How To Display Thumbnail In Woocommerce Myaccount Download Items

Displaying Thumbnails in Your WooCommerce My Account Download Items: A Beginner’s Guide

Are you tired of your WooCommerce customers seeing only boring filenames in their downloads section? Do you want to make their experience more visually appealing and user-friendly? Then this guide is for you! We’ll show you how to display thumbnails for your downloadable products in the WooCommerce My Account area, enhancing the overall user experience.

Why Show Thumbnails?

Imagine ordering a digital product online. Would you rather see a list of bland file names like `product-1.zip` and `guide.pdf`, or a visually appealing list with thumbnails representing the actual content? The answer is clear. Thumbnails offer several benefits:

• Improved User Experience: Thumbnails make it instantly clear what each download contains. This reduces confusion and improves navigation.
• Increased Engagement: A visually appealing My Account page encourages customers to engage with their purchased products more readily.
• Brand Consistency: Using consistent, high-quality thumbnails reinforces your brand identity and professionalism.

Understanding the Challenge: WooCommerce’s Default Behavior

By default, WooCommerce only displays the filenames of your downloadable products in the My Account downloads section. This is functional, but far from ideal from a user-experience perspective. To add thumbnails, we need to customize the WooCommerce code.

The Solution: Customizing the Downloads Table

We’ll achieve this using a custom function that hooks into WooCommerce’s download table display. This requires adding a custom code snippet to your theme’s `functions.php` file (or a custom plugin, which is the recommended approach for better code management and easier updates).

Step-by-Step Guide: Adding Thumbnails

Here’s how to add thumbnails to your WooCommerce My Account downloads section. We’ll focus on using a custom plugin for robustness and maintainability.

1. Create a New Plugin: Create a new file named `woocommerce-download-thumbnails.php` in your `/wp-content/plugins/` directory.

2. Add the Plugin Header: Add the following code to the top of your `woocommerce-download-thumbnails.php` file:

 <?php /** 
Plugin Name: WooCommerce Download Thumbnails
 
Plugin URI: (Your Plugin URI)
 
Description: Adds thumbnails to WooCommerce downloads in My Account.
 
Version: 1.0.0
 
Author: (Your Name)
 
Author URI: (Your Website)
 
License: GPL2
 
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
 
Text Domain: woocommerce-download-thumbnails
 */ 

3. Add the Core Functionality: Add the following code below the header:

 <?php 

add_filter( ‘woocommerce_order_item_get_formatted_downloads’, ‘add_download_thumbnails’, 10, 3 );

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function add_download_thumbnails( $downloads, $item_id, $order ) {

foreach ( $downloads as $key => $download ) {

$file = $download[‘download_url’];

// Get the file extension (this helps with proper image selection)

$ext = pathinfo($file, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);

// Check if it’s an image – you might need adjustments here based on the actual file types in your product

if( in_array(strtolower($ext), [‘jpg’, ‘jpeg’, ‘png’, ‘gif’]) ) {

$downloads[$key][‘thumbnail’] = ‘‘; // Adjust width and height as needed

} else {

// Add a default placeholder for non-image downloads, Read more about How To Eliminate A Product Handeling Fee Woocommerce perhaps a generic icon

$downloads[$key][‘thumbnail’] = ‘‘; //Requires placeholder.png image in your plugin directory

}

}

return $downloads;

}

?>

4. Activate the Plugin: Go to your WordPress admin dashboard, navigate to Plugins, and activate the `WooCommerce Download Thumbnails` plugin.

5. Add a Placeholder Image: Add a placeholder image named `placeholder.png` to the same directory as your `woocommerce-download-thumbnails.php` file. This will be used for non-image downloads.

Important Considerations:

• File Types: The code above checks for `.jpg`, `.jpeg`, `.png`, and `.gif` extensions. Adjust this array if your downloadable products have different image extensions.
• Image Sizes: Adjust the `width` and `height` attributes in the `` tag to control thumbnail dimensions.
• Error Handling: The code above lacks comprehensive error handling. For a production environment, consider adding checks to ensure file existence and validity.
• Performance: For a large number of downloads, consider optimizing the image loading process to avoid impacting page load times.

This guide provides a strong foundation for displaying thumbnails in your WooCommerce My Account downloads. Remember to always back up your website before making any code changes, and test thoroughly after implementation. If you’re not comfortable editing code directly, consider seeking the assistance of a WordPress developer.