You read that right! In May 2022, WordPress launched its latest beta update – Version 6.0. This update introduced improved template creation and performance enhancements. We’re going to chat a bit about what’s new in this update, as well as the bug fixes this update offers and what we think the next step is!
What’s New?
- Enhanced Writing Experience
This update offers improved writing by allowing new additional features. You can select text across multiple blocks for easier copying and pasting. By opening two open brackets ([[), you can quickly access a list of recent posts and pages. When transforming some blocks from one kind to another, you can now keep existing styles. When creating customized buttons, any new buttons you make will retain the style customizations automatically. Lastly, you can make tag clouds and social icons more appealing with updated settings and controls. - Style Switching
Block themes now include the option to contain multiple style variations. This update enables shortcuts that allow you to switch the style of your site all within a single theme. In block themes that support this feature, you can change both the available settings as well as the style options. - More Template Choices
There are five new template options for block themes author, date, categories, tag, and taxonomy. You can tailor these options with the new tools that this update offers as well. When designing the cover block, you can now use featured images. The new image sizing controls make it easier to achieve the desired look. The “quick inserter” option helps with quick and efficient changes when editing templates. The query block supports new filtering options as well. - Integrated Patterns
Patterns will appear when you need them in more places, and they can be prioritized to according to theme. - Additional Design Tools
There is a new colour panel design that saves space while keeping its user-friendliness. There are new border controls that are more simple to use. Colours can now have different transparency levels to boost creativity. You can access different blocks in the “group block” section. Switching between stack, row, and group variations is possible in order to position groups of blocks with more layout flexibility. There is a “gap support” section in the “gallery block” that allows you to create different looks. - Better List View
There are new keyboard shortcuts to work quickly. The “list view” can be opened and closed easily. t comes collapsed by default and it automatically expands to the current selection whenever you select a block. - Block Locking Controls
Blocks can be locked or left unlocked! This helps keep a project simple by allowing easy editing without making any massive unnecessary errors.
Bug Fixes
This new update of WordPress offers a few bug fixes.
1. Duotone Preset Bug Fix
Using the theme.json file, you can add a preset to apply a duotone filter to all images. In the previous version of WordPress, a bug prevented the site editor from rendering the preset correctly. This bug has been fixed!
2. Bug Fix for Link Colour within the Nested Block Style
The bug that has been fixed used to force links in the nested block to follow the style of the parent block. The link colours for different blocks now work independently of the parent block.
3. Comments Query Loop Block Bug Fixes
The new comments query loop block now replaces the post comment block, but is still consistent with the old post comment block while allowing customization. There is now a Comment Title Block which allows titles above post comments. The comments query loop block also contains a Post Comment From. Due to a bug in the comments query loop block in the previous WordPress version, the comment IDs were missing on the front-end output, so the page would jump back to the top of the post after a user submitted a comment instead of going back to their comment, creating a bad user experience – this bug has now been fixed!
Now for the biggest question – should you install this new update of WordPress?
No! Simply put, we don’t advise installing Version 6.0 of WordPress because it is still in the beta testing process. Once the beta testing phase has been completed and there are new versions released, then you can look into installing the latest update. For now, it’s safer to stay away from this update.
Written by: Billie and Code
