The WordPress 5.0 release schedule was published yesterday with the details regarding the scopes, Gutenberg development process, and secondary schedules. WordPress 5.0 release has been slated for November 19, 2018. Likewise, Beta 1 and RC 1 are targeted for October 19 and 30, respectively.
WordPress 5.0 release will mainly be focusing on merging the Gutenberg plugin into the core. Similarly, there are two related scopes that Gary Pendergast outlined in his post:
- Updating the default themes to work well with the block editor, and creating the new Twenty Nineteen theme.
- Creating an upgrade experience to remove the Gutenberg plugin and offer the Classic Editor Plugin.
Since the WordPress 5.0 release has been scheduled during a busy time of the year and 5.0 update might need additional time, the release leads have come up with a backup plan including a secondary schedule:
Secondary RC 1: January 8, 2019
Secondary Release: January 22, 2019
According to Gary’s post, “Should we need to switch to the secondary dates, this will be communicated as soon as we’re aware. It’s also important to note that we have some updates for PHP 7.3 compatibility that must be released in 2018 regardless, and we would have a short 4.9.9 release cycle for them if needed.”
The Twenty Nineteen default theme development will happen on GitHub and contributors can join the discussion in the #core-themes Slack channel where regular meetings will happen.
Gutenberg Engineer, Riad Benguella posted a technical overview of the integration process for merging the new editor into the core. He also laid out a plan for how Gutenberg development will continue in the future.
The Gutenberg development process has been moving quickly and after it is shipped to millions of WordPress users there are bound to be more issues discovered. Matt Mullenweg said that the quick point releases may be an option for maintaining the flexibility to introduce fixes and improvements in a timely way for users.
Mullenweg confirmed during the dev chat that the team plans to add a link to the Classic Editor Plugin in the admin when 5.0 ships. Overall, contributors in attendance seemed excited about the prospect of finally having the new editor in the core, despite the ambitious timeline proposed for the release.
Gary Pendergast, who is leading the merge, is expecting the WordPress 5.1 release to be available around March 2019, allowing features outside of the block editor to be launched then.
Reference: WordPress.org, WP Tavern
Featured Image: WPArt