While this release might look small on the surface, version 3.5 is one of the biggest under-the-hood updates Sunshine has had in a long time. Apologies for it taking so long to get out but a lot of testing went into it to ensure the update is as smooth as possible for everyone.
The main focus this round was rebuilding how checkout works. Now, the moment someone clicks “Submit Order,” Sunshine immediately creates a pending order before processing payment. Once payment completes, that order’s status updates to “New” or “Failed.”
This change fixes a rare but frustrating issue where payments (especially through Stripe) were successful, but the actual order record didn’t save. With the new system, order details are always captured first—so nothing gets lost. Ever.
Beyond that, there are plenty of smaller improvements worth calling out:
Better Checkout and Order Tools
Alongside the core checkout improvements, there are some nice workflow updates:
- You can now filter orders by gallery, making it much easier to manage orders connected to specific shoots or events.
- Added an option to disable invoices entirely if you prefer not to send them out automatically.
- Added new email template tags for including receipt or invoice links directly in your messages.
- Added custom CSS support for emails, so you can better match your brand style.
Quality-of-Life Updates for Admins
A few small but handy touches:
- Added a Help link right in the Sunshine admin menu (so you don’t have to go hunting for docs).
- Added a quick link to view all comments from a customer right from the order screen.
- Improved search to handle multiple keywords at once.
- Optimized how Sunshine fetches gallery IDs behind the scenes for faster performance in larger sites.
- Restored the order count number in the admin menu (you missed it, I know).
Smarter and More Polished Frontend
Not much changed visually this time, but there are some subtle refinements:
- Improved the Order Summary on mobile for a cleaner checkout experience.
- Added Open Graph data support as an option in galleries for better social sharing (if your SEO plugin doesn’t already handle this).
- Added WhatsApp to the sharing options for gallery and image pages.
- Improved how galleries are shown in multi-image selectors—only galleries that actually have images now appear.
- Cover themes now hide the cover photo when viewing the store to reduce clutter.
Photographer-Focused Improvements
A few changes that make life easier when uploading or managing photos:
- Sunshine now checks uploaded images against size requirements and gives a clear error if they’re too small.
- Sunshine’s EXIF data detection is now more accurate, so the correct “created” timestamp is used even if WordPress misreads it.
Payment and Gateway Fixes
There were a few behind-the-scenes fixes for payments too:
- Square now works perfectly with cards that require Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).
- PayPal refunds now correctly handle pending statuses.
- Sunshine now properly calculates tax on discounted amounts and includes fees on order invoices.
More Polish Across the Board
You’ll also notice:
- More currencies available.
- Discounts work more consistently when checking minimum order amounts.
- “Shipping as Billing” support improved (for now, that’s mostly for Square).
- Various fixes to favorites, cart selections, mobile modals, and other small details that smooth out the overall flow.
Version 3.5 was a big one to code, but the goal was simple: make Sunshine more reliable, faster, and easier to use—especially when money is changing hands.
Thanks, as always, for supporting Sunshine Photo Cart. Every update like this is made possible by photographers like you who use it, send feedback, and help make it better.
More good stuff is already in the works, so stay tuned.
Full Changelog
- Enhancement: Under the hood checkout flow process
- Enhancement: Improved search results to handle multiple keyword searches
- Enhancement: Translations updated
- Add: Orders can be filtered by gallery
- Add: Help link to Sunshine admin menu
- Add: Link to view all comments from a customer
- Add: Option to disable invoices with orders (Settings > Checkout > Orders)
- Add: Conditional needs_delivery() for all products so this section can be disabled at checkout if allowed based on cart items
- Add: Email receipt template tags for receipt/invoice link/url
- Add: Custom CSS for emails in Settings > Design > Customizations
- Add: More currencies
- Add: Check during gallery image upload that images meet the size requirements, shwo error if they do not
- Add: Gallery option to enable Open Graph data to be used for gallery/image pages (your SEO plugin may already be doing this though)
- Add: WhatsApp to gallery/image sharing options
- Change: In multi-image selector sources, only show galleries with images
- Change: Cover theme hides cover photo when in store view
- Change: Hide main galleries link also hides the return to parent gallery link
- Enhancement: JS passing more data for product show details event for add-ons to hook into
- Enhancement: Filters on discount data
- Enhancement: Admin order details page, add link from line item thumbnail to image details screen
- Enhancement: sunshine_get_gallery_descendant_ids optimized for query speed
- Enhancement: Improved Order Summary on checkout page for mobile
- Fix: Square gateway works with cards requiring SCA
- Fix: During image upload, do our own EXIF exploration to get the true created_timestamp and not rely entirely on WP
- Fix: Confirm data format for gallery emails before adding new one to prevent fatal error
- Fix: Discount calculation use subtotal when checking for minimum order amount
- Fix: Assigning/unassigning favorites and adjusting quantities in multi-image select view
- Fix: Custom email template check
- Fix: Show payment method fees on order details page
- Fix: Do not remove favorites when local image URL not found as they could be hosted at S3
- Fix: Shipping as Billing feature in checkout (currently only used with Square)
- Fix: Calculate tax on discounted amount for items
- Fix: PayPal refund in admin handle "pending" status when showing result message
- Fix: Include fees on order invoice template
- Fix: Tracking latest login time
- Fix: Restore order count to main admin menu
- Fix: Selecting images from other source galleries beyond original during store add to cart flow
- Fix: Mobile styling in store add to cart modal
