The WordPress Core team is in the process of upgrading jQuery. So… why should you care?
Many sites, themes, and plugins still rely on legacy versions of jQuery and will need to update alongside WordPress 5.7 to stay current. If you don’t, you might find yourself with a broken website.
We’ve put together a guide to explain the update, let you know what to expect, and share tips for avoiding issues before you hit the “update” button.
jQuery is a JavaScript library. A lot of the functionality in WordPress relies on jQuery, and many WordPress developers customize jQuery for their own themes and plugins.
For years, WordPress has used a legacy version of jQuery. WordPress 5.7 will include a jQuery upgrade that brings a lot of exciting benefits. The update will make WordPress more secure and efficient. But it also means some functions on your site might not work the way you expect.
This update has been in the works over the last few WordPress releases. The WordPress Core team is taking it very seriously and doing a thorough, deliberate job. We tip our caps to them and all the work they’re doing. ????
WordPress 5.7 is scheduled to release on March 9, 2021. That said, schedules can change. This is the first major release of 2021, so everyone’s going to want to get this right.
The Events Calendar and Event Tickets are 100% ready for the update. We’ve been tracking this upgrade since the beginning and we are making sure your calendar and events are ready to shine after the update.
But that might not be the case for your theme or all the other plugins installed on your site. Big changes like this tend to roll out unevenly.
You don’t need to be a developer to ensure your site is ready for the jQuery update. Here are some things you can do to prepare for WordPress 5.7.
jQuery has published an exhaustive guide for updating, including a section specifically on the jQuery Migrate module and how to use it for testing.
We can’t emphasize this enough: Before you install WordPress 5.7, test in a safe development environment.
There are a couple of ways to do this:
test.your-site.com, and create a replica of your site on it.Testing the update before you install it on your live website is the key to avoiding any issues. This step can save you from inadvertently breaking your site when updating.
The WordPress team put this plugin together to identify potential issues in advance. It can also revert your site back to the old version of jQuery in case the updated version causes issues.
This plugin is a temporary fix. It’s not meant to be a long-term solution that allows you to keep running an old version of jQuery. Think of it as a patch to identify issues and temporarily disable the latest jQuery if you need to fix things up.
The plugin adds a helper to the WordPress admin bar with alerts about potential issues on any page you are viewing.
