Although there has yet to be a complete list of improvements and new features released as of November 15, 2023, there are several key areas of development that we do know we can look forward to seeing. We dig into those below.

So, What’s On the Drawing Board?

Performant Translations

Arguably one of the most anticipated enhancements in the pipeline is the introduction of performant translations. This feature is a brainchild of the WordPress Performance Team, who have set out to turbocharge the performance of sites that utilize translations.

The performant translations feature encompasses a novel, streamlined internationalization (i18n) library. This powerhouse not only provides lightning-fast speed but also economizes on memory usage while loading the binary MO files used for translations in WordPress. The result? A seamless, efficient experience for site users and developers alike.

The library is also engineered to support the simultaneous loading of multiple locales, thus accelerating the process of locale switching. Additionally, it extends support to translations housed in PHP files. This innovative approach sidesteps the need for a binary file format and leverages server level caching, if available, to further enhance site speed and memory efficiency.

Font Library

Typography plays a pivotal role in shaping a website’s aesthetic appeal and user experience. Recognizing this, WordPress 6.5 will feature a revolutionary Font Library. This feature, initially slated for WordPress 6.4 but subsequently postponed to 6.5, promises to redefine typography management across WordPress sites.

The Font Library will empower users to peruse an extensive repository of open-license fonts in the admin panel, offering an experience akin to managing media. It’s worth noting that this library will not be constrained by theme dependencies, but will be extensible for plugin developers, providing greater flexibility and customization options.

The Font Library will also pioneer server-side @font-face CSS generation and printing. All in all, this groundbreaking feature is forecasted to significantly enhance the visual appeal and overall aesthetics of any WordPress sites that decide to leverage it.

Focus on Collaboration Features

WordPress 6.5 is also gearing up to place a heightened emphasis on collaboration features. This focus is part of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which is dedicated to bolstering collaborative capabilities within WordPress.

These collaboration-centric features are set to be a key highlight of the 6.5 release and future versions throughout 2024. Users can anticipate a more cooperative and user-friendly WordPress platform, making web development and content creation a more engaging and streamlined process.

Improvements to WordPress admin accessibility

Admin notices inform WordPress users when something goes right — or wrong.

This new version of WordPress aims to provide mechanisms to assist users with accessibility needs navigate through the notices in a standardized way, outside of the existing than visual indication.

Along with this improvement, work is in progress regarding the focus styling in form inputs, buttons, and links to use a higher contrast. This continues with the previous work introduced in WordPress 5.3 to include some focusable elements that were previously missing.

Automate the workflows for testing WordPress

Build package installations for new releases (such as wordpress-6.5.zip) are manually tested by WordPress.org core developers and release party attendees when a new version is released — but they don’t usually cover an extensive range of PHP, MySQL, and older WordPress versions. With over 60,000 plugins and hundreds of different hosting configurations, it’s kind of hard to account for everything!

For this next version of WordPress, these tests could include more areas of focus programmatically to help avoid incompatibilities.

There is also a proposal to include links to WordPress Playground to automatically generate a testing environment for every new piece of functionality or patch without having to install a copy of WordPress locally. This could mean more people with non-technical skills could test and provide feedback.

Disable autoload for large options

WordPress is dazzlingly fast out of the box, but as a website grows with content and new functionality being added, it can become slow. Especially when unoptimized plugins bloat the database with options that load on every visit.

The proposal for this new version of WordPress is to prevent these options from being autoloaded if they grow past a specific size to help with speed.

Automatic Update Rollbacks

A key feature generating buzz is the ability to rollback auto updates for plugins and themes. This feature, already accessible as the “Rollback Auto Update” plugin, is a game-changer in website management. It automatically reverts plugins to a prior version if an auto-update fails, enhancing update confidence, site security, and reducing support dependency. While it adds a layer of security, regular site backups remain essential. The inclusion of this feature in WordPress 6.5 signifies a significant step forward in making website management more seamless and user-friendly.

Read more: Will “Rollback Auto Update” Be Included in WordPress 6.5?

Digital Eyes Open, More to Come

WordPress 6.5 is poised to usher in a wave of significant improvements and features that promise to elevate the user experience for experienced developers and new users alike. With a keen focus on performance, customization, and collaboration, this release marks a major step forward in web development.

Stay tuned for more updates on WordPress 6.5, coming soon!

The post WordPress 6.5 is in the Works: Here’s What We Know So Far appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.

WordPress 6.5, the next version of the content management system that powers 43% of the web, is planned for a March 2024 release, and there’s a feature — fingers crossed! — will be included that would revolutionize how plugin and theme updates are handled: auto update rollbacks.

What Makes Auto Update Rollbacks a Big Deal?

The ability to rollback auto updates is stirring excitement among WordPress users for a good reason: it isn’t just any run-of-the-mill change; it’s a significant leap forward. For years, WordPress users have grappled with the anxiety of hitting their plugin update buttons, haunted by fears of breaking their sites. This new feature addresses those fears head-on, aiming to give users peace of mind and make site maintenance smoother and more reliable.

Understanding the Feature

The proposed feature — currently available as a plugin named “Rollback Auto Update” — is a smart bit of code that automatically reverts your WordPress plugins to a previous version if an auto update fails or causes issues on your site. It’s like having a safety net, ensuring that your site remains operational even if an update goes awry.

“But wait,” you might be saying to yourself, “didn’t they add something that rolls back failed updates already?” They did! But that only works for plugins and themes that have been updated manually, from the WordPress dashboard. This is a further refinement of that feature which adds rollbacks for automatic theme and plugin updates.

“This feature is huge for easing the burden of regular site maintenance.” says DreamHost’s Resident WordPress Nerd, Jason Cosper. “It turns the plugin and theme update cycle for the majority of WordPress users into a mostly ‘set it, and forget it’ sort of affair.”

For more details, and the chance to test the feature now, install the Auto Update Rollbacks plugin from the WordPress plugin directory — and report any issues you might find in the plugin’s support forum.

Why This Matters for WordPress Site Owners

From a site owner’s perspective, this feature is revolutionary:

1. Boosts Confidence in Updates: Many website owners hesitate to update their sites due to the fear of encountering the “white screen of death” or other update-related issues. The auto update rollback feature promises to instill more confidence by providing a fail-safe mechanism.
2. Enhances Site Security: Out-of-date plugins and themes are often the weak links in site security. This feature will benefit users who enable plugin auto-updates, keeping sites more secure and up-to-date.
3. Reduces Support Dependency: Hosting providers often handle numerous support requests related to update failures. This feature could potentially free up users to ask for more help on less critical issues, like increasing performance or testing other features more deeply.

The Excitement Behind the Tech

Here’s why the WordPress community is buzzing about it:

1. Automated Rollback Mechanism: Building upon the foundation laid by the “Rollback Auto Update” plugin, this feature introduces a rollback system to automatic updates. It ensures that if an unattended update introduces problems, the site will revert to its previous, stable version.
2. Prepares for the Future: This isn’t just about solving current problems. It’s about setting the stage for a more automated, secure WordPress environment in the future.
3. Empowers Users: This feature reduces the need for manual oversight and offers peace of mind, allowing users to focus on content and business growth rather than technical maintenance.

“Making auto updates more robust could lead to enabling them by default on new WordPress installs, of course, always giving the option to disable them, benefiting the whole ecosystem” said Jos Velasco, WordPress Professional III at DreamHost.

Addressing Fatal Errors

One of the standout benefits of the auto update rollback feature is its potential to prevent fatal errors during plugin updates. Instead of a site crash during the update process leading to panic and headaches, the automated rollback kicks in, preserving site functionality and user experience.

The Bigger Picture

While the auto update rollback feature is a significant advancement, it’s essential to remember that it doesn’t replace the need for regular site backups and a solid recovery plan. It’s an additional layer of security, not a complete safeguard.

Looking Ahead

The auto update rollback feature, should it land in WordPress 6.5, will mark a new era in website management and security. It represents WordPress’s commitment to making website management more seamless, secure, and user-friendly. As users anticipate its arrival, it’s clear that the future of WordPress isn’t only about innovation but also about providing stability and confidence.

The post Will “Rollback Auto Update” Be Included in WordPress 6.5? appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.

WordPress users can expect an exciting slate of new features and upgrades — announced on August 22, 2023 — to roll out with the new release, including a new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four.

New Release, New Theme

The driving concept of Twenty Twenty-Four is to create a universal theme that is adaptable for many types of websites, regardless of the subject matter. Unlike previous years, it doesn’t focus on a single motif. Instead, the developers have decided to explore three distinct use cases: one suited for entrepreneurs and small businesses, another for photographers and artists, and a third one specifically designed for writers and bloggers. Essentially, it’s an amalgamation of templates and patterns that together form a comprehensive theme. These patterns feature various Home templates for diverse use cases such as an About page, project summaries, RSVPs, and landing pages.

The design constituents of Twenty Twenty-Four are immediately distinguishable, drawing influence from current design movements. The theme employs the Cardo font, sourced from Google Fonts, for headlines, lending an air of sophistication, while it uses a sans-serif system font for paragraph text. The primary color scheme of Twenty Twenty-Four is on the lighter side, but it also offers a darker style option that keeps the same typography intact. Furthermore, it comes with two additional sans-serif variations: one in a light mode and another in a dark mode.

As a block theme, Twenty Twenty-Four will be fully aligned with all site editor tools and will introduce several new design instruments like the details block and vertical text. A significant goal of the theme is to effectively showcase complete page patterns and template variations. This feature eliminates the need for users to create whole pages from scratch, thereby simplifying their website-building experience.

Form and Functions

WordPress 6.4 narrows in on improving elements throughout the WordPress journey, from the intricacies of crafting a fresh post to overseeing patterns throughout your website. In the midst of these enhancements, the core WordPress development team is looking to introduce fresh attributes such as font customization and the Twenty Twenty-Four default theme while also addressing any missing aspects in existing features, like additional resources to expand on your designs.

Let’s dive into some of the updates and functionalities you could expect in the pending release that’s still under development.

Revisions for Templates and Template Parts

Expanding on the core development team’s endeavor to incorporate revisions for Styles, the completion of revisions for templates and template parts will enhance the editing journey. This will provide the capability to retract any modifications made to your design, no matter where you’ve made them.

New Blocks

Three new blocks are currently under consideration for version 6.4.

• Table of Contents block
• Time to Read block
• Scrolling Marquee block

Image Lightbox

A WordPress native lightbox functionality, featuring a lightweight standardized JavaScript library, is being explored as an option to toggle on for individual image blocks to start.

Auto-Insert Blocks

In an ongoing quest to enhance user-friendly interactions, the developers are delving into the potential of auto-embedding a block into relevant sections. For example, if you’ve just installed a plugin and are tweaking your navigation, a prompt pops up offering to effortlessly integrate a login/logout option.

Post Formats in Block Themes

Since the introduction of WordPress 3.1, post formats have been a key feature, and even though block themes have worked with post formats, there are several improvements aimed at maximizing the use of post format. These enhancements include:

• Managing posts without titles within the loop and templates.
• Initiating a pattern in the process of creating a new post.
• Enhancing the distinct formatting of the post content block within the query loop.

Making the Best Even Better

Just because a platform like WordPress is already the most popular and most widely used CMS in the world, that doesn’t mean that top-notch features that were implemented in previous releases can’t be made even more effective and useful. Let’s look at what all is under consideration for some spiffing-up in WordPress 6.4.

Writing Experience

Crafting content in WordPress, be it a fresh blog post or a brand new page, ought to be a smooth and pleasurable process. The tools at your disposal should facilitate your artistic flow, not obstruct it. With its multitude of formats, design utilities, and alterations, blocks should instill in you a sense of confidence to shape your vision. This update is devoted to ensuring this experience continues to be the norm.

Interfaces and Tools

The tools available continue to be improved to make creating a site or writing a post more streamlined with the following focus areas:

• List View iterations with custom naming of Group blocks, media previews for gallery and image blocks, the ability to resize, keyboard shortcut for duplicating blocks, and more.
• Top Toolbar improvements, including resolving some keyboard navigation issues.
• Distraction-free improvements.
• Command Palette: Add new block commands, refine the design, add support for registering commands without icons, improve command palette rendering on smaller viewports.

Site Editing

Specific refinements and enhancements that improve the broader WordPress user experience are a focus of release 6.4.

• Add “Show Template” toggle when editing pages.
• Add discussion settings/detail for pages.
• Display current modifications in the “Browse styles” panel.
• Remove coupling of template and template parts when switching themes.
• Site Editing: Hide page/post title.
• Site Editor → Page Inspector: Add the ability to switch templates.
• Align page edit features in Site Editor and Post Editor.
• Add missing CSS classes to templates.
• Explore improvements to the Styles panel in Site Editor.

Design Tools

To enable more complex designs, various design tooling-related enhancements and additional functionality are being explored. These efforts range from block-specific changes like adding support for background images to the Group block, to larger efforts like extending theme.json to provide spacing size presets:

• Add box shadow component.
• Extend theme.json to provide spacing size presets.
• Add the ability for theme developers to configure their own default min and max viewport widths for calculating fluid font sizes.
• Expanding and simplifying layout controls, including block support and the UI.
• Custom CSS Enhancements.
• Addressing design tooling consistency.
• Add block instance elements support for buttons and headings as a first step in the broader idea of element sets.
• Advancing more aspect ratio support.
• Global Styles: Add support for elements to individual blocks.
• Site Logo: Add width unit support.
• Cover: Set custom color when applying the initial background image.
• Elements: Add support for text-based inputs.
• Categories: Add a list style type option to the categories block.
• Group Block: Add support for Background Images.
• Media + Text: Support featured image.

Global Styles

Global styles are both a system and an interface for managing styling across your site, from individual changes to a block to sweeping changes across an entire site. This current effort continues to evolve along the same lines and across a broad range of items, from more technical updates in theme.json, to more UI-centered work around the Style Book tool. To continue to broaden the possibilities with the built-in style system and to make it as easy as possible to use, the following work is planned:

• Style revisions: Add a side-by-side comparison, add pagination, add a reset to default revision.
• Style book: Iterate on presentation and design, add the ability to focus on individual block types, and integrate patterns.
• Theme.json: Enable references to work, add section-specific theme.json capabilities.
• Styles experience: exploring how best to represent the hierarchy of styles, show inherited styles, and manage style variations.

Patterns

After introducing the ability to create patterns directly in the editing experience, more advanced features and various quality-of-life improvements are planned for 6.4, including the following:

• Add the ability to set categories.
• Update the inserter experience to ensure consistency between synced and unsynced.
• Improve compatibility for non-block themes.
• Iterate on patterns page’s empty category state.
• Synced Patterns: Not receiving alignment attributes in the editor.

Navigation Creation and Management

As with every release since WordPress 5.9, the Navigation block and navigation management refinements continue to have a specific focus: to make it more robust and useful, especially when it comes to various responsive needs:

• Overlay referenced as a template part
• Add the ability to see where each menu is used.
• Add the ability to style the current menu item.
• Allow an option to set a custom icon.
• Add the ability to set different links on mobile.
• Explore a bulk add mode.
• Continued iteration to improve fallbacks.

Query Loop Block

To better enable more complex queries and bring more options for displaying posts, the following items are being worked on:

• Consider adding a Term Query Loop Block.
• Add the option to not repeat posts already shown by other Query Loop blocks displayed on the same page.
• Query block: client-side pagination, powered by the Interactivity API.

Footnotes

Introduced in WordPress 6.3, the Footnotes block continues to evolve with more design tooling available and custom post-type compatibility work:

• Add typography, dimensions, and border block supports.
• Add link, background, and text color support.
• Ensure compatibility with Custom Post Types.

Forward-Thinking Leadership

Harkening back to what we first saw with the release of WordPress 5.6, “Simone,” on December 8, 2020, the development of WordPress 6.4 is being led entirely by a team of self-identifying women, nonbinary, and gender-expansive contributors.

The full inclusiveness of this leadership model is in keeping with the open and collaborative nature of WordPress, where contributions from anyone, regardless of how they identify themselves, are welcomed.

Happy Anniversary

WordPress 6.4 will be the final release of the CMS in 2023, a year that marks the 20th anniversary of the first version, affectionately nicknamed “Davis” after jazz musician Miles Davis, which debuted on May 27, 2003. Version 6.4 will be the 48th release of WordPress, and while this content management system has already come a long way since its inception, its open-source structure and collaborative spirit ensure that it will continue to evolve and improve to empower people to create and manage their own digital presence well into the future.

The post WordPress 6.4 Set for November 7, 2023 Release Date; New Functionalities, Improvements Under Consideration appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.

Hold on to your hats, WordPress fans! Hot on the heels of a successful WordPress 6.2 release in March of this year, the development cycle for WordPress 6.3 kicked off on April 25, 2023, with an eye toward a general release date of August 8, 2023.

The original proposal for WordPress 6.3, released on April 14, 2023, outlined several key areas of focus, including further full-site editing (FSE) enhancements, performance improvements, and accessibility upgrades. As always, the WordPress community sought volunteers to contribute their skills to various teams. Developers, designers, testers, and content creators were all encouraged to participate.

New Features in Detail

There are some truly exciting new features lined up, which were announced in the WordPress 6.3 Field Guide on the Make WordPress Core blog on July 18, 2023!

First up, WordPress 6.3 is introducing a Command Palette, a nifty feature akin to Spotlight (macOS) or PowerToys Run (Windows) for WordPress. It’s a big step towards getting you where you need to go in your dashboard with nothing more than a few keystrokes.

This feature will provide users with a quick and efficient way to access various WordPress functions and perform tasks without having to dig through menu after menu. By utilizing keyboard shortcuts and a search-style interface, users can find and execute commands, helping make their WordPress workflow more streamlined and productive than ever before.

Next, there are significant caching improvements across various components, targeted at enhancing the overall performance and speed of your websites. This means quicker loading times and a smoother user experience for both you and your visitors. Caching plays a crucial role in enhancing website performance by storing frequently accessed data temporarily, reducing the need to fetch the same information repeatedly from the database. These improvements should lead to faster page load times, reduced server load, and happier visitors.

In terms of media, WordPress 6.3 also promises to boost your media performance. This means quicker-loading images and other media for site visitors — keeping your audience engaged and reducing bounce rates.

By optimizing image loading and employing efficient compression techniques, site owners can expect quicker loading times for their visitors. This enhancement will not only contribute to better user engagement but also positively impact search engine rankings, as page speed is a crucial factor for SEO.

Another major step forward is the introduction of rollbacks for failed theme and plugin updates. So, a “bad” update of a plugin or theme — due to things like library incompatibilities or unknown bugs in new code — should no longer brick your site and send you scrambling to get it back up and running.

WordPress 6.3 will introduce a safeguard mechanism that prevents issues arising from most failed manual theme and plugin updates. In earlier versions of WordPress, a problematic update to a theme or plugin could potentially render a site nonfunctional.

The new rollback feature will automatically revert to the previously installed version of a theme or plugin should an update fail. This mitigates the risk of a “bad” update breaking the site. This enhancement hopes to provide peace of mind to website administrators, as they’ll now be able to confidently update themes and plugins without fearing catastrophic consequences.

The introduction of style revisions is another feature to look forward to. This allows you to roll your theme back to old site styles in just a click, providing you with the flexibility to experiment and change your site’s look without worry. This feature will be especially beneficial for users who frequently modify their website’s appearance and layout.

In case a user wants to revert to a previous design configuration, they can easily do so by selecting their revision from an easy-to-use timeline, avoiding the need to manually revert each change. The style revision history enhances the user experience and provides greater flexibility in managing the visual aspects of your WordPress site.

Last but not least, WordPress 6.3 includes significant accessibility updates. These enhancements aim to make WordPress more inclusive and easier to use for everyone.

Accessibility is a critical aspect of website development, ensuring that all users, regardless of their abilities, can access and navigate a site effectively. WordPress 6.3 will implement its accessibility updates to improve the platform’s compliance with accessibility standards. These updates include enhancements to ensure compatibility with assistive technologies, keyboard navigation improvements, and other features that enhance the overall accessibility of WordPress websites. By prioritizing accessibility, WordPress aims to create a more inclusive online environment for all users.

Overall, WordPress 6.3 promises to deliver significant usability and performance improvements, as well as enhance site security and accessibility, making it a highly anticipated release for the WordPress community.

A Busy Year

With WordPress 6.2 having been released on March 28, 2023, and WordPress 6.3 set for August 8, 2023, it’s safe to say that this year has already been a busy one for WordPress volunteer developers!

As reported in Make WordPress Core on April 14, 2023, the timeline for WordPress 6.3’s release has taken into account two major flagship WordPress events scheduled to take place this year: WordCamp Europe, which occurred in early June, and WordCamp US and the Community Summit in late August.

The developer teams hope to avoid having any major milestones like Beta 1 and RC1 conflict with the WordCamp gatherings, so they’ve proposed fitting the release process, from Beta 1 to the final WordPress 6.3 release, in a 10-week window between both WordCamps.

What’s more, regarding the Gutenberg release cadence, WordPress 6.3 is expected to bring over changes in the block editor from the Gutenberg plugin up to version 16.1, for a total of 10 Gutenberg releases since the release of WordPress 6.2.

Teamwork

In the April 14 proposal announcement on the Make WordPress Core blog, openings were announced for volunteers to lead a number of development teams: Release Coordinator, Core Tech Lead, Editor Tech Lead, Core Triage Lead, Editor Triage Lead, Documentation Lead, Marketing & Communications Lead, Test Lead, Design Lead, and Performance Lead.

Proposed Schedule

Looking Even Farther Out

Even though WordPress 6.3 is nearing completion but is yet to have its general release, the WordPress community is already thinking ahead to the release of WordPress 6.4 and a return to a historic point in the history of WordPress.

Version 6.4’s development will be led entirely by a team of women and nonbinary creators, which harkens back to the WordPress 5.6 release, “Simone.” The release squad will be open to anyone who identifies as a woman, nonbinary, or gender-expansive, but, of course, in keeping with the WordPress collaborative spirit, all contributions from anyone, regardless of how they identify themselves, will be welcomed.

The post WordPress 6.3 Nears August 8 General Release Date; New Features Detailed appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.

Refinements and significant improvements, as well as ease of use, are the main focus areas of WordPress 6.2. Among those improvements are a revamped approach to navigating between templates and template parts, an additional way to manage menus with the navigation block, and the ability to import widgets to block themes.

The base block experience will also receive improvements, including features like a new distraction-free writing mode and a scaled block settings experience.

Let’s dive right in and check out what you and other WordPress users have to look forward to!

Full Site Editing Becomes a Breeze

The Site Editor will now center the entire structure of your site starting with the homepage. Whereas in the past when you’d be dropped into a single template, various features will now come together to make it easier to navigate across your site and take the actions you want. In addition, you’ll be able to:

New Site Editor Features

• Experience a refreshed Site Editor with the new Browse mode.
• Easily identify template parts and reusable blocks with added colorization.
• Write without interruption with the specially designed distraction-free editing mode.
• Insert media directly from your Media Library using the Inserter.
• Quickly add images from Openverse to your posts using the Inserter, with the option to disable this feature.
• Keep an eye out for the updated Block Settings icon, an indicator of additional forthcoming changes.
• Migrate your widgets to block themes with ease.
• View your list view and document information all in one unified panel.

Distraction-Free Mode

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Reimagined Site Editor

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Leveling-Up Individual Blocks

Individual blocks, particularly the Navigation block, have also received some desperately needed upgrades. Like many other features and functions of WordPress, their capabilities and the user experience have continued to improve. Furthermore, overall block settings have been iterated upon with more complex blocks in mind, with a split between Styles and Settings tabs.

New Block Features

• Enhance your editing experience with the new list view for the Navigation block, accessible within the block settings sidebar.
• Limit editing of the Navigation block’s inner blocks (links and submenus) for a more curated experience.
• Enjoy the convenience of various in-built fallbacks for the Navigation block.
• Elevate your block customization with split Styles and Settings, optimized for compatibility with a growing range of design tools.
• Keep blocks at the root level in sight with the “Sticky” block position option in the inspector.
• Fine-tune the width of blocks within a Row block.
• Easily choose between a row or stacked layout during Group block setup.
• Utilize the aspect ratio tool for custom image dimensions.
• Modify captions for Audio, Video, and Image blocks directly from the block toolbar with ease.

Design on Your Terms With Updated Block Patterns

Since they were introduced, Block Patterns have been one of the most popular features of WordPress. They’re a collection of predefined blocks that you can insert into pages and posts and customize with your own content. They make it possible to quickly and easily create standout pages on your WordPress site with very little effort.

Now, in WordPress 6.2, a redesign of the patterns Inserter makes it easier to pick and choose between patterns, including newly bundled Header and Footer options. Developers and Site Builders who create and provide patterns can expand where they can be used, including an option to register patterns specifically for templates.

New Block Patterns Features

• Streamline your pattern selection with the improved Pattern Inserter and refined categorization.
• Effortlessly switch between Header and Footer patterns bundled with Core.
• Specify the templates where patterns can be used by registering them for specific template types. For instance, an Error 404 pattern should only be used with the 404 template.
• Select from a growing collection of Query Loop patterns directly from the block, with a more streamlined setup process.

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Design Takes Center Stage

If you’ve struggled with site design in the past and felt overwhelmed by the learning curve of previous WordPress releases, don’t panic! WordPress 6.2 takes the strong foundation provided by theme.json and the Styles Engine to new heights.

The new features and enhancements will allow users to experiment with different styles, preview the changes in real-time, and apply them globally or locally as needed, making the entire design process more intuitive and efficient. So, even if you have never felt confident in your site design skills, WordPress 6.2 is here to help.

New Design Features

• Create a cohesive look for your site with the Style Book, which allows you to view and style all blocks at once.
• Preview the impact of your design changes with an inline view of blocks while working with Styles.
• Get a more comprehensive glance at your template when choosing a style variation.
• Quickly make sitewide changes to a single block across your site using the “Apply Globally” control in the Advanced block settings.
• Speed up your design process by copying and pasting block styles for consistent designs.
• Customize your entire site or individual blocks with custom CSS controls.
• Make edits to block style variations from within Styles.
• Set a minimum fluid font size in theme.json for more flexible typography.
• Add shadow preset support via theme.json.

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More to Come in WordPress 6.2

In addition to all of the refinements and improvements coming to WordPress 6.2 that we’ve laid out above, there will also be a number of performance improvements, a faster plugin and theme upgrade process, further iteration on PHP 8.2.x support, and all of the expected general bug fixes and enhancements to look forward to.

Altogether, these will help take the WordPress experience to new heights! Stay tuned for more updates by subscribing below.

The post WordPress 6.2 is Coming Soon! Here’s Your First Look appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.

“The tune of the release will be to refine the experiences introduced in 5.9 and 6.0, weave the various flows into more coherent and fulfilling experiences for users, maintainers, and extenders, and close some gaps in functionality as we start to look towards Phase 3 of the Gutenberg roadmap,” Ventura said at the time.

Development Focus Areas for WordPress 6.1

Ventura’s initial roadmap highlighted five key areas that were expected to be developed.

1. Template Editor

Thanks to modifications to the template editor, users had been able to browse, visualize, and edit the structure of their sites with little to no knowledge of underlying code. The planned revisions to the editor would also provide more clarity between global elements like templates, template parts, and styles, the goal of which will be unifying the template editor and post editor user experience.

2. Building With Patterns

The development team was also keen to fully unlock the potential of block patterns that it highlighted in “Building with Patterns,” which came along a bit late in the WordPress 6.0 development cycle. This element of the WordPress 6.1 update would allow patterns to be central to the creative experience for day-to-day users. Patterns would be able to be tailored for custom post types, and block types. Work on improving the block locking experience, and managing saved patterns was also expected.

3. Global Styles

The WordPress core development team’s ongoing global styles roadmap includes updates to the styles engine, main interface and user experience, styles variations panel, web font and typography customization, cross-block elements, per-block styles and supports, and block style variations.

4. Blocks and Design Tools

Progress would continue on the global styles interface while improving support for restrictions, privileges, and curated presets. The 6.1 release would hopefully allow users to manage webfonts, implement responsive typography, and expand the blocks toolset — all to improve consistency, reliability, and user satisfaction.

5. Themes and Wider Adoption

The team would address issues concerning the ability to adopt features like template parts gradually on existing legacy themes. It would also look towards whether it would be possible to get broader access to theme.json editing, as well as look towards theme switching flows and how to best make use of new style and template possibilities.

Development Coming Into Further Focus

The first Beta, a version of the WordPress 6.1 software under development, was released on September 21, and the last one was released on October 4. During the Beta phase, core contributors’ focus was on testing and fixing bugs. Some features from Beta weren’t guaranteed to be included in the final release, however.

Then WordPress 6.1 headed into the home stretch with three release candidates on October 11, 18, and 25. Release candidates are the final stages in the version release cycle, signaling the potential to be a final release to the public.

Building Upon WordPress 5.9 and 6.0

Because the WordPress core team is continually discussing and developing new features and bug fixes, and testing them in beta releases, it is able to put out new major versions of WordPress quite quickly. WordPress 5.9, which introduced the hotly-anticipated Full Site Editing, was released on January 25, 2022. And WordPress 6.0, dubbed “Arturo,” went live on May 24, 2022.

Version 6.0 was a massive release that was a huge leap forward in what it offered to users in terms of features, functionality, and fixes. It included:

• Accessibility. The WordPress open-source software itself has received upgrades so that it’s easier to use overall.
• Block editor
  • Bundle multiple style variations for block themes.
  • Create page content patterns that you can choose from to create your pages.
  • New ancestor property in block.json. This will allow you to restrict where blocks may be placed.
  • A new user interface will allow you to set a lock attribute for every block in the editor.
  • Registration of blocks from within themes
  • Unrecognized content in the content can now be preserved thanks to upgraded support.
  • The block theme export feature in the Site Editor has been given a very robust upgrade as well.
  • Block markup updates for image, quote, list, and group blocks
  • A new set of Post Comments blocks, No Results block, and more
• Bootstrap/load. Skip unneeded queries by applying a do_parse_request filter.
• Cache API improvements. wp_cache_*_multiple is now full CRUD.
• Media. New filters and user interface additions.
• More dynamic hooks for custom post types
  • Taxonomy improvements. Query caching, taxonomy query limits, navigation menu items, terminology changes, and more.
  • Themes. Streamlined patterns functionality for theme authors, support for multiple theme.json files, better export themes with Site Editor, and more.
  • Users. Sites with particularly high traffic will now be able to query and count users.
• Updates for developers

New Features in WordPress 6.1

Let’s dive into the features that are officially here in WordPress 6.1.

Release Candidate 1 was available on October 11. It marked the culmination of a lot of collaboration since Beta 3:  approximately 100 items had been addressed, and the number of updates and bug fixes since the release of WordPress 6.0 in May 2022 was more than 2,000. It was followed by Release Candidate 2 on October 18 and Release Candidate 3 on October 25, Release Candidate 4 on October 27, and Release Candidate 5 on October 28.

WordPress 6.1 is the third and final major WordPress release of the year. Here’s what’s new:

WordPress 6.1 New Features for End-Users

• A new default theme powered by 10 unique style variations (learn more)
• More design tools across more blocks (learn more)
• Expanded and refined template experience and template options
• More intuitive document settings experience
• Improved quote and list blocks with inner block support
• More robust placeholders for various blocks
• Refined modal interfaces and preferences improvements
• Automatic navigation block selection with fallbacks and easier menu management
• Apply locking settings to all inner blocks in one click
• Improvements to the block theme discovery experience
• Accessibility updates, with more than 60 resolved tickets
• Performance updates, with more than 25 resolved tickets

WordPress 6.1 New Features for Developers

• The ability to opt into appearance tools to make any theme more powerful
• New iteration on the style system
• Add starter patterns to any post type (learn more)
• Evolution of layout options including a new constrained option and the ability to disable layout options
• Content lock patterns for more curation options
• Expanded support for query loop blocks
• Allow for the use of block-based template parts in classic themes
• Filter theme.json data (learn more)
• Fluid typography allows for improved responsiveness support
• Ability to style elements inside blocks like buttons, headings, or captions in theme.json

Stay Tuned for More Updates

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The post WordPress 6.1 is Released! Here’s What’s New appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.

Update 05/24/2022

WordPress 6.0 is now live and available for download. To learn more and download WordPress 6.0, click the update below:

Update 05/12/2022

Here’s a mere sampling of the many exciting changes you can expect when upgrading to WordPress 6.0!

• Accessibility. The WordPress open-source software itself has received upgrades so that it’s easier to use overall.
• Block editor.
  • Bundle multiple style variations for block themes.
  • Create page content patterns that you can choose from to create your pages.
  • New ancestor property in block.json. This will allow you to restrict where blocks may be placed.
  • A new user interface will allow you to set a lock attribute for every block in the editor.
  • Registration of blocks from within themes
  • Unrecognized content in the content can now be preserved thanks to upgraded support.
  • The block theme export feature in the Site Editor has been given a very robust upgrade as well.
  • Block markup updates for image, quote, list, and group blocks
  • A new set of Post Comments blocks, No Results block, and more
• Bootstrap/load. Skip unneeded queries by applying a do_parse_request filter.
• Cache API improvements. wp_cache_*_multiple is now full CRUD.
• Media. New filters and user interface additions.
• More dynamic hooks for custom post types
• Taxonomy improvements. Query caching, taxonomy query limits, navigation menu items, terminology changes, and more.
• Themes. Streamlined patterns functionality for theme authors, support for multiple theme.json files, better export themes with Site Editor, and more.
• Users. Sites with particularly high traffic will now be able to query and count users.
• Updates for developers

WordPress 5.9 & Full Site Editing

Just because something is already pretty great doesn’t mean that there isn’t ever room for further improvements and refinements. Take WordPress 5.9 for example. It was released on January 25, 2022, with a whole fleet of new features and refinements.

Dubbed “Joséphine,” the WordPress 5.9 release bounded forward with a number of updates intended to make the website creation and design experience much more friendly for end-users than any previous release. The hallmark features of Joséphine include:

• Full site editing controls when using a supported block-based theme
• Sitewide blocks that allow for additional customization
• Navigation blocks that allow for further flexibility with site menus
• The new, full site editing ready Twenty Twenty-Two theme
• Enhanced lazy loading performance for images
• Performance improvements to the Inserter, Block Themes, List View, and more

And yet, WordPress developers are already looking ahead to 6.0, and figuring out what new features it might boast.

The Future of WordPress

Early reports on WordPress 6.0 hint at even bigger advances and refinements. In a January 26, 2022, blog post, Matías Ventura, an engineer and designer who was the lead architect of the Gutenberg block editor for WordPress and co-designer of the Twenty Eleven default theme, laid out a preliminary, high-level roadmap for the next steps and general scope for the new release.

“The overall aim is to consolidate and expand the set of customization tools introduced in 5.9 for creating themes with blocks, with a special focus towards usability and refinement,” Ventura said. “This new release could be considered a conceptual wrap for Gutenberg: Phase 2. This doesn’t mean the customization phase would be concluded with it, but that its main features would have been established.”

For those of you who aren’t aware, Gutenberg is the name given to the controversial yet revolutionary block editor that was introduced alongside the release of WordPress 5.0 in December 2018. The Gutenberg project’s goal is to help even the most novice, non-developer users easily create and manipulate content in a way that WordPress’ previous editor could not. Gutenberg allows for building and editing impressive, media-rich pages using movable block elements such as paragraphs, images, lists, galleries, videos, audio, and more.

The Gutenberg editor has three main components:

• Content: The content takes up most of the screen. You’ll see a visual preview of what everything should look like when a visitor is browsing your site. It’s not always 100% accurate, but the editor provides you with a rather good idea of the final layout.
• Top toolbar: The toolbar at the top helps you insert new blocks, undo or redo any edits you have made, and access other vital settings
• Sidebar: The sidebar contains two tabs. The Post tab lets you configure post-level settings such as categories, tags, the featured image, etc. The Block tab shows the settings for whatever block that you have selected.

Expanding upon the existing tools that were introduced with the Gutenberg release — and revisiting some previously considered and shelved features — are, as Ventura said in his blog post, ultimately the goal of developers as they look ahead to WordPress 6.0.

There are a wide number of ideas currently on the table, and Ventura laid many of them out in his roadmap.

On top of the WordPress 6.0 roadmap, the Gutenberg project itself has its own development roadmap, broken down into four phases. They are:

1. Easier Editing: Block-based content editing.
2. Customization: FSE, block patterns, block directory, block themes, and global styles.
3. Collaboration: Co-authoring content.
4. Multilingual: Implementation of multilingual sites.

As it stands, the Gutenberg project is currently working through Phase 2, Customization. And while work on Phase 2 won’t be over anytime soon, after WordPress 6.0 ships the talk is that the team may start work on Phase 3, Collaboration.

More Customization On the Way

The future looks bright and is full of possibilities when it comes to what these and further updates will offer WordPress users, according to Jason Cosper, the WordPress Product Advocate on the DreamPress team here at DreamHost.

“With Full Site Editing officially being released in WordPress 5.9, WordPress 6.0 looks to offer further refinements and improvements to the core site editing experience,” Cosper said. “6.0 means that WordPress users will move ever closer to not even needing one of the popular page building plugins like Elementor, Beaver Builder, or Divi.”

WordPress 6.0 Release Schedule

Have a look at the timeline below for the planned schedule for the development and eventual rollout of WordPress 6.0. Even more detail can be found on the WordPress core development blog.

• April 5, 2022: Live-streamed walkthrough
• April 12, 2022: Beta 1
• April 19, 2022: Beta 2
• April 26, 2022: Beta 3
• May 3, 2022: Release candidate 1
• May 10, 2022: Release candidate 2
• May 17, 2022: Release candidate 3
• May 23, 2022: Dry run for release of WordPress 6.0 and 24-hour code freeze
• May 24, 2022: WordPress 6.0 is released

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The post WordPress 6.0 “Arturo” – Here’s What’s New appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.

WordPress 5.9 will introduce Full Site Editing (FSE) — a critical update that should make it easier to customize and modify WordPress sites without the need for any custom coding. With the addition of this functionality, the platform moves even closer to becoming a fully-featured website development kit.

In this post, we’ll discuss some of the most significant updates coming in WordPress 5.9 and what they mean for existing WordPress users. Let’s take a look!

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What You Need to Know About WordPress Full Site Editing

In the past, users have had to customize WordPress primarily through themes or custom programming. While themes typically provide some customization features, they vary widely in what they allow. That’s why many users choose page builder plugins to get more control over their sites’ look and layout.

WordPress 5.0 took a big step in the direction of providing that kind of functionality, thanks to the introduction of the new Block Editor. However, this editor was initially designed for modifying pages and other post types, as well as widget areas. That means the platform has lacked  an easy way to fully customize the other areas of your site without additional plugins.

However, that won’t be true for long. WordPress 5.9 will come with a new Full Site Editing function, letting users update and redesign their websites through a simple drag-and-drop interface. Full Site Editing should make it easier for a non-programmer to design their WordPress website without relying on their theme, custom code, or a page builder tool. Even better, this functionality will function similarly to the existing WordPress Block Editor, making it easy to learn.

Of course, that’s not all WordPress 5.9 will include. There are also several quality-of-life features on the way, such as improved image compression. Unfortunately, the 5.9 update is complicated enough that some bugs and challenges have led to delays.

WordPress Full Site Editing Update Delayed

At the time of this writing, WordPress developers have delayed the 5.9 update until next year due to open issues and blockers. WordPress is an open source platform, so its development is very visible. At any time, you can see the features the developers are working on, the status of each new feature, and how the developers are resolving them.

Due to challenges with this particular version, the WordPress team decided to delay WordPress 5.9 instead of shipping it before the holidays. If they had opted for the latter, the features intended for WordPress 5.9 would have ended up in WordPress 6.0 instead. WordPress 5.9 would have simply contained bug fixes and some minor functionality updates.

Fortunately, the project has only been delayed until January 25, 2022 — about a month after the initial projected release date. Plus, this delay comes with good news: The most anticipated features will still make it into version 5.9.

What to Expect from WordPress Full Site Editing (3 Features)

Full Site Editing will make it easier to customize WordPress sites than ever before, without the need to rely on third-party tools. It also shouldn’t disrupt your existing website. If you’re wondering what to expect, let’s discuss the three most popular features still coming in WordPress 5.9.

1. You’ll Have More Control Over the Way Your Site Looks

Today, you can edit your posts with WordPress’ WYSIWYG editor. As we mentioned earlier, the developers dramatically revised this editor in the 5.0 update.

However, you still need a theme to change how your WordPress site looks overall. Users modify their themes through the “Theme Customizer,” which may contain only a few options or a lot of choices, depending on what a given theme’s developers opted to provide.

With the new WordPress FSE feature, you’ll be able to edit your page layouts through a drag-and-drop interface. For example, you might place widgets in certain areas, control the positioning of your header, or modify the size and position of your text.

Classic themes will still remain relevant, but you will have more granular control when it comes to personalizing those themes. Rather than having to hope that the WordPress theme developer made it possible to edit your site’s color scheme, for instance, you’ll be able to do that yourself. Not only that, you’ll also be able to copy ready-to-go layouts, called Block Patterns, and paste them directly into the Full Site Editor.

Over the long term, this also means that the nature of block themes may change. They’ll likely become broader, more feature-focused, and visually non-specific (providing more of a “blank slate” to work with).

2. You’ll Be Able to Change Styles Through a Global Styles Interface

In WordPress, a site’s overall “style” consists of font faces, font colors, font sizes, and formatting. For example, a header might be in “14-point, blue Trebuchet, centered”. Not all themes make it possible to edit the default style, yet it can significantly impact how the site appears to visitors.

Currently, if you want to edit these details — and your WordPress theme doesn’t let you do so — you would need to customize your site’s style sheets. This requires some knowledge of CSS, a markup language.

Now, a “Global Styles” interface will be provided to make changing fonts, colors, sizes, and other stylistic elements easier. The end result is that WordPress sites will be more customizable and look more distinct. You will be able to “brand” your WordPress site more easily — and won’t need to dig into the code to do so.

Of course, themes (or plugins) will still be necessary to create more complex elements, such as slideshows or scrolling news tickers. However, block themes are likely to become more focused on back-end design (such as how data is controlled and manipulated) rather than front-end design (such as how the site actually looks).

3. You’ll Have Better Access to WordPress’ Design Tools

Last but not least, WordPress 5.9’s typography, spacing, color, and layout tools will be integrated into existing blocks. This should make creating a consistent design that spans your entire site easier.

The WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor has been, up to this point, based around creating and manipulating blocks of content. A “block” is a discrete element or piece of content, such as a header, paragraph, or image.

Now, you will be able to more easily edit these blocks across your entire site, rather than just on your pages and posts. Additionally, WordPress has improved the individual components used to edit those blocks, such as the WordPress Color Picker. These individual components were previously introduced to the Block Editor (by way of the Gutenberg plugin) and are meant to spread throughout the platform.

These blocks will make it easier to customize your site’s content. Thanks to the drag-and-drop interface, you won’t need to know how to add code. Plus, you’ll be able to see how your changes look immediately.

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What to Expect from the Future of WordPress Full Site Editing

WordPress developers first created the platform as an easy way to build a simple blog. However, it’s become a fully-featured Content Management System (CMS) over the years. It now supports major community sites, e-commerce stores, and much more.

Full Site Editing will move WordPress even closer to becoming a full website development kit — a platform that can create any type of web application with ease. Other competitors within this space include website builders such as Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, and more.

Not everyone found it easy to adjust to the initial Block Editor (“Gutenberg”) updates. However, they’ve slowly become part of most WordPress users’ experience. Over the long term, the WordPress Gutenberg project rollout is being managed in four phases.

WordPress 5.9 will bring Gutenberg to the customization stage (Phase 2). Once this update is rolled out and perfected, we are likely to see more features designed to enhance collaboration during the design and content creation process, as well as better WordPress core support for multilingual sites.

Conclusion

If you’re interested in learning more about the functionality of WordPress 5.9, you can download and test the beta version. Just note that it isn’t currently considered “stable”, so you’ll want to experiment with it on a staging site (not your live website).

Alternatively, you can simply wait for WordPress 5.9 to drop. As we’ve seen, it will include exciting new features such as:

1. The ability to easily choose from the Block Pattern directory and modify your site’s layout.
2. A Global Styles Interface to simplify changing fonts, colors, sizes, and other stylistic elements
3. New, responsive tools integrated into blocks

Are you ready to start building your WordPress site? Our DreamPress managed WordPress hosting is the perfect way to start. Not only do we provide 24/7 WordPress support and free automated WordPress migrations, but our WP Website Builder can help you start building your website today — even without WordPress Full Site Editing.

The post WordPress 5.9 Full Site Editing Update Delayed Until Late January appeared first on Website Guides, Tips & Knowledge.