WordPress 5.0 is coming. Here’s how we are going to handle it.

WordPress announced the release of version 5.0 will arrive on December 6th. No one but the WordPress folks are happy about this because it is being rushed to market so it can be launched ahead of their WordCamp US get-together.

While WordPress 5.0 does bring some security fixes it also brings along the Gutenberg editor, a major change to the way content is managed. Gutenberg has been in development for close to 3 years but there are still issues about it that have not been resolved. I won’t get into that here but suffice it to say it needs some more time in the oven.

How we are going to handle 5.0: we are not going to install it until at least the 5.0.1 release comes out.

A major version upgrade is not trivial and feel it is unwise to jump on the newest version immediately. Any security issues should* be addressed in a 4.9.9 update. (*Anyone with any sense would do this).

We do not have automatic updates turned on and the automatic updater will not update a major release version anyway so there is nothing to worry about there. However, large site hosts may so do not be surprised if you hear a mini WordPress armageddon from hosts that perform blanket updates.

Now, this is how we will handle the upgrade once we get to it:

1. A complete backup of your site will be made and placed in a safe spot. This will be in addition to any other backups that currently exist.
2. Your site will be taken offline so no one can access it.
3. WordPress will be upgraded.
4. The site will be thoroughly tested to ensure it is working properly
5. If there are any conflicts with page builders or editors we will install the Classic Editor plugin and test it.
6. If the Classic Editor plugin resolves the outstanding issues we will consider the upgrade a success and move along.

If you wish to have your site upgraded sooner rather than later please let us know and we will get you in the upgrade queue.

Update 12/7/2018: We took the plunge and updated the WMD site to 5.0 without incident. We are still evaluating the software and will proceed on a case by case basis.