The newest version of WordPress — version 6.4.1 — was just released. The main thing I was looking for was relief for a hyperlink bug.
You may know that the developers behind WordPress release periodic updates. This is true of most large platforms. Some of those updates address performance issues. Others protect users from security vulnerabilities. Once in a while, those updates correct bugs.
WordPress 6.4 is now available for WordPress users. You can find a laundry list of changes this new version makes to the core WordPress. A couple of months ago, I mentioned a hyperlink blog that appeared after an earlier WordPress update.
Here’s WordPress 6.3’s hyperlink bug
Two months ago, I told you that WordPress 6.3 changed something that affected hyperlinks. As a general rule, if I link to other posts or pages on this blog, those links open in the same window (or tab). But if I link to a site outside this blog, I will have that open in a different window or tab on your browser. Many sites operate this way. Ideally, it keeps readers on your site a bit longer: If they want to have a quick look at an article I reference, they can glance at it and then come back to the post that linked to it without having to backup in their browser.
Before WordPress 6.3, when you selected the portion of the text you wanted to convert into a hyperlink, you clicked the link icon and a little window — programmers call it a “modal” — popped up. Right there in that one window, you could enter the link URL and select whether it would open in the same window or a new one with the click of one checkbox.
When WordPress 6.3 came out, however, that modal changed. The new version basically gives you space for the URL. There’s no option to check or uncheck for opening in the same window or a new one.
If you wanted the hyperlink to open for readers in a different window, you then had to click the hyperlink you just added, click a little “pencil” icon to edit it, wait for another modal to appear, click “Advanced” on that one, and then click the box for that.
It was multiple extra steps for no good reason at all.
Anything that wastes my time unnecessarily won’t rank high on my list. This change made no sense. It was, at best, asinine.
Naturally, when I upgraded to WordPress 6.4, I was eager to see whether they fixed this ridiculous complication.
You’d think the fix would be easy
It sure seemed easy for them to screw things up. I would think they could simply reverse that one little change with 6.4.
Unfortunately, they didn’t.
I’m not sure how they managed to make adding a hyperlink more complicated. So I’m also not sure why it’s so difficult to find the mistake and fix it.
If you, like me, hoped that 6.4 would solve this issue that 6.3 dropped on us, then you, like me, will be very disappointed.
There’s always 6.5 to look forward to. In the meantime, we’re stuck with needless extra work to get a hyperlink to display properly.
