A new release of the WordPress for Texas (WFT) upstream is now available on Pantheon, which includes several major changes.
Upstream changes for sites not using the UT Theme
Now that UT EID/SAML authentication is available for any WordPress site hosted on Pantheon, regardless of the site’s upstream codebase, the only remaining core use case for the WFT upstream is the use of the UT-branded theme.
In the past month, we have worked with all WFT developers whose sites were not using the “UT Theme” to help them migrate to using Pantheon’s base WordPress upstream instead of WordPress for Texas. As the remaining sites using the WFT upstream continue to evolve, we will continue working with site owners to help them migrate to the base WordPress upstream if at some point in the future they stop using the UT Theme.
WordPress 6.8, 6.8.1
This release includes the WordPress 6.8 and 6.8.1 releases. Site owners should review the release announcement for WordPress 6.8 and 6.8.1 to be familiar with the included changes.
Plugin and theme removals
Since it’s creation, the WordPress for Texas upstream has included a number of third-party plugins that were deemed worthy of inclusion but not activated by default, as well as several plugins and themes that are part of Pantheon’s base WordPress upstream but never updated by Pantheon. This results in frequent update notifications for all site owners, despite most sites not using any of these plugins or themes.
After confirming that the following plugins and themes were not active on any paid sites using the WFT upstream, they have been removed from the upstream and should be automatically deleted from site codebases when the 2.19.0 update is applied.
Plugins
Themes
- Twenty Ten
- Twenty Eleven
- Twenty Twelve
- Twenty Thirteen
- Twenty Fourteen
- Twenty Fifteen
- Twenty Sixteen
- Twenty Seventeen
- Twenty Nineteen
- Twenty Twenty
- Twenty Twenty-One
- Twenty Twenty-Two
- Twenty Twenty-Three
- Twenty Twenty-Four
- Twenty Twenty-Five
No action is required as part of these plugin and theme removals. With the exception of Responsive Menu Pro, all of the plugins and themes being removed are available for download from https://wordpress.org if a site owner wishes to re-add any of them to their individual site.
Conversion to new SAML login library/new login URL
The 2.19.0 release includes updates to switch sites using EID authentication from using the SimpleSAMLphp library to the OneLogin SAML Toolkit library that is included with the WP SAML Auth plugin. This transition also necesitated changes in the “UTexas EID Auth” plugin that is included as part of the WFT upstream. The copy of SimpleSAMLphp that was included as part of WFT will be removed from site codebases when the update is applied.
The only functional change that WFT site owners and content editors need to be aware of is that the login URL for all sites using EID authentication will permanently change to /saml/login (e.g. https://example.utexas.edu/saml/login/).
How to update an existing site
Please refer to the Pantheon documentation for applying upstream updates to an existing site.
Next release
WordPress for Texas releases will follow any WordPress core releases within a week of the release date. Additional WFT releases may be created as needed for important plugin updates or bug fixes.
According to the WordPress roadmap, there are no planned releases for the rest of the 2025 calendar year. The next expected WordPress releases are:
- 6.9 – Tentatively 2026
- 7.0 – Tentatively 2027
Questions?
Email/Ticket: pantheon-support@utlists.utexas.edu