WordPress 5.6 & PHP 8 Compatibility

[jconroy]

WordPress 5.6 is currently scheduled for release on December 8th - and one of its goals is supporting the newest version of PHP (8).

We should check compatibility with both WordPress 5.6 and PHP 8 to ensure the extension is ready for the December release.

See main Woo Core issue for PHP8 support in Woo Core: woocommerce/woocommerce#27674

Some of the changes in WP 5.6 (apart from PHP8 support) include:

• Navigation menus block and screen in Core.
• Automatic updates for major WordPress Core releases (opt-in).
• New features from the block editor upgrades.
  *** Widgets-editing and Customizer support in Core.**
• New Default theme, including an FSE compatible version.
• Public beta of Full Site Editing.

For the most part I think we'll be focusing on the PHP 8 support and whether there are any JS or CSS changes that affect things.

All up I believe there are 7 gutenburg release being bundled - so based on issues like this I would recommend testing any features that rely heavily on the customizer.

At a minimum, we'll want to look at

• General smoke test of functionality (review docs for functionality and intended usage)
• Check for PHP 8 warnings and errors during usage
• Increase tested up to / compatible with tags
• Create follow-up issues for anything that needs to be fixed/investigated (or simply fix)