What’s new in WordPress 6?

WordPress 6.0 is the second major release of 2022 – the last before the release by the WordPress team puts the Gutenberg Project’s second phase to rest.

WordPress 5.9, released in January 2022, Introducing Full Site Editing via Block Editor, which the WordPress team hopes to take further with WordPress 6.

Keep reading to learn more about WordPress 6, an update full of new features and performance improvements.

Specifically, we will talk about:

• WordPress 6 roadmap and release dates.
• Features of WordPress 6
• Looking forward to WordPress 6: What to expect.

WordPress 6 roadmap and release dates

In a January 26, 2022 blog post, WordPress engineer Matthias Ventura discussed the preliminary roadmap for the release of WordPress 6, revealing that WordPress 6 will expire on May 24, 2022.

Since then, the WordPress team has released four beta versions and two of the three release candidates.

The expected timeline for version 6 is:

WordPress 6 features

Let’s take a closer look at these features.

1. Global style changes

A much awaited feature of WordPress 6 is the global style variations, allowing users and theme authors to create bundled block themes with unlimited style variations.

WordPress users can choose from a variety of templates and edit the look of their site with the click of a button. This reduces the reliance on page builders by giving them the opportunity to create ready-made child WordPress themes full of default styles.

To change the style, you need to add the theme.json file to the style folder at the root of your theme.

Themes supporting this feature will show the Browse Styles option in the Global Style sidebar where users can see the available styles.

2. New blocks

WordPress 6 will introduce several new basic blocks and block-related features, such as:

• Read more blocks. It lets you customize the font, color, borders and corners of the ‘read more’ block.

• Post the author’s biography and avatar blocks. In WordPress 6, the author block is divided into its components: post author’s biography, which contains details of the author’s background, and avatar block, which shows the author’s avatar.

• Comment Question Loop. Comment Question Loop Block lets you display post comments. Like Query Loop Blocks, you can add or remove blocks and customize their appearance.
• Block locking. This prevents certain blocks from moving or being removed. Note that the locking feature does not apply to nesting blocks. You also need to lock the nested blocks to keep them in place.

3. Improvements to existing blocks

In addition to new blocks, WordPress is also working to improve existing blocks. These enhancements will help improve the user experience:

• Improved navigation block. The navigation block sent in WordPress 5.9 had several customizable opportunities. In version 6, WordPress developers are offering a complete preview for the navigation link block so that when you click on the link button, you get an image preview of the source.
• Text selection in different blocks. Before WordPress 6, you could only select text for a specific block. Version 6 lets you select multiple paragraph and heading blocks, making it easy to edit and copy-paste.
• Featured image extension. Featured images will no longer be limited to the featured image block. Improving the overall design and aesthetics of your posts, they can now be incorporated into media, text or core blocks.
• Increase query loop block. Now you can do the following in the Query Loop block.
  – Add dimensions to featured images.
  – Show custom rankings in the filter panel.
  – Support filtering by multiple authors.
  These features will make it easier to manage the Query Loop block.

4. Pattern maker

WordPress has come a long way since the introduction of the pattern in version 5.5.

Beginning with WordPress 5.9, users can choose from prominent patterns on the pattern directory, but the designs were limited to those shared by government partners.

In version 6, WordPress lets anyone in the WordPress community create and submit patterns to the Pattern Directory using Pattern Creator.

In addition to Pattern Creator, pattern development in WordPress 6 includes improvements to pattern blocking.

Also, note the Quick Block Insertor, which shows you pattern options instead of block options when you click on the plus (+) icon on the content section of the WordPress site editor.

5. Visual theme builder and additional template types

Block Theme Exporter is another much awaited feature in WordPress 6.

This feature allows you to download your theme with its modifications and customizations, which you can upload to other websites.

In addition to Exporter, WordPress also introduces 6 new template types, such as author, category, date, tag, and rating.

6. Webfonts API

WordPress 6 has also introduced the new Webfonts API, which allows users and theme developers to load web font options for WordPress websites. This feature is compatible with world-class interfaces.

You can register for web fonts using your theme.json file, which is a standard since WordPress 5.8.

Looking ahead to WordPress 6: what to expect

WordPress 6 will be an exciting release, which will change the way we use WordPress forever.

The new WordPress version will be the last version in the second phase of Gutenberg. After that, WordPress will move to the third phase, which will introduce collaborative editing like Google Docs.

If you have been using WordPress hosting from RabHost, your website will be updated to the latest version as soon as it is released: not too late!

Which WordPress 6 feature are you most excited about?