WordPress released its latest update, WordPress 5.0, this past Thursday, November 6, 2018.
I realize this is short notice, but WordPress didn’t announce it until two days prior.
Why is this important? WordPress releases updates all the time.
Well, this release contains a significant change to the native page and post editing experience with the introduction of the Gutenberg visual block editor (https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/) to the core of WordPress.
This change has been in development for over a year and has stirred great controversy in the WordPress community. The controversy largely revolves around the widespread opinion that the plugin is not yet ready for release. Despite calls from the WordPress community to delay the release until January so more of the bugs can be worked out, WordPress decided to release it anyway.
Fortunately, you are not forced to use it. You can opt-out of using it by choosing to install the Classic Editor plugin which will disable Gutenberg and return the native editing experience to what we all are familiar with.
What does this mean for WP WolfePress customers?
WP WolfePress doesn’t believe our customers should have to deal with all the technicalities and potential problems that having Gutenberg show up in their WordPress installation automatically may cause.
So, at this point, I am proactively doing two things to start.
- I have deferred automatic WordPress core updates on all WP WolfePress-managed sites, where possible, until the end of December 2018. If you see prompts to Update to WordPress 5.0 in your WordPress dashboard, please refrain from doing so.
- Between now and the first of the year, I will take care of installing the Classic Editor plugin for our customers so when I do update to WordPress 5.0, everything will still work the way it does now.
I will continue to monitor the development progress of Gutenberg. When I believe it is stable enough to use, I will notify all WP WolfePress customers and begin incremental Gutenberg implementation.
I will also assemble some Gutenberg tutorial links for your reference.
The stability and performance of our customers’ websites are top priorities for WP WolfePress and I will always strive to make sure their website’s environment provides the best possible customer experience.
