WordPress 5.7 – What’s New?

WordPress describes the update as:

“Bringing you fresh colours in the admin, simpler interactions in the editor, and controls right where you need them, WordPress 5.7 lets you focus on the content you create”

So from this we can gather that 5.7 is aiming to get more users on board with Gutenburg editor, with their next review on whether to continue supporting the classic editor coming at the end of this year.

So what does 5.7 bring to the table, and are there any issues could it pose for your site?

Here’s a little summary of the main changes you can expect with the update.

jQuery Improvements

5.7 will continue to build on and tidy up after the jQuery update, that started with WordPress 5.5. It’ll be less intrusive and notifications will make more sense to users.

However, if you have yet to upgrade to version 5.5 or newer, you may experience issues with plugins or themes that are not compatible with the latest jQuery version. This could lead to things not working on the frontend of your site, or in your admin area.

This is unlikely to be a problem if your WordPress site is custom built by a development agency. But if you use a pre-built theme, and numerous plugins, it is definitely worth bearing in mind.

Changes To The Editor

Along with the usual bug fixes and more minor changes, some of the most notable are:

• Easier access to font size controls
• More button options, with vertical and horizontal layout
• Full height blocks 
• Drag and drop for blocks and patterns from the inserter
• Improvements to reusable blocks

New WP Admin Colour Palette 

7 colours and 56 shades that meet WCAG 2.0 AA contrast ratio recommendations.

One Click Switch From HTTP To HTTPS

With one click, WordPress will now update your database URLS.

Lazy Loading For Iframes

This will include all content that embeds in iframes, like YouTube videos, and should improve page load speed.

For developers there are plenty of changes too.

A New Robots API

This will allow developers to make changes to the robots meta tag, adding filter directives, and max-image-preview:large is now included by default. Meaning that now large  image previews can be displayed in search engines for public posts.

So there we have it. WordPress 5.7 in a nutshell.

Worried about making the update, or concerned that your plugins might break with the jQuery changes? We have a range of WordPress Support & Maintenance plans, which take care of updates, plugins, performance, bug fixing and so much more. You can download our Support brochure for further information here.