Did you know you update plugins, configure multisite installations and much more, without using a web browser? You can with a tool call WP CLI and it saw a big update. WordPress 5.2 saw its Release Candidate, well, released, and there’s a fun CSS related bonus link this time. Let’s dive in!
WP CLI 2.2 released
WP CLI is the command line interface tool for WordPress. With this plugin, you can do all kinds of exciting things inside of WordPress, but instead of using the browser, you can use the command line. This last week saw the release of the 2.2 version. Alain Schlesser had this to say about it:
Although there are not that many new features, we had a lot of work being done behind the scenes, to make future releases smoother. A lot of the processes have been improved, and we’ve managed to squash quite a few bugs while doing so. A team of 57 contributors has collaborated on this release to get 347 pull requests merged
You can read more about it in the full release post. And, if you’ve never worked with WP CLI, then learn more about it and check if your web host has it installed. Most of the hosts on our WordPress Hosting page have it preinstalled.
WordPress 5.2 introduces the Site Health Check feature
One of the cool new features of WordPress 5.2 is the Site Health Check. This feature will add two new pages in the admin interface to help end-users to self-service their site through common configuration issues. It also provides a standardized location for developers to add debugging information.
The new pages can be found under the Tools menu, as Site Health, and presents the user with a new admin interface. One that you’ll want to continue to use in the future. If you’re building plugins or themes, there are really neat ways to interact with this new Site Health Check feature.
WordPress 5.2 Release Candidate
The first Release Candidate (RC) for WordPress 5.2 was released three days ago and with its release, we should expect the final release to be in about two weeks later.
A first RC also marks the moment when no new text strings are to be introduced. Also knows as a hard string freeze. If you speak any other language besides English, please help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!
Bonus link
This edition’s bonus link is for all you CSS warriors out there. Tobias Ahlin wrote about how to create masonry layouts with CSS only, using flexbox, nth-child() and order and think it’s pretty neat! He put a lot of thought and experimenting into getting it working, so check it out!