WordPress 5.0 Is Out and Can Wait a Few Weeks

Released today

WordPress 5.0 came out today. Its main change is the block editor, developed under the name Gutenberg, which replaces the screen used to write and edit posts and pages.

Instead of one large text box, every paragraph, heading, image and list becomes a block that can be moved and styled on its own. Twenty Nineteen, a new default theme designed around blocks, arrives with it.

On most sites it will not arrive by itself. Major versions wait for somebody to press update, unless a host or developer has arranged otherwise.

The update notice is already appearing in dashboards. For most business sites, today is not the day to press it.

What changes when you update

• The editing screen for posts and pages becomes blocks.
• Existing content stays as it is, inside a single Classic block.
• Boxes added by plugins below the editor may move or behave differently.
• Page builders may take over the screen, or may need an update first.
• The public site should look the same until somebody edits.
• Older themes may not style new blocks, such as wide images.

The second is the reassurance most owners need. Nothing already published is converted; a page only changes when somebody opens it in the new editor and saves it.

Why not today

A large release always reveals problems that testing missed, and the fixes arrive in point releases over the following weeks. Waiting for the first of those costs nothing.

Theme and plugin authors are catching up too. Many have released updates for 5.0; some have not, and some never will.

December is also the busiest month for many businesses and for the people who maintain their sites. An editing screen that changes the week before a holiday sale is a poor surprise.

And a site that stays on 4.9 for a few weeks loses little. WordPress has long sent security fixes to older versions, and on most sites those install themselves.

What the Classic Editor plugin keeps

The Classic Editor plugin, from the WordPress team itself, brings back the previous editor and the edit screen around it, including the boxes plugins add there.

It can be installed now, before the update. On 4.9 it changes nothing, and once 5.0 arrives it means the people who write posts see the screen they already know.

It does not make the rest of the update safe. Themes, page builders and plugins still need checking, because 5.0 changes more than the editor's appearance.

Testing on a copy

A staging copy is a private duplicate of the site, carrying its theme, its plugins and its content, where mistakes cost nothing.

Update the copy first. Then look at the public pages on a phone and a computer, open a typical post and a typical page in the editor, write a new draft, and save it.

Send every form, place a test order if there is a shop, and try everything with the Classic Editor both on and off. Note what fails, and who needs to fix it.

A worked example

A curling club's website is kept up by two volunteers: one posts league news and results each week, the other looks after the bonspiel registration form. A web company maintains the site and keeps a staging copy.

As soon as the release appeared, the copy went to 5.0. The weekly news posts opened without trouble, each inside a Classic block, and a test post written in blocks looked fine on the site.

The league and draw pages did not. They had been built with a page builder bundled inside the theme.

In the new editor each of them opened as one block full of shortcodes, the bracketed codes the builder uses to store its layouts.

The builder could not be updated on its own. Its next version would arrive only with an update to the theme.

So the Classic Editor went onto the live site today, changing nothing for the volunteers. The live update waits until January, after the holiday bonspiel and the theme update.

In the meantime, the news volunteer is trying blocks on the copy.

Themes and page builders

Page builders store their layouts their own way, and most take over the editing screen for the pages they built. Whether that still works under 5.0 depends on the version installed.

A builder installed as a separate plugin can usually be updated. One bundled inside a premium theme updates only when the theme does, which is why bundled builders are where problems collect.

Themes matter for new content rather than old. A theme not yet updated for blocks may show galleries, columns and wide images plainly or awkwardly, while everything published before looks as it did.

Plugins that add boxes to the editor

Plugins for search engine titles, custom fields, event calendars and forms often add their own boxes to the edit screen.

Most work in the block editor, some in a panel to the side or below, and a few only on the classic screen.

On the copy, open the edit screen and check that each box is present and saves what it should.

Plugins that have not been updated in two years deserve the closest look. Nobody is preparing them for 5.0.

The counter-case

Some sites can update sooner. A simple blog with a current theme and few plugins, or a site whose host manages updates and has tested the release, may have little to fear.

A site being built now should be built for blocks from the start, so it never needs the old editor at all.

And nobody should treat the Classic Editor as a reason to put this off for years. The breathing space is real, but it ends.

For most business sites: test on a copy, install the Classic Editor if anything fails, and update within weeks, not months.

Before the update

1. Leave the update button alone today.
2. Make a staging copy of the site.
3. Update the copy and look around.
4. Open pages built with your page builder.
5. Check every plugin box on the edit screen.
6. Install the Classic Editor if anything fails.
7. Schedule the live update for a quiet week.

Step four is where most business sites will find their problems. Posts written in the old editor open cleanly; pages laid out with a builder are where 5.0 and an older site disagree.

Why the old editor is a breathing space rather than a permanent home is covered in the Classic Editor will be supported until 2021.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.