The second beta for the next big release, WordPress 5.5 is available for the general public to test. WordPress 5.5 Beta 2 was released on 14th July 2020.
Since the software is still in development mode, it’s best that you don’t run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 5.5, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).
There have been 48 tickets closed since the first beta release. It includes numerous small bug fixes and improvements to help smoothen your WordPress experience. Have a quick look at the Beta 2 highlights.
- 19 additional bugs have been fixed in the block editor
- The Dashicons icon font has been updated
- Broken widgets stemming from changes in Beta 1 have been fixed
- Query handling when counting revisions has been improved
- An alternate, expanded view was added for wp_list_table
- Some adjustments were made to the handling of default terms for custom taxonomies
The Beta 2 version also has a handful of changes for the developers to try out. Check out the developer notes on the WordPress Core.
WordPress 5.5 Release is on for August 11 and the development team can surely use all the help they can get. If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.