Operational and Enhancement updates

Known issues with SiteWorks production sites along with items of immediate technical interest will be posted here.

A formal record of changes as recorded by the team’s Change Board are available from menu Web Manager > Enhancement updates

WordPress 6.9 December 2025

WordPress 6.9 has now been picked up by all SiteWorks sites – something beyond our control. The team looked at preview versions and concluded there was no need to warn Web Managers in advance. It was a case of failing to spot the difference.

There are many public articles and videos going over the details of the changes.  One of the best we’ve come across for users is this YouTube video from Paul Charlton’s WPTuts channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPPkrk5tJ90

One to watch out for is:

There is a new “Notes” feature that lets you add a note/comment to a block. This will email the page/post’s Author. For Site Builder migrated pages this will be SwDevAdmin and hence email our SysAdmin team.
If you use this feature then change the page/post Author to one of your Administrators or Users. You can see the Authors on the Pages/Posts listing and change them using the Quick edit menu.

Some notes on what’s new in rough or changed in a subjective order of usefulness:

  • There is a new ‘Accordion’ block. This allows content to be hidden and expanded under the control of the reader, usually by clicking a +.
    See https://helpdesk.u3asite.uk/accordion-example/ for a very simple example of the concept.
    It is similar to the ‘Details’ block with the advantage that it integrates multiple entries into one block.
  • Images in a Gallery block can now have an aspect ratio set. From the ‘hamburger’ menu select the whole gallery and use the ASPECT RATIO dropdown in the Settings menu on the right.
     
  • You can drag and drop (most) blocks and media from the Block icons list and Media menu on the left to your page when opened with
     
  • A new ‘Time to Read’ block inserts a heading showing the time estimated to read a block (obviously one containing text). It can alternatively show a word count.
  • Blocks can be hidden so they are not displayed in the editor or the live page – a new option on a block’s three dots menu. This may be useful if you want to try out various alternative layouts as you don’t need to remove the blocks or start a new page. It’s also useful if you are called away when making edits – just hide your work and Save it.
    Some of us may prefer to just start a new page temporarily using the Duplicate plugin.
  • The “View tab” that appears at bottom after “Save” now opens new tab. To preview the page in the same (previously used) tab use the preview button top-right
     

LiteSpeed Cache removed 4th December 2024

In the SiteWorks distribution, one of the plugins was LiteSpeed Cache. This was included to provide a faster response to the user and reduce server load.  In practice, we found LiteSpeed caused significant issues for a few sites so has been disabled.

Following investigation, software modifications and rigorous testing,  the issues with the plugin could not be easily resolved. The team agreed to remove LiteSpeed Cache from all current and future sites and this was undertaken on the 4 December.  Experience has shown that removal has had no impact on either response time or server load.

These changes have been incorporated into the user guide.