The WordPress 5.9 release has been pushed to a later date, following issues that could not be resolved in time for the release of WordPress 5.9 Beta 1, which was initially scheduled for Nov. 16.
WordPress 5.9 is now scheduled to release on Jan. 25, 2022.
Read on to learn:
WordPress 5.9 Key Components Not Ready
New WordPress 5.9 Release Schedule
Final Thoughts – WordPress 5.9 Release Moved to January 2022
WordPress 5.9 Delays
WordPress 5.9 was initially slated for a Dec. 14, 2021 release.
WordPress’ third major release for 2021, WordPress 5.9, was supposed to signal the conclusion of the Gutenberg project’s second phase by introducing Full Site Editing (FSE). FSE would allow users to control and edit both page content and website design simultaneously using blocks.
But the WordPress team delayed version 5.9 to Jan. 25, 2022, after failing to meet the milestones. A blocker bug caused a delay in Beta 1, which affected the rest of the timeline.
Contributors voiced out concerns about the feasibility of meeting the December 2021 deadline.
Robert Anderson, Editor Tech Lead for 5.9, published a summary of the blockers found while testing FSE in the core. The team categorized the blockers as to whether they’d delay Beta 1 or WordPress 5.9.
According to the timeline published by WordPress, the team had to decide whether they would prefer to meet the deadline by rolling out a significantly diminished version of WordPress or release the full intended version of WordPress at a later date instead. The team went with the latter option.
Tonya Mork, Core Tech Lead for the 5.9 release, said they considered shipping FSE and the Twenty Twenty-two theme in WordPress 6.0, but that would be too late.
“The 6.0 release isn’t due until April 2022 — too long for the community to wait for them. After looking at the list of issues, the Core Editor team saw the features could ship in 5.9 with the revised schedule.” Mork said.
WordPress 5.9 Key Components Not Ready
WordPress 5.9 co-testing lead Anne McCarthy shares that WordPress 5.9 includes a selection of interconnected features, such as [Global] Styles, Block theme flows, Navigation Blocks, and template editors. Many of these features were not ready for use.
The Twenty Twenty-Two theme, which is supposed to be shipped with WordPress 5.9, depends on these features.
“For FSE and the theme to shine, it makes the most sense for them to be released together, making it hard just to delay shipping one. They need more time to be refined to be shipped together,” shares McCarthy.
McCarthy also noted that there were fewer contributors in 2021, which led to the delay. The team temporarily stopped working on new features so contributors could focus on finishing version 5.9.
New WordPress 5.9 Release Schedule
The new proposed schedule is as follows:
Nov. 30 – WordPress 5.9 Beta 1
Dec. 7 – Beta 2
Dec. 14 – Beta 3
Dec. 21 – Beta 4 (optional)
Jan. 4 – Release Candidate 1 (RC 1) — 5 weeks from Beta
Jan. 11 – RC 2
Jan. 18 – RC 3
Jan. 25 – Release date
As of writing, the team is deciding whether they finish Full Site Editing in time for the WordPress 5.9 release or include it in WordPress 6.0.
Final Thoughts – WordPress 5.9 Release Moved to January 2022
It looks like users will have to wait until 2022 for version 5.9 as the WordPress team irons out kinks in the Full Site Editing features.
The good news is that users who can’t wait to get their hands on version 5.9 can test the Beta 1 version, which came out on November 30th.
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