Testing WordPress 5.1 Beta 3
In preparation for their official release of WordPress 5.1 on February 21, the third Beta version of WordPress 5.1 was recently released for testing.
The WordPress 5.1 Beta 3 has fixed bugs of the previous version, such as:
- TinyMCE – upgraded to version 4.9.2
- Block editor – bugs fixed
- Differences in the classic block and the classic editor were
- When adding rel attributes to links, ensure the value isn’t empty, and it works as expected with customizer changesets
For the full list of updates please refer to the WordPress 5.1 Beta 3 announcement.
Site Health Check
Although, WordPress 5.1 will not yet have the PHP error protection handler or PHP error recovery feature as this will be made available in WordPress 5.2 instead. The significant delay was caused by potential security issues that were found late in the beta release.
The PHP error recovery feature is part of the Site Health Check announced in WordPress 5.1 Beta 1. Solutions to fix these security issues were given, such as:
- Continue with the fix in #46130;
- Disable the feature by default, adding a feature flag for sites to opt-in to error recovery.
- Revert the feature from trunk, and include it in WordPress 5.2.
The feature is independent of and will not affect the PHP upgrade notices feature.
Testing WordPress 5.1 Beta 3
You can try out the WordPress 5.1 Beta 3 in two ways, specifically: (1) install the Beta Tester Plugin, upgrade your site to the latest release, and choose the “bleeding edge nightlies”; (2) or, downloading the release (ZIP file).
It is recommended to test it locally rather than in your production environment. When you update your site, it will undergo maintenance mode so it is best to have a site backup. Your site will reload once the updating is done.
