Should you upgrade immediately when there’s a big version change?

If you’re looking for a quick answer, it’s no. 

I wasn't sure I should pull the trigger and ... was right. I shouldn't have.

I wasn’t sure I should pull the trigger and … was right. I shouldn’t have.

I usually recommend holding off with a “whole number” upgrade (five point zero to six point zero, for example) as there are often large enough changes to code that there might be some bugs.

There were a few bugs I found particularly annoying:

  • Slashes in text fields: it broke my Google Analytics. Ouch, that wasn’t fun.
  • Excerpts: they just working. It’s such a basic feature that I figured it wasn’t something I did wrong or was worth looking into, so I just left it and waited for the fix.

If you’re impatient to upgrade, you might need to learn patience to wait for fixes.

I jumped the gun and upgraded on a few sites and had the troubles above. Since I figured that’s what the problem was I knew I was in trouble and they wouldn’t be fixed until the next upgrade. It’s the curse of the shiny new thing and just hoping it will all work out. Of course, it usually does all work out but you might need to be patient or be ready to make some big changes yourself.

*** WooThemes Framework Changelog ***

2014.07.16 – version 6.0.2
* Fix – Ensures that EM size values (floats, instead of integers) are correctly parsed and preserved when saving a “typography” field.
* Fix – Ensures system fonts are correctly displayed in the select box for a “typography” field, when one is selected.

2014.07.15 – version 6.0.1
* Fix – Ensures ‘slider’ fields in older themes are correctly output.
/classes/class-wf-fields.php
/assets/css/fields.css
* Fix – Slashes are now stripped from within textarea fields.
/classes/class-wf-fields.php
* Fix – Ensure the Google Analytics tracking code field handles script tags correctly.
/classes/class-wf-fields.php
/classes/class-wf-fields-settings.php
* Fix – Placeholder images are empty by default. Adds logic to enable a default placeholder image via a filter.
/classes/class-wf.php
/admin-interface.php
* Fix – Replace the use of array_replace() with a small loop, to cater for PHP 5.2 installations.
/admin-functions.php
* Fix – Ensures the custom excerpt text is called correctly, when calling get_the_excerpt() or the_excerpt().
/admin-shortcodes.php
* Fix – Ensure the defaults for “border” and “typography” fields are correctly represented on the theme settings screen, on fresh installations.
/classes/class-wf-fields.php