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So I waited like a good boy to make sure plugins had a chance to update and Wordpress itself had a chance to root out any bugs in their new Wordpress 5.5 roll out.
I'm looking at it now and wanted to share some info so you don't have to go on the hunt to understand it all. Here's the most important stuff.
Native Sitemaps
WP now has a native sitemap that is auto-generated and located at
You can disable the WP Sitemap using
Please note that I have not tested the code above.
Auto-Updates
Wordpress can now automatically update plugins and themes. This is a bad idea because you need to let them fix bugs. I try to stay a version behind, and if I can't then I wait as long as I can before updating. This auto-updating is disabled by default. You could probably turn it on for themes and be fine though.
Gutenberg Block Editor
It has different CSS, looks sleeker, runs a little better. There's now a Block API that speeds up rendering. The Preview functionality now lets you choose Desktop, Tablet, or Mobile so you don't have to resize your browser. That's kind of cool.
They introduced Block Patterns, where you can save designs in innerblocks and reuse them instead of having to rebuild the designs out over and over. There's some new image editing crap in there that nobody should be using if they care about page speed at all.
And the Block Directory finally came out. You can install blocks like you would plugins from the repository. This is probably the best feature for most people that want improved designs but can't build custom blocks. Get ready for the bloat though if you go crazy with it. Keep your page speed in mind.
Lazy Loading
Wordpress finally added the upcoming native lazy loading that all browsers will implement eventually. Adoption is low, so if you're still using a lazy loading plugin, keep using it and make sure the plugin disables the lazy loading. You should know based on the
Disabling Lazy Loading without a plugin is as simple as as adding
The most important change they made here too is that Gutenberg images finally include inline widths and heights for your images. How in the world they rolled that out without those is beyond me, but you'll notice your "Cumulative Layout Shift" scores on Pagespeed Insights and in Search Console are dog shit without this. I'm super glad they fixed this. I had no clue it was coming, they were quiet about it. Good stuff here.
jQuery Migrate
It's gone. They no longer include it or enqueue it. That means a lot of plugins and themes can potentially break. jQuery Migrate includes deprecated functions from older version of jQuery. Plugins and themes should have removed these over time as they're deprecated but many don't. Check your site on a staging server first!
Template Arguments
Why it took this long, I don't know, but you can finally pass arguments through:
Dashicons Final Update
They added 71 new icons. I'm not sure what the total count is and this may not matter to you if you're not a developer, but it's nice to have more choices, especially when assigning an icon to custom blocks.
I'm looking at it now and wanted to share some info so you don't have to go on the hunt to understand it all. Here's the most important stuff.
Native Sitemaps
WP now has a native sitemap that is auto-generated and located at
/wp-sitemap.xml. If you're using Yoast this will automatically be disabled and the URL will redirect to the Yoast sitemap at /sitemap-index.xml. If you want to use the WP Sitemap then your server needs to have the SimpleXML PHP extension installed. They don't offer an image sitemap, but it looks like Yoast got rid of that too.You can disable the WP Sitemap using
add_filter( 'wp_sitemaps_enabled', '__return_false' ); in your functions.php, but that only disables the output, but still runs all the functionality. To totally kill it off you need:
Code:
add_action( 'init', function() {
remove_action( 'init', 'wp_sitemaps_get_server' );
}, 5 );Auto-Updates
Wordpress can now automatically update plugins and themes. This is a bad idea because you need to let them fix bugs. I try to stay a version behind, and if I can't then I wait as long as I can before updating. This auto-updating is disabled by default. You could probably turn it on for themes and be fine though.
Gutenberg Block Editor
It has different CSS, looks sleeker, runs a little better. There's now a Block API that speeds up rendering. The Preview functionality now lets you choose Desktop, Tablet, or Mobile so you don't have to resize your browser. That's kind of cool.
They introduced Block Patterns, where you can save designs in innerblocks and reuse them instead of having to rebuild the designs out over and over. There's some new image editing crap in there that nobody should be using if they care about page speed at all.
And the Block Directory finally came out. You can install blocks like you would plugins from the repository. This is probably the best feature for most people that want improved designs but can't build custom blocks. Get ready for the bloat though if you go crazy with it. Keep your page speed in mind.
Lazy Loading
Wordpress finally added the upcoming native lazy loading that all browsers will implement eventually. Adoption is low, so if you're still using a lazy loading plugin, keep using it and make sure the plugin disables the lazy loading. You should know based on the
loading="lazy" style of attributes in the HTML.Disabling Lazy Loading without a plugin is as simple as as adding
add_filter( 'wp_lazy_loading_enabled', '__return_false' ); to your functions.php.The most important change they made here too is that Gutenberg images finally include inline widths and heights for your images. How in the world they rolled that out without those is beyond me, but you'll notice your "Cumulative Layout Shift" scores on Pagespeed Insights and in Search Console are dog shit without this. I'm super glad they fixed this. I had no clue it was coming, they were quiet about it. Good stuff here.
jQuery Migrate
It's gone. They no longer include it or enqueue it. That means a lot of plugins and themes can potentially break. jQuery Migrate includes deprecated functions from older version of jQuery. Plugins and themes should have removed these over time as they're deprecated but many don't. Check your site on a staging server first!
Template Arguments
Why it took this long, I don't know, but you can finally pass arguments through:
- get_header()
- get_footer()
- get_sidebar()
- get_template_part()
- locate_template()
- load_template()
Dashicons Final Update
They added 71 new icons. I'm not sure what the total count is and this may not matter to you if you're not a developer, but it's nice to have more choices, especially when assigning an icon to custom blocks.
This has been a BuSo Public Service Announcement.
May we all prosper and stay healthy.
May we all prosper and stay healthy.
