The People in Charge at WP announced “WordPress 5.8 adds WebP support“. This is great news!
Rambling thoughts about WordPress
Maintenance
PHP 8.0 is 18+% faster, so my site will be much faster, right?
WordPress encourages users to use the latest version of PHP. This makes sense since each new version of PHP is faster and more secure, among other purported benefits. But exactly how much faster will my site be if I upgrade PHP?
Read more PHP 8.0 is 18+% faster, so my site will be much faster, right?
One click HTTP to HTTPS ?
Way back on December 16, 2018 the good people at WordPress Christmas-gifted the community with the rollout of WordPress 5.0, introducing Gutenberg as the default content editor. Each subsequent release of WP has included improvements to Gutenberg (rebranded as the Block Editor). So many ‘improvements’. This ongoing need for multiple improvements is validation for the vast majority of WP users – including me – who loudly but hopelessly railed against Gutenberg being forced upon us far before it was ready – or we were ready for it.
Maybe one day it will be ‘improved’ enough for me to give it another trial.
Anyway, the recent rollout of WP 5.7 includes the latest set of Block Editor improvements. It also includes a much-touted new feature:
From HTTP to HTTPS in a single click
Starting now, switching a site from HTTP to HTTPS is a one-click move. WordPress will automatically update database URLs when you make the switch. No more hunting and guessing!
Uhm, really? A single click to switch from HTTP to HTTPS? Turns out no. I still need an SSL certificate like Let’s Encrypt. The certificate is the foundational piece of the conversion, the rest is pretty straight-forward. The “hunting and guessing” was admirably solved by The Better Search Replace plugin. This new feature just moves the functionality of the Really Simple SSL plugin into WP core. I tried out the Really Simple SSL plugin in the past and found that, for me at least, it didn’t do anything that I couldn’t do about as easily without.
WordPress released version 5.6.1 and …
On February 3, 2021, WordPress released version 5.6.1 to the public, and …
Nothing terrible happened! This is a major step forward in the WP version release process.
(see WordPress and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; WP Update Double Debacle; WP REST API Exploit – why was the filter disabled?) Read more WordPress released version 5.6.1 and …
WP Update Double Debacle
The good people at WordPress issued the WP version 5.5.2 Security and Maintenance Release on October 29. Then, just one day later, issued version 5.5.3 Emergency Release. The Emergency Release corrects a flaw in the Maintenance release that made it very difficult to install WordPress on a new website. How the flaw escaped detection during pre-release testing has not been explained – at least that I can find. Read more WP Update Double Debacle
Argh! So many admin emails!
The new WP feature to more easily auto-update themes and plugins is working fine for me. But … WP sends me an email every time any of my sites auto-updates anything. I have around a dozen sites, each with a bunch of plugins that get updated frequently, so I’ve been getting *lots* of admin emails. WP core doesn’t provide a way to turn off these emails. Fortunately there are a couple of ways to do this. Read more Argh! So many admin emails!
Covid 19 Pandemic: What can I do to help?
Like many of us, I have never experienced anything remotely like the current Covid 19 (or, more descriptively, the Chinese Bat Virus) pandemic. I just completed my first week of lockdown/telecommuting, with who-knows how many weeks to go. What can I do during this time to help?
Will Coronavirus Break the Interwebs?
It’s a fair question. Lotsa people who don’t usually telecommute are telecommuting. Many more will be doing so soon. That’s gonna put a strain on the interwebs.
New! Auto-Updates for Plugins and Themes are Coming!
The news is being breathlessly announced in numerous news items like this one, and this one. WordPress 5.5 will add the the long-awaited, eagerly-anticipated ability to auto-update plugins and themes! Yea!
Read more New! Auto-Updates for Plugins and Themes are Coming!
Helpful Online Resources
Some of the helpful free online resources I use … these are not specific to WP …
Health Check Plugin
The free WP Health Check plugin is a relatively new arrival, having been introduced a few months ago by “The WordPress.org community”. It has a remarkably polarized set of user reviews – divided almost exclusively between 5s (“Works great!”) and 1s (“Warning! Broke my site!”). The authors strongly urge to backup your site before installing and using this plugin – always a good idea.
Manual or auto WP install?
The best approach to installing WP is a surprisingly testy topic. Manual or auto WP install? WP purists espouse the manual method using the Famous 5-Minute Installation. Dunderheads like myself much prefer the automatic install script provided by web hosts.
Optimizing the WP Database
Every time I edit a post or page, WP keeps a copy of the old version in my database. It is a great feature, handy when I mess up and need to revert to the previous version. But once my post or page is final, I have no use for the prior revisions. By default, WP keeps all the old versions, forever, and they can add up over time. I recently checked one of my sites and was surprised to find 3,566 useless old pages cluttering up my database. A large, cluttered database slows my site, as the server takes longer to retrieve information.
Uptime Monitoring
WP hosting providers, even at the low end, almost universally claim ninety-nine-point-something percent uptime. I want to keep track of uptime in practice, not just claimed or ‘guaranteed’. I use both of the most widely recommended free uptime monitors – Uptime Robot and StatusCake. Both are easy – though somewhat different – to set up, and both offer a free tier. By using both, I hope to catch transient downtime that one or the other may miss. On the free tier Uptime checks my sites every five minutes and StatusCake – well, they don’t really say, just a “Slower interval rate” than the one minute interval of the lowest cost paid plan. Both monitor from multiple locations across the globe. And both will happily take my money if I opt for a more robust paid plan.
Down for Maintenance Page
If my site crashes, or I have to take it offline for maintenance, I want to redirect all traffic to a temporary ‘Down for Maintenance’ page. And I want to get the page up quickly, so my visitors are greeted by a relatively friendly page, not just an error. It seems a good practice to be proactive and create a simple ‘Down for Maintenance’ html page and htaccess file to redirect traffic, so that both are ready to deploy in a jiffy when needed.
