A Little Better Every Day
Version 5.1 of WordPress, named “Betty” in honour of acclaimed jazz vocalist Betty Carter, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard.
Following WordPress 5.0 — a major release which introduced the new block editor — 5.1 focuses on polish, in particular by improving the overall performance of the editor. In addition, this release paves the way for a better, faster, and more secure WordPress with some essential tools for site administrators and developers.
Site Health
With security and speed in mind, this release introduces WordPress’s first Site Health features. WordPress will start showing notices to administrators of sites that run long-outdated versions of PHP, which is the programming language that powers WordPress.
When you install new plugins, WordPress’s Site Health features will check them against the version of PHP you’re running. If the plugin requires a version that won’t work with your site, WordPress will keep you from installing that plugin.
Editor Performance
Introduced in WordPress 5.0, the new block editor continues to improve . Most significantly, WordPress 5.1 includes solid performance improvements within the editor. The editor should feel a little quicker to start, and typing should feel smoother.
Expect more performance improvements in the next couple of releases.
Developer Happiness
Multisite Metadata
5.1 introduces a new database table to store metadata associated with sites and allows for the storage of arbitrary site data relevant in a multisite / network context.
Cron API
The Cron API has been updated with new functions to assist with returning data and includes new filters for modifying cron storage. Other changes in behavior affect cron spawning on servers running FastCGI and PHP-FPM versions 7.0.16 and above.
New JS Build Processes
WordPress 5.1 features a new JavaScript build option, following the large reorganisation of code that started in the 5.0 release.
Other Developer Goodness
Miscellaneous improvements include:
- Updates to values for the
WP_DEBUG_LOG
constant - New test config file constant in the test suite, new plugin action hooks
- Short-circuit filters for
wp_unique_post_slug()
,WP_User_Query
, andcount_users()
- A new
human_readable_duration
function - Improved taxonomy metabox sanitization
- Limited
LIKE
support for meta keys when usingWP_Meta_Query
- A new “doing it wrong” notice when registering REST API endpoints
…and more!
The Squad
This release was led by Matt Mullenweg, along with Gary Pendergast as Senior Code Reshuffler and Poet . They received wonderful assistance from the following 561 contributors for this release, 231 of whom were making their first ever contribution! Pull up some Betty Carter on your music service of choice, and check out some of their profiles:
0x6f0, 1265578519, 1naveengiri, 360zen, aardrian, Aaron Jorbin, Abdullah Ramzan, Abhay Vishwakarma, Abhijit Rakas, Achal Jain, achbed, Adam Silverstein, Ajit Bohra, Alain Schlesser, aldavigdis, alejandroxlopez, Alex, Alex Shiels, Alexander Botteram, Alexandru Vornicescu, alexgso, All, allancole, Allen Snook, Alvaro Gois dos Santos, Ana Cirujano, Anantajit JG, Andrés, Andrea Fercia, Andrea Gandino, Andrea Middleton, andrei0x309, andreiglingeanu, Andrew Duthie, Andrew Lima, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Nevins, Andrew Ozz, Andrey Savchenko, Andy Fragen, Andy Meerwaldt, Angelika Reisiger, Antal Tettinger, antipole, Anton Timmermans, Antonio Villegas, antonioeatgoat, Anwer AR, Arun, Ashar Irfan, ashokrd2013, Ayesh Karunaratne, Ayub Adiputra, Barry Ceelen, Behzod Saidov, benhuberman, Benoit Chantre, benvaassen, Bhargav Mehta, bikecrazyy, Birgir Erlendsson, BjornW, Blair jersyer, blob, Blobfolio, bobbingwide, boblinthorst, Boone Gorges, Boro Sitnikovski, Brad Parbs, Bradley, bramheijmink, Brandon Kraft, Brandon Payton, Brent Swisher, Brian Richards, bridgetwillard, Brooke., bruceallen, Burhan Nasir, Bytes.co, Caleb Burks, Calin Don, campusboy, carolinegeven, ccismaru, chasewg, Chetan Prajapati, Chouby, ChriCo, chriscct7, Christopher Spires, claudiu, Clifford Paulick, Code Clinic, codegrau, coleh, conner_bw, Corey McKrill, croce, Csaba (LittleBigThings), Cyrus Collier, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel James, Daniel Koskinen, Daniel Richards, Daniele Scasciafratte, danimalbrown, Danny Cooper, Danny de Haan, Darko A7, Darren Ethier (nerrad), Dave Pullig, David A. Kennedy, David Anderson, David Binovec, David Cramer, David Herrera, David Lingren, David Shanske, David Stone, dekervit, Denis Yanchevskiy, Dennis Snell, designsimply, dfangstrom, Dhanendran, Dharmesh Patel, Dhaval kasavala, Dhruvin, DiedeExterkate, Dilip Bheda, dingo_d, Dion Hulse, dipeshkakadiya, Dominik Schilling, Donncha O Caoimh, dontstealmyfish, Drew Jaynes, Drivingralle, drywallbmb, dschalk, dsifford, eamax, eArtboard, edo888, edocev, ElectricFeet, Ella Van Durpe, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Daams, Erich Munz, Erick Hitter, ericmeyer, etoledom, Evan Solomon, Evangelos Athanasiadis, ever, everyone, Faisal Alvi, Felipe Elia, Felix Arntz, Fernando Claussen, flipkeijzer, Florian TIAR, folio, FPCSJames, Frank Klein, frOM, fuchsws, fullyint, Gabriel Maldonado, Gareth, Garrett Hyder, Gary Jones, Gennady Kovshenin, Gerhard Potgieter, Girish Panchal, GM_Alex, gnif, graymouser, greg, Grzegorz (Greg) Ziółkowski, Guido, GutenDev, Hafiz Rahman, Hai@LiteSpeed, Hans-Christiaan Braun, Hardeep Asrani, Hardik Amipara, Harsh Patel, haruharuharuby, Heather Burns, Helen Hou-Sandi, Henry Wright, Herre Groen, hitendra, Hitendra Chopda, Ian Belanger, Ian Dunn, ibantxillo, Ignacio Cruz Moreno, Igor, Igor Benic, imath, ionvv, Irene Strikkers, isabel104, ishitaka, Ivan Mudrik, J.Dnever or viagra generic ED TREATMENT OPTIONS.
Finally, thanks to all the community translators who worked on WordPress 5.1. Their efforts bring WordPress 5.1 fully translated to 34 languages at release time, with more on the way.
If you want to follow along or help out, check out Make WordPress and our core development blog.
Thanks for choosing WordPress!