Testing this release candidate is the next step in preparing your site for the WordPress 6.0 release slated for May 24, 2022. WordPress 6.0 will make the life of your content creators much easier with an improved Gutenberg editor. The WordPress 6.0 RC 1 Release Article provides a full list of changes.
How to test WordPress 6.0
VIP CLI
We recommend testing in your local development environment with the VIP CLI 2.10.0.
Learn how to install the VIP CLI in our docs; or upgrade to the installation with:
WordPress 5.6 is scheduled for public release on Tuesday, December 8, 2020, and the 5.6 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is now available for testing. We recommend clients review the changelog as part of their testing.
What is being added or changed?
We outlined some of the upcoming changes when the beta version was released. You may want to review the following changes:
Developers will need to update jQuery dependencies in their themes and plugins in order to co-ordinate with a three-step plan to update the version of jQuery included in WordPress. This plan was announced by the Core WordPress Community team last June. The changes involved have been spread across three major releases and 10 months.
The three steps were as follows:
Remove jQuery Migrate 1.x. This was completed in WordPress 5.5 (August, 2020).*
Remove jQuery Migrate completely. This is planned for WordPress 5.7 (March, 2021).
* Developers who did not upgrade in time for the removal of jQuery Migrate 1.x, and relied on the use of the jQuery Migrate Helper plugin instead, will need to complete that work, as well as the second step in this process.
Is there a plugin that I can use, instead of upgrading themes and plugins?
No. The jQuery Migrate Helper plugin will no longer mitigate against the jQuery changes in WordPress core, once WordPress 5.6 is released. In addition, jQuery Migrate 3.3.2 will not cover all the cases that jQuery Migrate 1.x did.
You may want to test locally using the Test jQuery Updates plugin. It is also possible to enable the plugin in non-production environment on the VIP Go platform. The plugin is enabled if the VIP_ENABLE_TEST_JQUERY_UPDATES constant is set. You can also use vip_load_test_jquery_updates in a query string.
Will my jQuery-dependent code work?
We’ve created a chart that summarizes which jQuery-dependent code is likely to work in WordPress 5.6, as compared to other versions of WordPress. Please note that this should be used for rough guidance. Testing is strongly recommended.
As this is a major upgrade to the jQuery library, please make sure you test your plugins and themes as thoroughly as possible before the release of WordPress 5.6 to avoid any preventable breakage.
Local development: Updating your local development environments to the release candidate using the Beta Tester plugin or updating it to track 5.6 (i.e. trunk) via either the Subversion or GitHub repos.
Non-production environments: For sites on VIP Go, you can have your non-production sites switched to WordPress 5.6 now. If this is something you’re interested in, please open a ticket and we can set it up for you.
VIP Go: WordPress 5.6 will be rolled out to all VIP Go sites on Tuesday,December 8, 2020.
WordPress.com VIP: As with all Core upgrades, we’ll be pushing incremental updates leading up to the public release.
Please note that the deployment dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll post updates to the Lobby if the dates do change.
Questions?
If you have testing feedback or questions, related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.
WordPress VIP Lobby 
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