FacetWP news & 2023 highlights
Happy 2024! With 2023 already more than two weeks in the rear-view mirror, we wanted to take a moment to share some FacetWP highlights from the past year and introduce a few exciting new features we have been working on.
2023 Recap
• A total of 15 FacetWP updates were released in 2023, containing many improvements and bug fixes, making FacetWP even more reliable in all circumstances. Make sure to update to the latest version: FacetWP 4.2.9 (released on January 17).
• The Star Rating facet has received a major overhaul. With the new “Show ghost ratings” setting enabled, the facet will always show five icons, even if there are no matches. You can now also change the rating icon, and even set a different icon for the ghost icons, as shown below.
Besides choosing from a few built-in icons like solid stars, open stars, and hearts, you can now use any Unicode character, custom SVGs, or web font icons. The icon color styling options have also been improved, making it easier to customize the colors of the various statuses of the icons, resulting in a better user experience.
• We introduced a new `facetwp_scripts` action hook which you can use to add custom scripts that only run on pages with facets (as opposed to using the `wp_footer` hook which runs on every page).
• The “Strict query detection” setting is now enabled for new installs, preventing most automatic query detection issues. If you’re having trouble with facets not filtering your listing as expected, enabling this setting is the first thing to try.
Add-on news
• 13 of our 22 add-ons received updates in 2023.
• The Time Since add-on facet now has a “UI type” setting, so you can have it not only display as radio buttons but also as a dropdown, or an fSelect facet type dropdown.
• The Bricks add-on now supports WooCommerce products.
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The Elementor add-on now comes with three new FacetWP widgets to easily add FacetWP facet- and listing shortcodes, and three types of FacetWP buttons (Apply, Flyout and Submit). These widgets also work with the free version of Elementor.
• We decided to retire the Pods add-on. You can continue to use it as long as it works, but it will no longer receive updates.
Use FacetWP alongside blocks with the new Blocks add-on
We are proud to introduce our sparkling new Blocks add-on, which lets you display facets alongside a range of WordPress blocks.
Besides WP’s Query Loop, Posts Lists, and Latest Posts blocks, the add-on also works with Woo’s Products block and a range of block types from these block plugins: GenerateBlocks, Kadence Blocks, Stackable, Spectra (Pro), and Otter Blocks.
We will continue to improve FacetWP integration with the Block Editor, and are planning to add FacetWP blocks for adding facets and listing templates to the page.
The new Schedule Indexer add-on
With the new Schedule Indexer add-on you can schedule an automatic, recurring re-index with WP-Cron. You can use one of the built-in schedules, or create your own custom schedule.
Help Center improvements
Over the last two years, we have been putting a lot of effort into gradually improving and extending the Help Center. Our goal is to help you in every way possible to use FacetWP to build what you want for yourself or your clients.
We improved the content structure, navigation, and FAQ section. The search results are now much better, and subjects and pages are consistently linked to related articles, making it easier to find information organically.
We are also continually adding more and better code examples to build on. These can be copied with a click and can easily be linked to.
We will continue to improve the range and depth of articles and fill in all the gaps. Let us know if you are missing something, or if anything is unclear!
Support improvements
Our support load has steadily decreased over the last two years, in 2023 with 17% compared to 2022. This is probably caused by the continued improvements to the Help Center, which make it easier to find answers on your own.
Our support team has grown and is now based on two different continents, resulting in faster ticket response times. The average first response time last year decreased by 63% to only 1h14min (during office hours), and our overall response time decreased by 21% to 2h41min.
We are also delighted with the average customer happiness rating of 99% that you rewarded us with.
Add your site to the User Showcase
Did you make a site using FacetWP that you’re especially proud of? If so, please reply to this email to have your site featured on our User Showcase page!
Renew your license with a 20% discount
If your license has expired, please consider renewing it to help us continue improving FacetWP.
To renew, select a tier on the Pricing page, then enter your existing license key into the “Discount” box during checkout. The renewal discount is 20% (or more for grandfathered licenses).
Help us shape FacetWP’s future!
If you have a moment, please share ideas for new features or improvements on our feedback website. You can also vote on existing ideas.
This will give us a feel for things we may be missing, and will guide our development priorities for the new year.
Have a great 2024!
The FacetWP Team,
Matt, Jenny, Remco