17 Sep

ACF 5.0 Release

The long awaited and highly anticipated major version is now available! Version 5 contains improvements across the board to performance, functionality and usability!

Today we’re excited to announce the release ACF version 5.0 on wordpress.org!

This marks a major milestone for our free plugin as it finally receives the years of development we have been pouring into ACF PRO.

Version 5.0 is miles ahead of previous versions in terms of performance, functionality and usability. We are simply thrilled to share these improvements with you and can’t wait to hear your feedback!

Exciting New Features

If you’re still using version 4.x, we invite you to upgrade at your earliest convenience. You’ll find loads of new features to help you work more efficiently. Plus, we’ve built this version with an eye towards the future of WordPress. Let’s take a tour of all the goodness that is ACF 5.

A Fresh New UI ✨

A release this big deserves a massively upgraded UI. Virtually every area has been dressed up. ACF 5 looks better than ever.

Above is a look at our new Group field showing off the Link field, a True/False toggle field, confirmation popups and a neat layout accomplished by using the new field width settings!

Super-Fast Performance ⚡️

We’ve made performance improvements across the board. More of our fields use AJAX powered search to speed up page loading. Plus, our new Local JSON feature significantly reduces database calls and allows for synchronization.

New Fields ❤️

ACF 5 includes awesome new fields to help you do more, including:

  • Link Field This field utilizes the native WP link popup for easily adding internal or external links.
  • Group Field Improve the organization of your custom field UI and data by grouping fields together.
  • Accordion Field Tidy up your fields by placing them into collapsible panels.
  • oEmbed Field Easily embed images, videos, tweets and more into your content.
  • Date Time Picker Intuitively select dates and times using this jQuery selection popup.
  • Clone Field Available only in ACF PRO, this field allows you to clone and re-use existing fields to speed up development time!

Revamped Import/Export 💾

Exporting and importing field groups between projects is easier than ever. Long gone are the days of using the WP export/import plugin. With our new Tools page you can export and import field groups as JSON. Or, generate PHP to place in your theme.

Gutenberg Compatibility ✏️

A new editor is coming to WordPress and ACF 5 is ready! We’re supporting Gutenberg right from the get-go and we have some exciting new guten-features under development!

You can expect to see lots of Gutenberg related items in our changelogs over the coming months as we edge nearer to WordPress version 5.0. You’ll also want to take note that ACF 5 is the only version that will provide Gutenberg support. Previous versions will not be compatible.

Upgrading Is Simple

Great care has been taken to ensure that the upgrade process from ACF 4 to ACF 5 is nearly seamless. Once you’ve installed ACF 5, you’ll just need to run a simple database upgrade – that’s it!

There are, however, a few items we wanted to make note of:

Template Functions Stay the Same

Our template functions haven’t changed. So any instances of get_field() or the_field() in your theme will work just as they always have.

Add-ons Work with ACF 5

If you’re using any of our Premium Add-ons, we’ve released v2.0.0 versions to make them compatible with ACF 5. We’ll also continue to release minor bug fixes as needed.

Since all of our premium functionality is now included with ACF 5 PRO, no new Add-ons will be developed in the future.

Overall, the upgrade process should be smooth sailing. Have questions? Check out our Upgrade FAQ for more information.

Celebrate with Us and Get 50% Off ACF 5 PRO!

We are so excited to release version 5.0 that we’re also offering a HUGE 50% off discount on our PRO version!

Now thru September 30, 2018, ACF 5 PRO is available for half price using the coupon ACF50! It’s our way of saying “Thank You” for your continued support.

If you’ve been thinking about using all of the amazing features in ACF 5 PRO, now is the time to act ⏰

Thanks for reading, and happy updating!