Today marks the release of ICS Calendar Pro version 5.6.0.
With this version, the ICS Calendar Block, first introduced in version 3.16.0, is now deprecated, with it slated for removal in version 6.0.
We do not take the removal of features lightly, however under the circumstances this seems to be the best approach.
The ICS Calendar Block, as it currently exists, is not a true Block Editor block, but rather relies on the ACF Blocks feature of the embedded Advanced Custom Fields PRO plugin.
Our testing with the WordPress 6.7 beta has revealed some significant performance issues with the ICS Calendar Block. This seems to be a more general issue with ACF Blocks in that version of WordPress, so it is infeasible for us to implement a fix.
To address the removal of the ICS Calendar Block, ICS Calendar Pro 5.6 introduces the Convert ICS Calendar Blocks utility. In just a couple of clicks, it will automatically convert any ICS Calendar Blocks you have on your site into identically configured Calendar Builder saved calendars, and replace the blocks in your pages and posts with shortcode blocks for those new saved calendars.
Version 5.6 includes a few additional bug fixes and settings. Most notable is the new Load embedded ACF PRO early setting. Version 5.4.3.1 changed the loading sequence for the embedded ACF PRO, in order to address another issue that was coming up in WordPress 6.7 beta testing. While that change has, for the most part, worked seamlessly, we’ve heard about a couple of conflicts with other specific plugins and themes as a result. This option allows you to revert to the original loading sequence and should resolve those conflicts.
All of this is leading up to the big change planned for ICS Calendar Pro 6.0: the removal of the embedded ACF PRO altogether. Embedding ACF PRO was always a compromise… it was a quick way to get the Pro version of ICS Calendar off the ground four years ago, but it never felt quite right for some key functionality to be tied to a third-party plugin. The recent legal battle between Automattic and WP Engine (current makers of ACF PRO) has made it even more imperative that we do not continue to rely on it.
The timeline for version 6.0 is still somewhat tentative, but we hope to have it released before the end of the year, or very early in 2025. Removing ACF PRO will not require removing any other features of ICS Calendar Pro besides the current form of the ICS Calendar Block. All of the other ACF features we rely on can be replicated independently.
A replacement for the current ICS Calendar Block is planned for a later point update to the plugin sometime in 2025. But with the imminent release of WordPress 6.7, and the performance issues with the existing ACF Blocks-based approach, we could not wait until the replacement block was ready before implementing this change.
—Scott