Welcome to WordPress 5.5.
Posts and pages feel faster, thanks to lazy-loaded images.
Images give your story a lot of impact, but they can sometimes make your site seem slow.
In WordPress 5.5, images wait to load until they’re just about to scroll into view. The technical term is ‘lazy loading.’
On mobile, lazy loading can also keep browsers from loading files meant for other devices. That can save your readers money on data — and help preserve battery life.
Say hello to your new sitemap.
WordPress sites work well with search engines.
Now, by default, WordPress 5.5 includes an XML sitemap that helps search engines discover your most important pages from the very minute you go live.
So more people will find your site sooner, giving you more time to engage, retain and convert them to subscribers, customers or whatever fits your definition of success.
Auto-updates for Plugins and Themes
Now you can set plugins and themes to update automatically — or not! — in the WordPress admin. So you always know your site is running the latest code available.
You can also turn auto-updates on or off for each plugin or theme you have installed — all on the same screens you’ve always used.
Update by uploading ZIP files
If updating plugins and themes manually is your thing, now that’s easier too — just upload a ZIP file.
Once again, the latest WordPress release packs a long list of exciting new features for the block editor. For example:
New block patterns make it simple and fun to create complex, beautiful layouts, using combinations of text and media that you can mix and match to fit your story.
You will also find block patterns in a wide variety of plugins and themes, with more added all the time. Pick any of them from a single place — just click and go!
Now it’s easier than ever to find the block you need. The new block directory is built right into the block editor, so you can install new block types to your site without ever leaving the editor.
Crop, rotate, and zoom your photos right from the image block. If you spend a lot of time on images, this could save you hours!
The highlights above are a tiny fraction of the new block editor features you’ve just installed. Open the block editor and enjoy!
Every release adds improvements to the accessible publishing experience, and that remains true for WordPress 5.5.
Now you can copy links in media screens and modal dialogs with a button, instead of trying to highlight a line of text.
You can also move meta boxes with the keyboard, and edit images in WordPress with your assistive device, as it can read you the instructions in the image editor.
5.5 also brings a big box of changes just for developers.
The addition of block types endpoints means that JavaScript apps (like the block editor) can retrieve definitions for any blocks registered on the server.
WordPress now has a standardized way to define a site’s environment type (staging, production, etc). Retrieve that type with wp_get_environment_type()
and execute only the appropriate code.
The Dashicons library has received its final update in 5.5. It adds 39 block editor icons along with 26 others.
The template loading functions (get_header()
, get_template_part()
, etc.) have a new $args
argument. So now you can pass an entire array’s worth of data to those templates.
redirect_guess_404_permalink()
.wp_opcache_invalidate()
function during updates (including to plugins and themes).register_taxonomy()
.register_meta()
.Leading this release were Matt Mullenweg, Jake Spurlock, and David Baumwald. Supporting them was this highly enthusiastic release squad:
Joining the squad throughout the release cycle were 805 generous volunteer contributors who collectively worked on over 523 tickets on Trac and over 1660 pull requests on GitHub.
Put on a Billy Eckstine playlist, click that update button (or download it directly), and check the profiles of the fine folks that helped:
A2 Hosting, a4jp . com, a6software, Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, abderrahman, Abha Thakor, Achal Jain, achbed, Achyuth Ajoy, acosmin, acsnaterse, Adam Silverstein, Addie, addyosmani, adnan.limdi, adrian, airamerica, Ajay Ghaghretiya, Ajit Bohra, akbarhusen, akbarhusen429, Akhilesh Sabharwal, Akira Tachibana, Alain Schlesser, Albert Juhé Lluveras, Alex Concha, Alex Kirk, Alex Lende, Alex Shiels, Ali Shan, ali11007, Allen Snook, amaschas, Amit Dudhat, anbumz, andfinally, Andrea Fercia, Andrea Middleton, Andrea Tarantini, Andrei Draganescu, Andrew Duthie, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Nevins, Andrew Ozz, Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko, Andrés Maneiro, Andy Fragen, Andy Meerwaldt, Andy Peatling, Angela Jin, Angelika Reisiger, Anh Tran, Ankit Gade, Ankit K Gupta, Ankit Panchal, Anne McCarthy, Anthony Burchell, Anthony Hortin, Anton Timmermans, Antonis Lilis, apedog, archon810, argentite, Arpit G Shah, Arslan Ahmed, asalce, ashiagr, ashour, Atharva Dhekne, Aurélien Joahny, aussi, automaton, Ayesh Karunaratne, BackuPs, Barry, Barry Ceelen, Bart Czyz, bartekcholewa, bartkalisz, Bastien Ho, Bastien Martinent, bcworkz, bdbch, bdcstr, Ben Dunkle, Bence Szalai, bencroskery, Benjamin Gosset, Benoit Chantre, Bernhard Reiter, BettyJJ, bgermann, bigcloudmedia, bigdawggi, Bill Erickson, Birgir Erlendsson (birgire), Birgit Pauli-Haack, BjornW, bonger, Boone Gorges, Boris Brdarić, Boy Witthaya, Brandon Kraft, Brandon Payton, Brent Swisher, Brian Krogsgard, bruandet, Bunty, Burhan Nasir, caiocrcosta, Cameron Voell, cameronamcintyre, Carike, Carl Wuensche, Carlos Galarza, Carolina Nymark, Caroline Moore, Carrigan, ceyhun, Chad, Chad Butler, Charles Fulton, Chetan Prajapati, Chintan hingrajiya, Chip Snyder, Chloé Bringmann, Chouby, Chris Van Patten, chriscct7, Christian Chung, Christian Jongeneel, Christian Sabo, Christian Wach, Christoph Herr, Christopher Churchill, cklee, clayray, Clifford Paulick, codeforest, Commeuneimage, Copons, Corey McKrill, cpasqualini, Cristovao Verstraeten, Csaba (LittleBigThings), Curtis Belt, Cyrus Collier, D.PERONNE, d6, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Hüsken, Daniel James, Daniel Llewellyn, Daniel Richards, Daniel Roch, Daniele Scasciafratte, Danny, Darko G., Darren Ethier (nerrad), Dave McHale, Dave Whitley, David A. Kennedy, David Aguilera, David Anderson, David Artiss, David Baumwald, David Binovec, David Brumbaugh, David E. Smith, David Herrera, David Ryan, David Shanske, David Smith, davidvee, dchymko, Debabrata Karfa, Deepak Lalwani, dekervit, Delowar Hossain, demetris, Denis Yanchevskiy, derekakelly, Derrick Hammer, Derrick Tennant, Diane Co, Dilip Bheda, Dimitris Mitsis, dingo-d, Dion Hulse, Dixita Dusara, djennez, dmenard, dmethvin, doc987, Dominik Schilling, donmhico, Dono12, Doobeedoo, Dossy Shiobara, dpacks, dratwas, Drew Jaynes, DrLightman, DrProtocols, dsifford, dudo, Dustin Bolton, dvershinin, Dylan Kuhn, Earle Davies, ecotechie, Eddie Moya, Eddy, Edi Amin, ehtis, Eileen Violini, Ekaterina, Ella van Durpe, elmastudio, Emanuel Blagonic, Emilie LEBRUN, Emmanuel Hesry, Enej Bajgoric, Enrico Sorcinelli, Enrique Piqueras, Enrique Sánchez, Eric, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Binnion, Erik Betshammar, Erin 'Folletto' Casali, esemlabel, esoj, espiat, Estela Rueda, etoledom, etruel, Ev3rywh3re, Evan Mullins, Fabian Kägy, Fabian Todt, Faisal Ahmed, Felix Arntz, Felix Edelmann, ferdiesletering, finomeno, Florian Brinkmann, Florian TIAR, Florian Truchot, florianatwhodunit, FolioVision, Francesca Marano, Francois Thibaud, Frank Goossens, Frank Klein, Frank.Prendergast, Franz Armas, Gabriel Koen, Gabriel Maldonado, Gabriel Mays, gadgetroid, Gal Baras, Garavani, garethgillman, Garrett Hyder, Gary Cao, Gary Jones, Gary Pendergast, Geert De Deckere, Gemini Labs, Gennady Kovshenin, geriux, Giorgio25b, gisselfeldt, glendaviesnz, goldsounds, Goto Hayato, Govind Kumar, Grégory Viguier, gradina, Greg Ziółkowski, gregmulhauser, grierson, Grzegorz.Janoszka, gsmumbo, Guido Scialfa, guidobras, Gunther Pilz, gwwar, H-var, hakre, Halacious, hankthetank, Hapiuc Robert, Hareesh Pillai, haukep, Haz, Hector F, Helen Hou-Sandi, Henry Wright, hlanggo, hommealone, Hoover, Howdy_McGee, Hronak Nahar, huntlyc, Ian Belanger, Ian Dunn, Ian Stewart, ianjvr, ifrins, infinum, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), Isabel Brison, ishitaka, J.D. Grimes, jackfungi, jacklinkers, Jadon N, jadpm, jagirbahesh, Jake Spurlock, James Koster, James Nylen, Jan Koch, Jan Reilink, Jan Thiel, Janvo Aldred, Jarret, Jason Adams, Jason Coleman, Jason Cosper, Jason Crouse, Jason LeMahieu (MadtownLems), Jason Rouet, JasWSInc, Javier Casares, Jayson Basanes, jbinda, jbouganim, Jean-Baptiste Audras, Jean-David Daviet, Jeff Chandler, Jeff Farthing, Jeff Ong, Jeff Paul, Jen, Jenil Kanani, Jeremy Felt, Jeremy Herve, Jeremy Yip, jeryj, Jesin A, Jignesh Nakrani, Jim_Panse, Jip Moors, jivanpal, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, Joe McGill, Joen Asmussen, Johanna de Vos, John Blackbourn, John Dorner, John James Jacoby, John P. Green, John Watkins, johnnyb, Jon Quach, Jon Surrell, Jonathan Bossenger, Jonathan Champ, Jonathan Christopher, Jonathan Desrosiers, jonkolbert, Jonny Harris, jonnybot, Jono Alderson, Joost de Valk, Jorge Bernal, Jorge Costa, Joseph Dickson, Josepha Haden, Josh Smith, JoshuaWold, Joy, Juanfra Aldasoro, juanlopez4691, Jules Colle, julianm, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Julio Potier, Julka Grodel, Justin Ahinon, Justin de Vesine, Justin Tadlock, justlevine, justnorris, K. Adam White, kaggdesign, Kailey (trepmal), Kaira, Kaitlin Bolling, KamataRyo, Kantari Samy, Kaspars, Kavya Gokul, keesiemeijer, Kelly Dwan, kennethroberson5556, Kevin Hagerty, Kharis Sulistiyono, Khokan Sardar, kinjaldalwadi, Kiril Zhelyazkov, Kirsty Burgoine, Kishan Jasani, kitchin, Kite, Kjell Reigstad, Knut Sparhell, Konstantin Obenland, Konstantinos Xenos, ksoares, KT Cheung, Kukhyeon Heo, lalitpendhare, Laterna Studio, laurelfulford, Laurens Offereins, Levdbas, Lew Ayotte, Lex Robinson, linyows, lipathor, Lisa Schuyler, liuhaibin, ljharb, logig, lucasbustamante, luiswill, Luke Cavanagh, Luke Walczak, lukestramasonder, M Asif Rahman, M.K. Safi, Maarten de Boer, Mahfoudh Arous, manojlovic, Manuel Schmalstieg, maraki, Marcin Pietrzak, Marcio Zebedeu, Marco Pereirinha, MarcoZ, Marcus, Marcus Kazmierczak, Marek Dědič, Marek Hrabe, Mario Valney, Marius Jensen, Mark Chouinard, Mark Parnell, Mark Uraine, markdubois, markgoho, Marko Andrijasevic, Marko Heijnen, MarkRH, markshep, markusthiel, Martijn van der Kooij, martychc23, Mary Baum, Matheus Martins, Mathieu Viet, Matias Ventura, matjack1, Matt Cromwell, Matt Mullenweg, Matt Radford, Matt van Andel, mattchowning, Matthew Boynes, Matthew Eppelsheimer, Matthew Gerring, Matthias Kittsteiner, Matthias Pfefferle, Matthieu Mota, mattyrob, Maxime Culea, Maxime Pertici, maxme, Mayank Majeji, mcshane, Mel Choyce-Dwan, Menaka S., mensmaximus, metalandcoffee, Michael, Michael Arestad, Michael Arestad, Michael Fields, Michael Nelson, Michele Butcher-Jones, Michelle, Miguel Fonseca, mihdan, Miina Sikk, Mikael Korpela, mikaumoto, Mike Crantea, Mike Glendinning, Mike Haydon, Mike Schinkel [WPLib Box project lead], Mike Schroder, Mikey Arce, Milana Cap, Milind More, mimi, mislavjuric, Mohammad Jangda, Mohammad Rockeybul Alam, Mohsin Rasool, Monika Rao, Morgan Kay, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Morteza Geransayeh, moto hachi ( mt8.biz ), mrgrt, mrmist, mrTall, msaggiorato, Muhammad Usama Masood, Mukesh Panchal, munyagu, Nadir Seghir, Nahid Ferdous Mohit, Nalini Thakor, Naoko Takano, narwen, Nate Gay, Nathan Rice, Navid, neonkowy, net, netpassprodsr, Nextendweb, Ngan Tengyuen, Nick Daugherty, Nicky Lim, nicolad, Nicolas Juen, NicolasKulka, Nidhi Jain, Niels de Blaauw, Niels Lange, nigro.simone, Nikhil Bhansi, Nikolay Bachiyski, Nilo Velez, Niresh, nmenescardi, Noah Allen, ntsekouras, NumidWasNotAvailable, oakesjosh, obliviousharmony, ockham, Olga Gleckler, Omar Alshaker, onokazu, Optimizing Matters, ovann86, overclokk, p_enrique, Paal Joachim Romdahl, Pablo Honey, palmiak, Paresh Shinde, Parvand, Pascal Birchler, Pascal Casier, Paul Bearne, Paul Biron, Paul Fernhout, Paul Gibbs, Paul Ryan, Paul Schreiber, Paul Stonier, Paul Von Schrottky, pavelevap, Pedro Mendonça, pentatonicfunk, pepe, Peter "Pessoft" Kolínek, Peter Westwood, Peter Wilson, Phil Derksen, Phil Johnston, Philip Jackson, Pierre Gordon, pigdog234, pikamander2, pingram, Pionect, Piyush Patel, pkarjala, pkvillanueva, Prashant Baldha, pratik028, Pravin Parmar, Presskopp, Presslabs, Priyank Patel, Priyo Mukul, ProGrafika, programmin, Puneet Sahalot, pvogel2, r-a-y, Raaj Trambadia, Rachel Peter, raine, Ramanan, Rami Yushuvaev, Rastaban, RavanH, Ravat Parmar, ravenswd, rawrly, rebasaurus, Red Sand Media Group, Remy Perona, Remzi Cavdar, Renatho, renggo888, retlehs, retrofox, Riad Benguella, Rian Rietveld, riasat, Rich Tabor, Ringisha, ritterml, Rnaby, Rob Cutmore, Rob Migchels, rob006, Robert Anderson, Robert Chapin, Robert Peake, Robert Windisch, Ronald Huereca, Rostislav Wolný, Roy Tanck, ruxandra, Ryan Boren, Ryan Fredlund, Ryan Kienstra, Ryan McCue, Ryan Welcher, Ryota Sakamoto, ryotsun, Sören Wrede, Søren Brønsted, Sachit Tandukar, Sagar Jadhav, Sajjad Hossain Sagor, Sal Ferrarello, Salvatore Formisano, Sam Fullalove, Sam Webster, Samir Shah, Samuel Wood (Otto), samueljseay, Sander van Dragt, Sanket Mehta, sarahricker, Sathiyamoorthy V, Sayed Taqui, scarolan, scholdstrom, Scott Kingsley Clark, Scott Reilly, Scott Smith, Scott Taylor, scribu, scruffian, Sean Hayes, seanpaulrasmussen, seayou, senatorman, Sergey Biryukov, Sergey Predvoditelev, Sergio de Falco, sergiomdgomes, Shannon Smith, Shantanu Desai, shaunandrews, Shawn Hooper, shawnz, Shital Marakana, shulard, siliconforks, Simon Wheatley, simonjanin, sinatrateam, sjmur, skarabeq, skorasaurus, skoskie, slushman, snapfractalpop, SpearsMarketing, sphakka, squarecandy, sreedoap, Stanimir Stoyanov, Stefano Minoia, Stefanos Togoulidis, Steph Wells, Stephen Bernhardt, Stephen Cronin, Stephen Edgar, Steve Dufresne, stevegibson12, Steven Stern (sterndata), Steven Word, stevenkussmaul, stevenlinx, Stiofan, Subrata Sarkar, SUM1, Sunny, Sunny Ratilal, Sushyant Zavarzadeh, suzylah, Sybre Waaijer, Synchro, Sérgio Estêvão, Takayuki Miyauchi, Tammie Lister, Tang Rufus, TeBenachi, Tessa Watkins LLC, Tetsuaki Hamano, theMikeD, theolg, Thierry Muller, thimalw, Thomas M, Thorsten Frommen, Thrijith Thankachan, Tiago Hillebrandt, Till Krüss, Timothy Jacobs, Tkama, tmdesigned, tmoore41, TobiasBg, tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn Fjellner), Tofandel, tomdude, Tommy Ferry, Tony G, Toro_Unit (Hiroshi Urabe), torres126, Torsten Landsiedel, Toru Miki, Travis Northcutt, treecutter, truongwp, tsimmons, Tung Du, Udit Desai, Ulrich, Vagios Vlachos, valchovski, Valentin Bora, Vayu Robins, veromary, Viktor Szépe, vinkla, virginienacci, Vladimir, Vladislav Abrashev, vortfu, voyager131, vtieu, webaware, Weston Ruter, William Earnhardt, williampatton, Winstina, wpdesk, WPDO, WPMarmite, wppinar, Yahil Madakiya, yashrs, yoancutillas, yohannp, yuhin, Yui, Yuri Salame, Yvette Sonneveld, Zack Tollman, zaheerahmad, zakkath, Zebulan Stanphill, zieladam, and Česlav Przywara.
Many thanks to all of the community volunteers who contribute in the support forums. They answer questions from people across the world, whether they are using WordPress for the first time or since the first release. These releases are more successful for their efforts!
Finally, thanks to all the community translators who worked on WordPress 5.5. Their efforts bring WordPress fully translated to 46 languages at release time, with more on the way.
If you want to learn more about volunteering with WordPress, check out Make WordPress or the core development blog.
WordPress 5.5 is slated for release on August 11, 2020, but we need your help to get there—if you haven’t tried 5.5 yet, now is the time!
You can test the WordPress 5.5 release candidate in two ways:
Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.
Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.5 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.5. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums, so those can be figured out before the final release.
For a more detailed breakdown of the changes included in WordPress 5.5, check out the WordPress 5.5 beta 1 post. The WordPress 5.5 Field Guide is also out! It’s your source for details on all the major changes.
Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages! This release also marks the hard string freeze point of the 5.5 release schedule.
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, fill one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
]]>July was full of WordPress 5.5 updates! The WordPress 5.5 Beta 1 came out on July 7, followed by Beta 2 on July 14, Beta 3 on July 21, and Beta 4 on July 27. Subsequently, the team also published the first release candidate of WordPress 5.5 on July 28.
WordPress 5.5, which is slated for release on August 11, 2020, is a major update with features like automatic updates for plugins and themes, a block directory, XML sitemaps, block patterns, and lazy-loading images, among others. To learn more about the release, check out its field guide post.
Want to get involved in building WordPress Core? Follow the Core team blog, and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
The core team launched Gutenberg 8.5 and 8.6. Version 8.5 – the last plugin release will be included entirely (without experimental features) in WordPress 5.5, introduced improvements to block drag-and-drop and accessibility, easier updates for external images, and support for the block directory. Version 8.6 comes with features like Cover block video position controls and block pattern updates. For full details on the latest versions on these Gutenberg releases, visit these posts about 8.5 and 8.6.
Want to get involved in building Gutenberg? Follow the Core team blog, contribute to Gutenberg on GitHub, and join the #core-editor channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
The Community team made the difficult decision to suspend in-person WordPress events for the rest of 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team has also started working on reimagining online events. Based on feedback from the community members, the team decided to make changes to the current online WordCamp format. Key changes include wrapping up financial support for A/V vendors, ending event swag support for newer online WordCamps, and suspending the Global Community Sponsorship program for 2020. The team encourages upcoming online WordCamps to experiment with their events to facilitate an effective learning experience for attendees while avoiding online event fatigue. The team is currently working on a proposal to organize community-supported recorded workshops and synchronous discussion groups to help community members learn WordPress.
Want to get involved with the Community team? Follow the Community blog here, or join them in the #community-events channel in the Making WordPress Slack group. To organize a Meetup or WordCamp, visit the handbook page.
The organizers of WordCamp US 2020 have canceled the event in light of the continued pandemic and online event fatigue. The flagship event, which was originally scheduled for October 27-29 as an in-person event, had already planned to transition to an online event. Several WCUS Organizers will be working with the WordPress Community team to focus on other formats and ideas for online events, including a 24-hour contributor day, and contributing to the workshops initiative currently being discussed. Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word (which typically accompanies WordCamp US) is likely to take place in a different format later in 2020.
After eleven years, WordPress now allows users to update plugins and themes by uploading a ZIP file, in WordPress 5.5. The feature, which was merged on July 7, has been one of the most requested features in WordPress. Now, when a user tries to upload a plugin or theme zip file from the WordPress dashboard by clicking the “Install Now” button, WordPress will direct users to a new screen that compares the currently-installed extension with the uploaded versions. Users can then choose between continuing with the installation or canceling. WordPress 5.5 will also offer automatic plugin and theme updates.
Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it here.
]]>This is an important milestone in the community’s progress toward the final release of WordPress 5.5.
“Release Candidate” means that the new version is ready for release, but with millions of users and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s possible something was missed. WordPress 5.5 is slated for release on August 11, 2020, but we need your help to get there—if you haven’t tried 5.5 yet, now is the time!
You can test the WordPress 5.5 release candidate in two ways:
Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.
WordPress 5.5 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developer notes tag for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.
Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.5 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.5. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums, so those can be figured out before the final release.
The WordPress 5.5 Field Guide, due very shortly, will give you a more detailed dive into the major changes.
Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages! This release also marks the hard string freeze point of the 5.5 release schedule.
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, fill one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
]]>This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.
You can test WordPress 5.5 Beta 4 in two ways:
WordPress 5.5 is slated for release on August 11th, 2020, and we need your help to get there!
Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the beta 3 development release and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.
Since beta 3, 43 bugs have been fixed. Here are a few changes in beta 4:
"loading"
as an allowed kses image attribute (see #50731).$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']
not a reliable when generating email host names (see #25239)WordPress 5.5 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developers’ notes for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.
Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you!
If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
]]>This software is still in development,so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.
You can test WordPress 5.5 Beta 3 in two ways:
WordPress 5.5 is slated for release on August 11th, 2020, and we need your help to get there!
Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the beta 2 development release and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.
Since beta 2, 43 bugs have been fixed. Here are a few changes in beta 3:
permission_callback
now trigger a _doing_it_wrong()
warning (see #50075).WordPress 5.5 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developers’ notes for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.
Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you!
If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
]]>This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.
You can test WordPress 5.5 beta 2 in two ways:
WordPress 5.5 is slated for release on August 11th, 2020, and we need your help to get there!
Thank you to all of the contributors that tested the beta 1 development release and provided feedback. Testing for bugs is an important part of polishing each release and a great way to contribute to WordPress. Here are some of the changes since beta 1 to pay close attention to while testing.
Since beta 1, 48 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of a few changes included in beta 2:
wp_list_table
(see #49715).Several updates have been made to the block editor. For details, see #23903 and #23905.
WordPress 5.5 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developers’ notes for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.
Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you!
If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
]]>This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.
You can test the WordPress 5.5 beta in two ways:
The current target for final release is August 11, 2020. This is only five weeks away. Your help is needed to ensure this release is tested properly.
Testing for bugs is an important part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute. Here are some of the big changes and features to pay close attention to while testing.
WordPress 5.5 will include eleven releases of the Gutenberg plugin, bringing with it a long list of exciting new features. Here are just a few:
In all, WordPress 5.5 brings more than 1,500 useful improvements to the block editor experience.
To see all of the features for each release in detail check out the release posts: 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.8, 7.9, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and 8.5.
XML Sitemaps are now included in WordPress and enabled by default. Sitemaps are essential to search engines discovering the content on your website. Your site’s home page, posts, pages, custom post types, and more will be included to improve your site’s visibility.
WordPress 5.5 also brings auto-updates for plugins and themes. Easily control which plugins and themes keep themselves up to date on their own. It’s always recommended that you run the latest versions of all plugins and themes. The addition of this feature makes that easier than ever!
WordPress 5.5 will include native support for lazy-loaded images utilizing new browser standards. With lazy-loading, images will not be sent to users until they approach the viewport. This saves bandwidth for everyone (users, hosts, ISPs), makes it easier for those with slower internet speeds to browse the web, saves electricity, and more.
With every release, WordPress works hard to improve accessibility. Version 5.5 is no different and packs a parcel of accessibility fixes and enhancements. Take a look:
prefers-reduced-motion
media query.Error:
prefixes have been removed from error notices.Keep your eyes on the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.5-related developer notes in the coming weeks, breaking down these and other changes in greater detail.
So far, contributors have fixed more than 360 tickets in WordPress 5.5, including 157 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.
Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!
If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.
Props to @webcommsat, @yvettesonneveld, @estelaris, and @marybaum for compiling/writing this post, @davidbaumwald for editing/proof reading, and @cbringmann, @desrosj, and @andreamiddleton for final review.
]]>We said hello to WordPress 5.4.2 on June 10. This security and maintenance release features 17 fixes and 4 enhancements, so we recommend that you update your sites immediately. To download WordPress 5.4.2, visit your Dashboard, click on Updates, then Update Now, or download the latest version directly from WordPress.org. For more information, visit this post, review the full list of changes on Trac, or check out the HelpHub documentation page for version 5.4.2. WordPress 5.4.2 is a short-cycle maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.5, planned for August 2020.
Want to get involved in building WordPress Core? Follow the Core team blog, and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
The core team launched Gutenberg 8.3 and 8.4 this month, paving the way for some exciting block editor features. Version 8.3 introduced enhancements like a reorganized, more intuitive set of block categories, a parent block selector, an experimental spacing control, and user-controlled link color options. Version 8.4 comes with new image-editing tools and the ability to edit options for multiple blocks. The block directory search feature that was previously available as an experimental feature, is now enabled for all Gutenberg installations. For full details on the latest versions on these Gutenberg releases, visit these posts about 8.3 and 8.4.
Want to get involved in building Gutenberg? Follow the Core team blog, contribute to Gutenberg on GitHub, and join the #core-editor channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
In a major update, WordPress has bumped the minimum PHP recommendation to 7.2. The ServeHappy API has been updated to set the minimum acceptable PHP version to 7.2, while the WordPress downloads page recommends 7.3 or newer. Previously, the ServeHappy dashboard widget was showing the upgrade notice to users of PHP 5.6 or lower. This decision comes after discussions with the core Site Health team and the Hosting team, both of which recommended that the upgrade notice be shown to users of PHP <=7.1.
Following the success of a remote WordCamp Spain, WordCamp Europe was held fully online from June 4 to 6. The event drew a record 8,600 signups from people based in 138 countries, along with 2,500 signups for contributor day. WCEU Online also showcased 33 speakers and 40 sponsors, in addition to a Q&A with Matt Mullenweg. You can find the videos of the event in WordPress.tv by following this link, or you can catch the live stream recording of the entire event from the WP Europe YouTube Channel.
Want to get involved with the Community team? Follow the Community blog here, or join them in the #community-events channel in the Making WordPress Slack group. To organize a Meetup or WordCamp, visit the handbook page.
Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it here.
]]>This security and maintenance release features 23 fixes and enhancements. Plus, it adds a number of security fixes—see the list below.
These bugs affect WordPress versions 5.4.1 and earlier; version 5.4.2 fixes them, so you’ll want to upgrade.
If you haven’t yet updated to 5.4, there are also updated versions of 5.3 and earlier that fix the bugs for you.
WordPress versions 5.4 and earlier are affected by the following bugs, which are fixed in version 5.4.2. If you haven’t yet updated to 5.4, there are also updated versions of 5.3 and earlier that fix the security issues.
Thank you to all of the reporters for privately disclosing the vulnerabilities. This gave the security team time to fix the vulnerabilities before WordPress sites could be attacked.
One maintenance update was also deployed to versions 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3. See the related developer note for more information.
You can browse the full list of changes on Trac.
For more info, browse the full list of changes on Trac or check out the Version 5.4.2 documentation page.
WordPress 5.4.2 is a short-cycle maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.5.
You can download WordPress 5.4.2 from the button at the top of this page, or visit your Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now.
If you have sites that support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process.
In addition to the security researchers mentioned above, thank you to everyone who helped make WordPress 5.4.2 happen:
Andrea Fercia, argentite, M Asif Rahman, Jb Audras, Ayesh Karunaratne, bdcstr, Delowar Hossain, Rob Migchels, donmhico, Ehtisham Siddiqui, Emilie LEBRUN, finomeno, garethgillman, Giorgio25b, Gabriel Maldonado, Hector F, Ian Belanger, Aaron Jorbin, Mathieu Viet, Javier Casares, Joe McGill, jonkolbert, Jono Alderson, Joy, Tammie Lister, Kjell Reigstad, KT, markusthiel, Mayank Majeji, Mel Choyce-Dwan, mislavjuric, Mukesh Panchal, Nikhil Bhansi, oakesjosh, Dominik Schilling, Arslan Ahmed, Peter Wilson, Carolina Nymark, Stephen Bernhardt, Sam Fullalove, Alain Schlesser, Sergey Biryukov, skarabeq, Daniel Richards, Toni Viemerö, suzylah, Timothy Jacobs, TeBenachi, Jake Spurlock and yuhin.
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