted in the name "Default". If no category was found the code fell back on the first category from the database, which wasn't guaranteed to be the right one. Trying to update the translation to the desired category name was also useless due to how code was loaded. Now it's possible to disable this legacy behavior and switch to a simpler one, in which the code will look for a CreditCategory named "Reimbursement". Here's a list of checks and fixes you can perform to ensure you can enable the correct implementation:

- If you don't use reimbursements you're good to go, skip below to Disabling the legacy behavior.
- Ensure you didn't decorate or patched any of the involved code, especially:
    - `Spree::StoreCreditCategory.reimbursement_category`.
    - `Spree::StoreCreditCategory.reimbursement_category_name`.
- Ensure your "production" environment is already returning the correct category, you can assess that by running this in your "production" console: `Spree::StoreCreditCategory.reimbursement_category(nil).name == "Reimbursement"`.

Disabling the legacy behavior If everything is sound, or you are ok with a different category name for newly created reimbursement store credits you can switch to the new behavior by configuring this Solidus preference in your spree.rb initializer:

```ruby
Spree.config do |config|
  config.use_legacy_store_credit_reimbursement_category_name = false
end
```

If you had modifications in your codebase consider disabling the legacy behavior and porting them to a simple overwrite of `Spree::Reimbursement#store_credit_category`. The legacy behavior will be removed in the next major version of Solidus.

**Do not consider promotions without actions as active**

When considering to apply a promotion to an order we use the `active` scope. This scope was including promotions without actions and we no longer are taking them into account.

To switch to the new behaviour which will be the only one accepted in Solidus 3.0 change the following preference `Spree::Config.consider_actionless_promotion_active` to `false`.

If you need to consider actionless promotions as active for any reason please implement your own scope for that.

Solidus v2.11 is available! Thanks to all contributors, testers, and users who made this release possible. This version's support will end in 18 months: 2022-04-23.

The Solidus Blog