WordPress 3.5 Released

Working with images is even easier in WordPress 3.5

Today, WordPress 3.5 “Elvin” was made available. If you are a WordPress website user, you may have noticed the link at the top of the admin area of your site. There are lots of new features but the biggest change is to the Media Gallery and how you work with it within posts and pages.

There’s also a new theme, Twenty Twelve, that is a mobile-first responsive design (meaning it looks good on any device).

As with any upgrade, you should make a complete backup of your WordPress files and database in case anything should go wrong in the upgrade process or, more likely, one of your favorite–and perhaps critical–plugins doesn’t work with the new version of WordPress. You may need to revert to the previous version if your shopping cart, for example, doesn’t work anymore. If all of this sounds a little scary to you, we’d be happy to help you upgrade to WordPress 3.5.

When Can I Upgrade to WordPress 3.5?

If you have some critical plugins that you need for your website to work as you need it to, you should check the availability of an update that works with WordPress 3.5. If it is a free plugin that is stored on the WordPress repository, you will be notified automatically of any updates within the admin area of your WordPress site. If you purchased the plugin or obtained it somewhere other than the WordPress repository, you will need to check the author’s website for update news.

If you want to upgrade but do not want to wait until your plugin has been verified to work with WordPress 3.5, you could either (1) install the WordPress upgrade (after backing up your files and database, of course) and see what happens or (2) create a test installation and apply all of your plugins to it and test it out. Number 2 is preferable, especially if you don’t want any downtime on your site because of a failed installation. Intergalactic Web Designers can assist you with either scenario.