Photo: Harry Wad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The first major WordPress version of 2021 was recently released – WordPress 5.7 “Esperanza”. It’s nicknamed after Esperanza Spalding, an American jazz bassist, singer, songwriter, and composer.
WordPress releases updated versions throughout the year with new features, better security, and performance enhancements. And with every major release, I write about the new features that might benefit and be interesting to you.
Version 5.7 is a major update (not a minor security update). You might need to log in to your WordPress site and take care of the update by yourself. In some cases, your web hosting account may handle WordPress updates for you. Or, if you have an automatic WordPress update option turned on, the update should happen soon, if not already.
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I always recommend waiting at least a few days before updating to the latest version, in case the plugin and theme developers need to do any updates on their end to ensure compatibility with the latest version of WordPress.
New Features of WordPress 5.7
Here are some important new features in WordPress 5.7.
Most of the noticeable new features can be found in the Block Editor (aka. Gutenberg). As of now, I’m not teaching the WordPress Block Editor in my Website Creation Workshop™ since other WordPress editors like Divi and Elementor are easier to use and more functional. Plus, I think WordPress Classic Editor still works better than the Block Editor in many situations. But if you’re a fan of the Block Editor, I think you’ll love the new features.
Single-click Update to Make Your Site More Secure (‘https’):
Have you had to deal with updating your website from a non-SSL to an SSL site (ie. from http to https)? Not clear on what this all means? Read this article on how Google views your site and now Google wants your site to be SSL secure.
Here is a picture that explains the difference between http: and https:
If you have had to do that update, then you went through the process of updating the WordPress address, Site Address, and all the hard-coded URLs in your pages, blogs, and so forth. There are some plugins that can be helpful to take care of all the URL updating, but it was never a super-simple thing to do. Until now.
With WordPress 5.7, this task can be performed with a single click.
When your website has not been converted to HTTPS or has HTTPS-related issues, you’ll get a warning in the Site Health area (Tools–>Site Health). It also displays a short description of the issue and a message “Update your site to use HTTPS.”
If your hosting account is already set to be https, then click on that button. WordPress will then not only update your site and your site’s WordPress addresses with HTTPS, but it also updates other places on your site where URLs are hard-coded (like the URLs of the images on your site).
If your hosting is NOT set to be https, you will see an image like the one below:
Quickly Send Password Reset Link
When you have multiple people logging into your WordPress site, there might be some situations when they ask you to reset their passwords. WordPress now gives an option for the website administrator to send a password reset link to other users instead of having to set a new password for them. You can do this in two places.
1. From the User list page.
2. From within the User Editor page (the page you’ll see after clicking on the user name in the screen above).
Click on that link/button, and the user will receive an email with a password reset link right in their inbox.
Clear and Easy Password Reset Screen
The screen that you see after requesting a password reset now has two buttons, clearly showing what you can do there: Generate Password and Save Password
Keep clicking on the Generate Password until you see a password that you like, then simply use the save Password button when ready.
Colored Bar on Hover
You will now notice in the admin a colored bar when you hover over the menus. This makes it easier to see where you are in the admin dashboard. Nice new feature!
Block Editor (“Guttenberg”) Improvements
Here are some highlights from the new Block Editor features introduced with WordPress 5.7 that the Block Editor users might like.
Drag and drop blocks/block patterns from the Inserter
You can now easily drag and drop blocks (and block patterns) right from the Inserter panel onto the editor area, where you want it to be.
Font-size control now available in more blocks
The List Block, for example, now lets you customize the font-size right within the block setting.
Vertical layout for buttons
The Button Block now offers an option to switch the layout of the buttons between horizontal and vertical.
And Many More Under-the-Hood Improvements in WordPress 5.7
Just like other major releases in the past, WordPress 5.7 includes many improvements geared towards WordPress developers. Learn more about WordPress 5.7 in the official blog post by WordPress.org here.
It’s great to see the WordPress developers diligently working on making WordPress more user-friendly for non-techies. It’s not an easy task! I’m very grateful to those who are involved in keeping WordPress a wonderful tool for all of us.
