WordPress

WordPress 5.6 Beta 4 WordPress 5.6 Beta 4 is now available for testing! This software is still in development, so we recommend that you run this version on a test site. You can test the WordPress 5.6 beta in two ways: Try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (choose the “bleeding edge nightlies” option). Or download the beta here (zip). The current target for the final release is December 8, 2020. This is just over three weeks away, so your help is needed to ensure this release is tested properly. Thank you to all of the contributors that tested the beta 3 development release and provided feedback. Testing for bugs is an important part of polishing each release and a great way to contribute to WordPress. Some Highlights Since beta 3, 42 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of a few changes included in beta 4: There was a change [ more… ]

WordPress 5.6 Beta 3 WordPress 5.6 Beta 3 is now available for testing! This software is still in development, so we recommend that you run this version on a test site. You can test the WordPress 5.6 beta in two ways: Try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (choose the “bleeding edge nightlies” option). Or download the beta here (zip). The current target for the final release is December 8, 2020. This is just five weeks away, so your help is needed to ensure this release is tested properly. Thank you to all of the contributors that tested the beta 2 development release and provided feedback. Testing for bugs is an important part of polishing each release and a great way to contribute to WordPress. Some Highlights Since beta 2, 20 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of a few changes included in beta 3: Added block patterns for Twenty [ more… ]

The Month in WordPress: October 2020 October 2020 was a notable month for WordPress lovers, thanks to the release of several products and updates. Read on to keep up with all the latest news! The 2020 WordPress Annual Survey is out The team published the 2020 WordPress Annual survey —  to help those who build WordPress to understand more about our software usage and our contributors’ experience. The Annual Survey will be open for at least 6 weeks and is available in French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. The survey results (once complete) will be posted on WordPress.org/news. The 2019 survey results have also been released and can now be viewed as slides or downloaded in PDF format.  WordPress Translation celebrations spanned four weeks The last week of September and most of October were focused on recruiting and encouraging polyglot [ more… ]

WordPress 5.5.3 Maintenance Release WordPress 5.5.3 is now available.  This maintenance release fixes an issue introduced in WordPress 5.5.2 which makes it impossible to install WordPress on a brand new website that does not have a database connection configured. This release does not affect sites where a database connection is already configured, for example, via one-click installers or an existing wp-config.php file. 5.5.3-alpha Issue Earlier today — between approximately 15:30 and 16:00 UTC — the auto-update system for WordPress updated some sites from version 5.5.2 to version 5.5.3-alpha. This auto-update was due to an error in the Updates API caused by the 5.5.3 release preparations (see more here). The 5.5.3-alpha version at this point was functionally identical to 5.5.2 as no development work had been started on 5.5.3; however, the following changes may have been made to your site: The [ more… ]

WordPress 5.5.2 Security and Maintenance Release WordPress 5.5.2 is now available! This security and maintenance release features 14 bug fixes in addition to 10 security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated. WordPress 5.5.2 is a short-cycle security and maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.6. You can download WordPress 5.5.2 by downloading from WordPress.org, 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. Security Updates Seven security issues affect WordPress versions 5.5 and earlier. If you haven’t yet updated to 5.5, all WordPress versions since 3.7 have also been updated to fix the following security issues: Props to Alex Concha of the [ more… ]