WordPress 5.0 under the Christmas tree

Yesterday we have learned that WordPress 5.0 will be released on December 6th (tomorrow).

This news was a surprise to us as we all thought it would have been released after the Christmas holidays.

Given the short notice, we would like to give you some advice and make you consider a few things. We would also like to specify that YITH is ready for this new version.

Before updating to WordPress 5.0, we want you to spend two minutes thinking about the future of your business and ask yourself some questions.

Do you think this is the right moment to update to WordPress 5.0?

December is a month when everyone is weighed down with work due to the upcoming holidays. All the stores are crowded and also online shops register this month as the most profitable of the year.

Consider that in January, when holidays will be over, you can update calmly. Moreover, the patches already scheduled will be released and your system will be more stable.

Will your site work with Gutenberg?

WordPress 5.0 will integrate Gutenberg. Gutenberg is a new text editor with higher performances that will revolutionize the way of writing in WordPress. If you still don’t know about Gutenberg, I suggest referring to this.

YITH plugins are almost all ready and many have been already released with support to the new version, but since not all of them are ready, it is important for you to know whether those you are using can support the update.

If you are using other plugins in addition to YITH ones that integrate with Gutenberg, please check (by testing them or consulting the plugin documentation) they are ready or at least that they won’t cause fatal errors. Otherwise, I suggest installing and activating the plugin Classic Editor before the update.

Just to be clear, we love Gutenberg and YITH plugins have integrated blocks to use their own shortcodes. We are ready! Yet, we think this version will be even more stable and safer in January.

Therefore, our advice is the following: slow and steady wins the race.

If you still want to update to WordPress 5.0

Before updating, make a backup. If you have a staging environment, we recommend testing there the new version first.

If you don’t have any and your site is fully active and essential for your business, create one. This advice is valid also for any major release.