WordPress 6.0 has been released. It’s the second big update of the year. It’s been 6 months since its previous version, 5.9, was released and more than 600 improvements have been incorporated, as well as a large number of bug and bug fixes. Below we will cover the most notable changes.
This update brings improvements across the entire platform. Not only with bug fixes and upgrades for WordPress but also for Gutenberg.
Upgrades to full site editing
Next, we will list some of the new full site editing enhancements WordPress 6 includes.
Global style switcher and style variations
Now it is possible to configure various combinations of colors and fonts and switch between them in a simple way. With just a few clicks you can change the styles of your entire website, thus being able to renew its aesthetics with ease.
New templates
Building and customizing web content through templates helps us save time and energy. In previous versions, WordPress allowed us to do this in a limited way. In this new release, WordPress 6.0 offers a more fresh set of options along new predesigned templates.
Theme export
Complementing the full site editing and all of Gutenberg improvements, now you will be able to export your designed blocks, templates and layouts to a .zip file. This means that the visual designing aspect of native WordPress sites will keep on growing as this tool will allow you to develop new interface resources and apply them throughout several websites without touching any code.
You can export your themes and styles by clicking the 3 dots that appear on your site editor in the top right corner. A group of options will show up, allowing you to download your theme.
Improvements to list view
WordPress 6.0 offers a more organized way to navigate through blocks as they are collapsed instead of showing everything like in the previous version. You will find easier to navigate the block list this way. When displayed, the list view will now also highlight any block you clic on while navigating the editor. This will become handy if you are working on complex designs with many elements.
Upgrades to the block editor
New blocks
In this update some new blocks will be available including a avatar, author biography, read more and no result query loop. This last one will allow you to customize the comment section in new ways.
Other enhancements and features
As this new version includes many improvements, we will highlight the ones we consider more relevant, the block lock being one of them. Now you will be able to lock blocks to prevent them from being moved or removed. You can choose either one of them or both. Once a block y locked the list view will show a lock in that element as shown in the screenshot. This tool will become useful when working with layouts full of blocks and elements.
As this new version includes many improvements, we will highlight the ones we consider more relevant, the block lock being one of them. Now you will be able to lock blocks to prevent them from being moved or removed. You can choose either one of them or both. Once a block y locked the list view will show a lock in that element as shown in the screenshot. This tool will become useful when working with layouts full of blocks and elements.
Another remarkable upgrade lets you add new buttons that will keep the style you configured on the first one you added to that design. With this new feature, you will avoid repeating the same task every time you add new buttons.
Last but not least, you can finally make good use of your featured image. If you add a cover block it can use the same image that has been set as featured in that page. All you have todo is chose the “use as featured image” setting and WordPress will have you covered.
Improvements to writing
The writing tool has been also improved, at least in some subtle aspects. When selecting texts from different blocks, Gutenberg won’t make any wild selections anymore. Now you will be able to select sentences from different blocks with no trouble.
Another interesting feature that not may not be so intuitive is that now WordPress will suggest links that already exist on your site if you enter the “[[” command making it easier to add them on your articles and pages.
Honorable mentions
Finally, we would like to mention two upgrades that improve Gutenberg’s design tools. The first one will let you configure the space between images in a gallery block. This will allow you to set fresh spaces and avoid bulky groups of images. The other notable feature will allow you to change backgrounds opacity. Changing transparency will allow you to bring more diversity to your designs.
Final thoughts
We will always recommend you to keep WordPress updated not only because you will have new features and tools at your disposal but also because it will keep your website safe. This new version will greatly improve FSE (full site editing) by providing all the tools we mentioned before but don’t rush to make any updates as compatibility is the most important aspect to consider before downloading a new version. The theme and plugins you have installed need to be ready to work along WordPress’s new version.
