WordPress Tips

Wow, 2019 is over! Now is a good time to review the changes to WordPress in 2019 and assess how the CMS platform continues to innovate. While 2018 was a blockbuster for change with the introduction of Gutenberg, 2019 was a year that had its own key developments.

Here’s a look back at WordPress in 2019.

WordPress Gutenberg Celebrates its 1st Anniversary

Last year, many WordPress aficionados were wondering how Gutenberg would change WordPress. Many users were worried about the impact on the workflows and existing websites. Would Gutenberg be an improvement or would it be a bust?

As it turned out in 2018, Gutenberg did have several significant hiccups. However, 2019 was a year of steady improvements in UX. Developers added some exciting features to the block editor. The ability to create custom blocks has improved, and new tools enable a more visual approach to block creation.

In addition, 2019 gave developers an opportunity to adapt their software to work with blocks. A number of new plugins are now available that give you the capability to customize the block editing experience. The WordPress Plugin Repository has a special section devoted to block-friendly selections.

Gutenberg continues to create controversy. Still, the block editor has become a more solid option for content creators and developers alike. This should continue into 2020.

Major WordPress Releases Offer New Features

This year brought three major releases of WordPress with each one providing a variety of fixes, additions, and changes.

WordPress 5.1 “Betty”
Released: February 21, 2019

The first post-Gutenberg major release was WordPress 5.1 This included several performance-related improvements to Gutenberg.

Of particular note is the Site Health feature, which provides useful data about your website. For instance, it will detect which version of PHP you have and alert you if you need to upgrade. It will also give you information on your site’s setup to help with troubleshooting.
WordPress 5.1 also provides enhancements like the ability to store site meta within multisite networks. This enables you to group sites together by common meta element. Then, you can add specific features to individual sites based upon that data.

WordPress 5.2 “Jaco”
Released: May 7, 2019

Perhaps the most noticeable change here is that your WordPress install will send you an email when it detects a fatal PHP error. Through the use of a “recovery” mode, WordPress will allow administrators to access the site while the offending plugin or theme is paused.

A number of accessibility tweaks were added to the back end, which provide better keyboard navigation and overall flow.

WordPress 5.3 “Kirk”
Released: November 12, 2019

WordPress 5.3 placed a heavy emphasis on Gutenberg with over 150 new improvements and features to the block editor. One of the most exciting features was the group block, which enables you to combine multiple blocks into a single group. This makes it easier to style and move multiple blocks within the content. In addition, the columns block now offers the ability to resize individual columns – a great improvement.

Accessibility shortcomings within Gutenberg and the backend as a whole also took center stage. After upgrading to WordPress 5.3, you might have noticed that buttons and form fields have a different look. There was also an effort to make design across both the editor and the dashboard more consistent.

The Media Library also had some improvements with better support for uploading large, unoptimized images. WordPress will also automatically rotate images according to embedded orientation data.

Final Thoughts

If 2018 was all about sweeping change, then 2019 has been more about improvements to the new foundation. Stability and incremental improvement were the name of the game this year.

This has been a win/win for the entire WordPress ecosystem. Big innovations sometimes come with growing pains. But, that’s no reason to not innovate. For WordPress to continue to lead the pack, it must innovate while providing a solid platform.