In this new version users are welcomed to a new post and page editor named Gutenberg. To certain extend, it is very similar to other page builders such as Divi.
However because Gutenberg comes intergated into WordPress, it will start appearing everywhere!
If you have a perfectly working website and you run WordPress 4.x, recommneded approach to upgrade is this:
- Clone your website into Staging area – you don’t want to experiment on your live website.
- Install Classic Editor plugin.
- Activate it. Check that everything you expect to work still works – this includes behaviour of various plugins, page and post editors.
- Backup your Staging area – just in case.
- Upgrade WordPress to the latest version, such as 5.0.3
- Go and check that your website renders alright.
- Check that plugins and page, post editors work fine.
- If all checks are good, go into Appearance -> Themes and delete Twenty Nineteen theme installed with WordPress 5.0. It is a best practice to uninstall any software you don’t use on your website.
- Take a backup of your Live website.
- Migrate newly updated website from Staging area to Live area.
- Verify again all works fine, starting with how the website renders itself to users.
Any recommendations for new websites? Gutenberg is not rock solid yet. Since WordPress 5.0.0 there were 5.0.1, followed by 5.0.2 and 5.0.3. However most of Blue Star London clients run on 5.0.3 now and there are no issues reported.
Gutenberg is definitely a good move forward and a strong reason for customers to consider staying with WordPress platform instead of jumping to Wix or Shopify.
Finally, if you are managing your website updates yourself, consider outsourcing this task to a speciliast company like us. Please, let us know if you need assistance.