Discover the key updates in WordPress 5.5.3, including performance improvements with lazy-loaded images, built-in sitemaps for better search, auto-updates for plugins and themes, enhanced accessibility, and new features for developers.
WordPress 5.5.3 landed as a small maintenance release, a quick fix on top of the 5.5.2 security release, the kind you should just install and move on from. But it belongs to the larger 5.5 line, and 5.5 was a big one. So if you have been putting off the update, here is the quick tour of what you are actually getting, built around the three things 5.5 set out to improve: speed, search, and security.
Speed
Your posts and pages feel faster now, and you did not have to do anything for it. The reason is lazy-loaded images. Images give your writing impact, but they are also the usual reason a page feels slow. As of 5.5, WordPress holds off loading an image until the reader is about to scroll it into view. The technical name is “lazy loading,” and it is on by default.
On mobile it does a second favor: it can stop browsers from downloading versions of a file meant for other devices. That saves your readers data, and a little battery too.
Search
Say hello to your sitemap. WordPress has always played nicely with search engines, but now it ships an XML sitemap by default. From the minute your site goes live, search engines can find your most important pages instead of waiting to stumble across them.
The practical result: people find you sooner, which gives you more time to do the real work of turning a visitor into a subscriber, a customer, or whatever success looks like for you.
Security
Auto-updates finally came to plugins and themes, right in the WordPress admin. You can switch them on so your site quietly stays on the latest code, or leave them off if you like to update on your own terms. It is per-plugin and per-theme, on the same screens you already know.
And if you prefer to update by hand, that got easier too. You can now install a plugin or theme by uploading its ZIP file directly.
Accessibility
Every release chips away at making WordPress usable for everyone, and 5.5 was no exception. You can now copy links in the media screens and modal dialogs with a single button instead of fighting to highlight the text. You can move meta boxes with the keyboard. And you can edit images with an assistive device, because the image editor now reads its instructions aloud.
For Developers
5.5 also brought a whole box of changes aimed squarely at the people building on WordPress.
Server-side registered blocks in the REST API
New block types endpoints mean a JavaScript app, like the block editor itself, can pull the definition of any block registered on the server. That opens the door to a lot of tooling.
Dashicons
The Dashicons library got its final update in 5.5, adding 39 block editor icons plus 26 others. Worth knowing it is now frozen, so plan accordingly.
Defining environments
WordPress now has a standard way to declare a site’s environment type (staging, production, and so on). Read it with wp_get_environment_type() and run only the code that belongs in that environment. If you have ever shipped debug code to production by accident, you will appreciate this one.
Passing data to template files
The template loading functions (get_header(), get_template_part(), and friends) picked up a new $args argument, so you can hand an entire array of data straight to your templates instead of working around it.
More changes for developers
- The PHPMailer library got a major bump, from 5.2.27 to 6.1.6.
- You get finer control over
redirect_guess_404_permalink(). - Sites on PHP’s OPcache get more reliable cache invalidation through the new
wp_opcache_invalidate()function during updates, including plugin and theme updates. - Custom post types tied to the category taxonomy can now opt in to supporting the default term.
- You can specify default terms for custom taxonomies in
register_taxonomy(). - The REST API now officially supports default metadata values through
register_meta(). - Updated bundled libraries: SimplePie, Twemoji, Masonry, imagesLoaded, getID3, Moment.js, and clipboard.js.
Download: WordPress 5.5.3