Everything about WordPress 5.0

Release date :
The date is shifted from 27th Nov 2018,, in order to give more time for RC testing. Final date of release is not yet announced at the time of writing this information.

Testing :
In case you want to test, you can use this plugin WordPress Beta Tester. Don’t forget to take backup before installing the same.

Features :

• Gutenberg : the new editor
• All of the previous default themes, from Twenty Ten through to Twenty Seventeen, have been updated to support the block editor.
• You can improve the accessibility of the content you write, now that simple ARIA labels can be saved in posts and pages.
• WordPress 5.0 officially supports the upcoming PHP 7.3 release: if you’re using an older version, we encourage you to upgrade PHP on your site.
• Developers can now add translatable strings directly to your JavaScript code, using the new JavaScript language packs.

Plugin and Theme Developers :

Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.0 and update the Tested up to version in the readme to 5.0.

Latest updates : WordPress 5 Beta 5

Block Editor
The block editor has been updated to match the Gutenberg 4.4 release, the major changes include:

• A permalink panel has been added to the document sidebar to make it easier to find.
• Editor document panels can now be programmatically removed.
• The uploading indicator for images and galleries has been replaced with a spinner and faded out image.
• The text and code editing blocks will now use the full width of the editor.
• Image handling has been improved. Images now take up the right amount of space for themes with wider editors (like Twenty Nineteen).
• Hover styles are now correctly disabled for mobile devices.
• The i18n module has been refactored to benefit from significant performance gains.Additionally, there have been some pesky bugs fixed:
• Better handling for links without an href attribute, which were showing as undefined.
• Japanese text (double byte characters) are now usable in the list block.
• Better handling for different text encodings (e.g. emoji) within a block in block validation.
• A full list of changes can be found in the Gutenberg 4.4 release post.PHP 7.3 SupportThe final known PHP 7.3 compatibility issue has been fixed. You can brush up on what you need to know about PHP 7.3 and WordPress by checking out the developer note on the Make WordPress Core blog.

  Twenty Nineteen
  Work on making Twenty Nineteen ready for prime time continues on its GitHub repository.

  This update includes a host of tweaks and bug fixes, including:

• Add .button class support.
• Fix editor font-weights for headings.
• Improve support for sticky toolbars in the editor.
• Improve text-selection custom colors for better contrast and legibility.
• Fix editor to prevent Gutenberg’s meta boxes area from overlapping the content.

What to do ?

1) For existing websites : Create a development environment and test it with WP 5, if everything looks good, update your live site

2) For new sites :
a) Check for theme/ plugins are compatible with WP 5 or not

If you face any difficulty, you can go with WP 4 itself and once WP 5 is stable upgrade your site.

References :
1) https://wordpress.org/news/2018/11/wordpress-5-0-release-candidate/
2) https://gutenstats.blog/
3) https://www.inc.com/peter-roesler/wordpress-50-is-coming-will-your-site-be-ready.html
4) https://wordpress.org/news/2018/11/wordpress-5-0-beta-5/