What’s New in WordPress Version 5.4 – Non Block Editor

Video Transcript

This class is going to introduce you to WordPress version 5.4 and some of the additions and changes that come with it. Now whenever you update to a new version, be sure to do a full backup of both your site files and database both for doing that update.

Now just a couple of things about major and minor updates to WordPress and I’ve mentioned this most every single time these updates are released, but it is worth repeating for those of you that have not heard it before. So the version numbers for major updates involve a change in the first two digits, 5.2 to 5.3 or 5.3 to 5.4 for example. Now the version numbers for minor updates involve a change in the third digit, like 5.4 to 5.4 0.1 or 5.4 0.1 to 5.4 0.2 again, there’s a third digit that has changed and that’s a can tell the difference between a minor and major update in either case.

Remember that rule to do backups before you update stuff, and that even includes plugins and themes, not to mention the core files of WordPress. Now the other thing about major and minor updates is that with major updates, you should wait a few days before updating and with minor updates you need to install them immediately. Now you can do the major updates right away if you have that full backup that I told you about so that if something goes wonky, you can just revert to that backup. And here’s why. Major updates involve the addition of goodies. You can see like new themes or features like new blocks along with things that you cannot see, like overall site speed and security. Now some of these new features or goodies might break certain plugins that you have. So waiting a few days to let the WordPress community do their tests is always a good idea.

In other words, let it break somebody else’s site. Now minor updates, however, usually involve security patches and bug fixes and that’s why they need to be installed immediately. So remember the difference between minor and major. Always do full backups before you do either and do those minor updates immediately. Hold off a little bit on the major updates. Okay, now that we have that out of the way, what’s new in version 5.4 of WordPress?

Well, there’s actually so many new things in WordPress 5.4 that I’ve broken it down into three different categories or three separate classes. This class will cover the non block related items well in addition to the differences between a major and a minor update, but the next two classes in this little mini series, we’ll cover the additions and changes in the block editor itself. And then in the final class it’s going to cover the additions and changes in blocks.

So definitely check out those two classes. But to finish up this class, once you have the update in place for version 5.4 you’ll be brought to the about dot PHP page, which by the way, if you want to review this and you’ve closed out, it’s not that easy to find. So remember this URL, your domain name slash WP dash admin slash about dot PHP and that’ll bring you back here and this gives you an overview of majority of the things that have been changed or added to this new version and since this is the class on non block related items, I want to bring your attention down here about midway down the page because there’s really only two items. Like I said, the majority of the items in this new version deals with the block editor and blocks themselves. Plus there are several items that deal with the site speed and other developer related things that most of us end users will not be messing with.

But if you are in the developer category down at the very bottom of the page, that’s where you want to pay attention to.
But the two items that are non block related I want to bring to your attention is a stuff on privacy and you can read about that here and the new widget added to our admin dashboard. Let’s go check that out real quick and as recite health status gives you a little bit of a rundown here of some of the items you might want to pay attention to. If it’s red, this will give you a list of the items you definitely want to pay attention to and you can click on the link here to get more info on those.

But if you are seeing this module and you don’t want to see it on your dashboard or you’re not seeing it and you do want to see it on your dashboard, come on up here to this screen options tab, click on that and you can toggle this module off or on and making sure there’s a check in that box or removing that check. And those are the two non block related items I wanted to cover in this class. So definitely be sure to check out the following two classes in this little mini series. The next being the changes in additions to the editor itself and then the final class, the changes in additions to the blocks. So thanks for checking out this class and I’ll see you in the next one. Have a great day.