Fix - Deprecated IE-conditional html5shiv enqueue firing a notice on every page load

[rajatgautam755421]

Changes proposed in this Pull Request:

Free-theme part of themegrill/spacious-pro#146 (part 1). Pro PR: themegrill/spacious-pro#203.

Merge note: #142 edits the line just above; both PRs merge cleanly in either order (checked with git merge-tree).

The theme enqueued html5shiv (an IE 8 polyfill) with wp_script_add_data( 'html5', 'conditional', 'lte IE 8' ). Since WordPress 6.9, add_data() with conditional fires _deprecated_argument() ("IE conditional comments are ignored by all supported browsers") on every front-end request, and WP_Scripts::do_item() no longer prints scripts that have conditional data. So the script had no effect and only produced a deprecation notice per page load. The enqueue also passed true as the dependency argument.

This replaces the two lines with an empty html5 handle:

// Empty handle kept so scripts that list 'html5' as a dependency still load.
wp_register_script( 'html5', false, array(), SPACIOUS_THEME_VERSION, false );

Why an empty handle instead of deleting the lines: if a child theme, plugin or snippet enqueues a script with 'html5' in its dependencies, WordPress drops that script entirely when the dependency isn't registered (and logs "enqueued with dependencies that are not registered: html5"). Verified: with a plain delete, such a script stopped printing; with the empty handle it prints exactly as on develop. The handle prints nothing.

js/html5shiv.js / html5shiv.min.js are left in place, so any child theme referencing the file URL directly doesn't get a 404.

Effect on existing sites

• WordPress 6.9+: no HTML change at all (the script was already never printed); the deprecation notice stops.
• WordPress below 6.9: the <!--[if lte IE 8]>…<![endif]--> block is no longer printed. It is an HTML comment in every browser except IE 8 and older, so nothing changes visually or functionally.
• Code depending on the html5 handle: unchanged (still loads).
• Child themes that dequeue/deregister html5: unchanged.
• One intentional difference: if a plugin registered its own script under the html5 handle before the theme, the theme used to attach the IE condition to that plugin's script, which suppressed it. It now loads as the plugin intended.
• Demos: they run WordPress 7.0.2, so their output is unchanged.

How to test the changes in this Pull Request:

1. With WP_DEBUG and WP_DEBUG_LOG on, load any front-end page.
2. Before: debug.log gets "Function WP_Dependencies->add_data() was called with an argument that is deprecated since version 6.9.0!" on every page load. After: nothing.
3. View source: no html5shiv script and no lte IE 8 block, same as before on WP 6.9+; every other script and stylesheet is unchanged.
4. Optional: enqueue a test script with array( 'html5' ) as dependencies; it still prints.

Types of changes:

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• Enhancement (modification of the currently available functionality)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)

Other information:

• Have you added an explanation of what your changes do and why you'd like us to include them?
• Have you successfully ran tests with your changes locally? Verified manually with Playwright and a deprecation-hook logger (details below). No automated test was added.
• Have you updated the documentation accordingly?

Changelog entry

Fix - Deprecation notice on every page load from the IE 8 html5shiv script under WordPress 6.9+.

Verification (WordPress 7.1.2)

Check	develop	This branch
deprecated_argument_run for add_data() (9 front-end pages)	9 (one per load)	0
html5shiv / lte IE 8 in page source	0	0
Scripts and stylesheets printed (home, post, page, category, search, 404, shop, cart, Elementor page)	baseline	identical on all 9
Script depending on html5	prints	prints
Plugin registers its own html5 after the theme / child theme deregisters html5	as before	identical
Plugin registers its own html5 before the theme	suppressed by the theme	loads
Customizer preview, console errors	ok	ok, no JS errors

• PHPCS (WordPress): no new violations; the removed line's missing-version and in-footer warnings are gone. PHPCompatibility 7.4+: clean.
• Live demos checked (8 Free/Pro demos): WordPress 7.0.2, no html5shiv output, so no change.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[github-actions]

QA suite — refused, no regression spec

This PR changes product source but adds no spec, so the suite was
refused before booting WordPress — running it just to report the same
thing at the end costs runner minutes for nothing. Run
/claudegrill:verify-fix locally and let write-spec add the guard
to this branch, then push again.

Source files changed with no matching spec

inc/enqueue-scripts.php

[Copilot]

Copilot review overview

🟢 Approval recommended

No unresolved review issues remain.

Review effort: Lite
Findings: None

What changed in this PR

Replaces the deprecated IE8 html5shiv enqueue with an empty html5 handle, preventing WordPress 6.9+ notices while preserving dependencies.

Changes:

• Removes obsolete conditional script metadata.
• Registers an empty html5 compatibility handle.

File	Summary
inc/​enqueue-scripts.php	Replaces the deprecated enqueue with an empty registered handle.

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[iamprazol]

LGTM !! 👍