What’s happening with WordPress
WordPress 5.7 was released on March 9, 2021, bringing with it new features, security updates, and enhancements. The update brings in some new scripts that are smaller and more secure than before, and some enhancements will speed up how your website is presented, so people will see your website faster.
New features include more blocks added to the Block Editor, and the ability for an administrator to manually send password reset links to users if for some reason they can’t use the “lost password” link. Security updates include improved HTTPS handling, and the ability to add async attributes to script tags. Lazy loading was added for iframes, which makes them only load and display when you’ve scrolled down on the page to where they would show up. This means your site loads faster from the getgo and only loads things when it needs to display them and no sooner.
What this means for your site
Third-party plugins that your site uses will need to be checked to make sure they are compatible with the new version of WordPress before updating WordPress. You may not want to update right away – rather, give the plugin developers a month or so to make sure they’re either up to date or have decided not to continue updating. WordPress plugin developers have been forewarned about the changes, and most have made adjustments, but some may not be active anymore. You’ll have to replace the plugins that don’t get updated because they will start to throw warnings and possibly malfunction with the new code changes after you update WordPress.
What’s happening with jQuery
Part of the new features and security updates is the update to jQuery version 3. jQuery has made some important changes in the way certain features are used and work, to make them behave more predictably following their established programming standards. Confusing and misleading code was removed and replaced with code that is more clear and consistent in its use.
What this means for developers
- Certain jQuery functions, like .hide() and .show(), now respect more stylesheet changes and don’t just brute force overwrite styles
- AJAX functionality will be altered to be compatible with Promises/A+ – use .then() and .catch() instead of .done() and .fail() unless you’re working with legacy Promises code. Legacy .then() code should be rewritten with .done() and .fail()
- .removeAttr() no longer sets matching properties to false
- Some properties that were deprecated were removed: .content, .selector
- .parseJSON() and .size() have been removed; browsers’ native functionality has replaced these.
- the “on ready” handling has been normalized so $(document).ready() is deprecated and $() should be used instead – this is a major change set to solidify in the future
- .width(), .height(), .css(‘width’), and .css(‘height’) can return non-integer values now, because they’re being returned using the getBoundingClientRect API now instead of native methods to be more accurate
- .outerHeight() and .outerWidth() now includes scrollbar width/height so it matches what CSS does with media queries
- Animations now use requestAnimationFrame so they take advantage of hardware acceleration and proper threading and animations are smoother and less processor-intensive
- .load(), .unload(), and .error() were removed because they conflict with other method names and DOM handling
- .bind(), .delegate(), .unbind(), and .undelegate() have been deprecated – .on() and .off() are the recommended replacements
Don’t panic!
Contact us and we’ll check on your site and advise you on the best course of action concerning this update. We can check through your plugins and help you determine the best course of action – whether you should wait a little longer to update, or update right now. If plugins need to be replaced, we can walk you through the details and help with the process. We want your site to stay up to date so it will serve you to its fullest capability. Call us with questions or fill out our Contact Us form and we’ll help you out!
