What’s New in WordPress Version 5.3
Video Transcript
This class is going to introduce you to the WordPress version 5.3 and some of the additions and changes that come with it and just keep this in mind whenever you update to a new version. Be sure to do a full backup of both your site files and database before you do that update and just a quick public service announcement. There’s a difference between a major update like this one and minor update. Minor updates involve the third digit in the versioning numbers like 5.3.2 that third digit there. Whenever there’s a change in that third digit or an addition of a third digit, that’s a minor update and those involve security patches and bug fixes and need to be installed immediately. Major updates involve a change in the second digit be a 5.2 or 5.3 that’s a major update and that involves the addition of goodies.
You can see like new themes or features like new blocks along with things you cannot see like overall site speed and security. Some of those new features or goodies might break certain plugins you got installed on your site. So waiting a few days to let the entire WordPress community do their tests is always a good idea. So major updates, hold off a little bit, minor updates. Do those immediately. Okay, now without of the way, what’s new in version 5.3.
Well, once you’ve installed or updated to version 5.3 you’re brought to the about page. That’s WP dash admin slash about dot PHP and whatever version you are updating to in this example, 5.3 this page gives you a rundown of some of the enhancements or additions that come with that update. So we scroll down a bit here. It tells you a little bit about what’s going on.
Like here we’ve got a new theme, some block editor improvements. Like what it is saying here there’s a lot of little cosmetic updates like better color contrast to make things like buttons and tables stand out more. Now here’s a couple of examples of the admin areas. CSS changes here in 5.3 these are some of the improvements to make things within WordPress more easily accessible to people with disabilities. Folks typically that use screen readers for example. Plus, I just think it makes things look better and act better all around. Now probably the biggest update in WordPress 5.3 is the improvement in the block editor itself. Well, let’s back up a second.
WordPress has a plugin and the page and post editor, both are called Gutenberg. The plugin Gutenberg is where WordPress does all of its testing on improvements and added goodies before they actually put them into the editor called Gutenberg or block editor and at last count there are 13 additions and upgrades in the plugin that all have been added into the core here with 5.3 that’s a bunch and some of these improvements are on existing blocks and others are on new blocks altogether.
Like the group at brand new, the column was block been enhanced and as you get into the post and page block editor you’re going to see some of these changes and who knows by the time you checking out this class he may have even been more blocks added or existing blocks enhanced. As we scroll down further again, we’ve got the 2020 theme that’s been added and just a quick look at that. This image is not doing any justice because with the 2020 theme there’s more features involved in the customizer that were not available in prior WordPress default themes that really make this a premium theme in my opinion, so definitely check that out. Let me come on back here to the about page and scroll down further, gives you a look, see at some of the things you can do with the 2020 theme and among these other improvements that you’ve got, the automatic image rotation and the site health checks.
As of version 5.2 they took the site health check plugin and rolled that into the WordPress core which you can access over here in the admin sidebar under tools that clicking on-site health here now with version of 5.3 a made some improvements. They’ve taken a few things out and added even more things and overall made it a better tool for your site.
Again, that site health checks available here under tools and there are a few more additions with version 5.3 like the adding of images and the admin email verification, which basically just sends the administrator an email about every 60 to 90 days to make sure that admin email is still valid. So when you get those emails, don’t sweat it and we scroll down to the bottom here. One thing I did want to mention is the PHP compatibility. Make sure that you’ve got the most recent stable version of PHP working on your host.
If for some reason your hosting account still makes you use version 5.3 or 5.6 or even 7.0 contact them and tell them that you need that upgraded immediately to version of 7.2 or newer cause as of December one of 2019 version 7.1 and older are no longer being supported, which makes it a security risk. And if they’re unable to or unwilling to update your PHP version to 7.2 or newer, I had to start looking for a new host. Well, that’s going to bring us to the end of this class on an introduction to WordPress version 5.3 thanks for checking it out and you have a great day.