What is WordPress?
WordPress is an online, open source website creation tool written in PHP. But in non-geek speak, it’s probably the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today. There’s nothing to install on your computer and you don’t need any special tools. You can update your website from anywhere that you have an Internet connection – even your smartphone. Best of all, WordPress is free in every sense of the word. It’s both free to use and free to modify. So, if you are the sort of person who likes to tinker with code, you can dig in and make WordPress do just about anything you want it to. Unlike other free website building tools, WordPress is completely portable. That means you can host your website anywhere and move it at any time.What is New in WordPress 5.2.3?
WordPress 5.2.3 is now available!
The new release comes with lots of new and exciting changes, the biggest of which would have to be the new Site Health check tool. The tool is to educate users, as well as provide developers with some crucial information that they need. There are plenty more improvements, not excluding PHP error protection (lower number of white screens of death), new and fresh dashicons and emojis, some block editor improvements, and accessibility updates.
The team behind WordPress describes version 5.2.3 as the release that provides even more powerful tools to help everyone with identifying and fixing all configuration issues and fatal errors. Those tools would help developers and users get all the info they need and they will always get it on time. Developers will be able to help their clients better than ever and regular users would manage their sites as smoothly as possible.
This security and maintenance release features 29 fixes and enhancements. Plus, it adds a number of security fixes—see the list below.
These bugs affect WordPress versions 5.2.2 and earlier; version 5.2.3 fixes them, so you’ll want to upgrade.
From the WordPress 5.2.3 release post, this maintenance and security release fixes 29 bugs, including a few security fixes.
Here are some changes of note:
- #38415: New Custom Link menu item has a wrong fallback label
- #45739: Block Editor: $editor_styles bug.
- #45935: A URL in do_block_editor_incompatible_meta_box function does not have classic-editor__forget parameter
- #46757: Media Trash: The Bulk Media options when in the Trash shouldn’t provide two primary buttons
- #46758: Media Trash: Primary button(s) should be on the left
- #46899: Ensure that tables generated by the Settings API have no semantics
- #47079: Incorrect version for excerpt_allowed_blocks filter
- #47113: Media views: dismiss notice button is invisible
- #47145: Feature Image dialog does not follow the dialog pattern
- #47190: Twenty Seventeen: Native audio and video embeds have no focus state.
- #47340: Twenty Nineteen: Revise Latest Posts block styles to support post content options.
- #47386: Fix headings hierarchy in the legacy Custom Background and Custom Header pages
- #47390: Improve accessibility of forms elements within some “form-table” forms
- #47414: Twenty Seventeen: Button block preview has extra spacing within button
- #47458: Fix tab sequence order in the Media attachment browser
- #47489: Emoji are substituted in preformatted blocks
- #47502: Media modal bottom toolbar cuts-off content in Internet Explorer 11
- #47538: Minor Verbiage Update – Switch ‘developer time’ for ‘a developer’
- #47543: Twenty Seventeen: buttons don’t change color on hover and focus
- #47561: Plugin: View details popup layout issue
- #47603: My account toggle on admin bar not visible at high zoom levels
- #47604: Undefined variable: locked in wp-admin/edit-form-blocks.php
- #47687: Use alt tags for gallery images in editor
- #47688: Color hex code in color picker displayed in RTL instead of LTR on RTL install (take 2)
- #47693: customizer Color picker should get closed when click on color picker area.
- #47723: Adding a custom link in nav-menus.php doesn’t trim whitespace
- #47758: Font sizes on installation screen are too small
- #47835: PHP requirement always set to null for plugins
- #47888: Adding a custom link in menu via Customize doesn’t trim whitespace.
Security Fixes
- Props to Simon Scannell of RIPS Technologies for finding and disclosing two issues. The first, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability found in post previews by contributors. The second was a cross-site scripting vulnerability in stored comments.
- Props to Tim Coen for disclosing an issue where validation and sanitization of a URL could lead to an open redirect.
- Props to Anshul Jain for disclosing reflected cross-site scripting during media uploads.
- Props to Zhouyuan Yang of Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs who disclosed a vulnerability that for cross-site scripting (XSS) in shortcode previews.
- Props to Ian Dunn of the Core Security Team for finding and disclosing a case where reflected cross-site scripting could be found in the dashboard.
- Props to Soroush Dalili (@irsdl) from NCC Group for disclosing an issue with URL sanitization that can lead to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
- In addition to the above changes, we are also updating jQuery on older versions of WordPress. This change was added in 5.2.1 and is now being brought to older versions.