WordPress released a long list of features that will be included in WordPress 6.0. This article focuses on significant changes to the block editor that will make creating web pages and websites not only easier but also more inspiring.
In many ways, WordPress 6.0 is delivering on the promises made by the Gutenberg block-based editor.
How?
Finally providing a user interface that allows people to easily design web pages and edit text.
According to a member of the WordPress design team:
“I think some of the features being released in 6.0 are absolutely going to empower that end-user.
Particularly in terms of improvements around design tools and some of the quality of life improvements.
For example, partially selecting across multiple blocks and being able to partially select texts there.
That’s the type of thing that really brings the writing experience in the editor to be on par with how you would expect a text editing experience to work.”
Gutenberg Blocks for WordPress
People who felt the WordPress block system wasn’t ready in the past have complained about it.
WordPress 6.0 includes significant enhancements that bring it closer to what many people expect from a user-friendly visual website editor.
A new, intuitive user interface makes it simple for users to create content and design a website, which is a major improvement.
Many of these enhancements are contingent on theme designers adopting the changes. They must, in particular, provide theme.json configuration files that allow users to easily switch between various page patterns and styles.
While WordPress 6.0 isn’t the final version of WordPress (there will be more improvements), it is a significant step forward.
WordPress 6.0 Page Creation Patterns
Page patterns are a new feature in WordPress 6.0 that allows users to choose from a variety of patterns to help them start designing their web pages. Users can, for example, choose from a variety of page patterns for a contact page, an about us page, an article page, and so on.
The WordPress core does not include page patterns.
Page patterns are a new feature that theme designers can use now.
The page patterns feature will work for both Gutenberg block themes and non-Gutenberg themes.
Switcher for Global Styles
Theme developers can now include multiple styles presets in WordPress 6.0, which can instantly change the look and feel of a webpage.
One of the most significant changes coming to WordPress is this.
The global style switcher is an essential WordPress feature. It gives theme designers a way to make it super simple for WordPress users to change the look of their websites and make them their own.
A member of the WordPress design team explained why the Style Switcher is an important advancement for WordPress 6.0 in a recent official WordPress Briefing podcast, Episode 30: A Sneak Peek at WordPress 6.0.
In the above-mentioned podcast, Channing Ritter, Design Director at Automattic, discussed how the style switcher will benefit users.
“I’m most excited about the style switcher within the global styles panel.
Um, so if folks still don’t know what I’m talking about there, it’s the ability to change between different variations of the theme.json without actually switching the theme.
So this is a way to get a drastically different look and feels across your site with just a single click.
And I see it as a really fun place to experiment and kind of get inspired for the different ways your site could appear without ever having to change your theme.
But now, with 6.0, I think even more so it’s starting to showcase the real power of block themes and what can actually be done there.
And style variations is a huge kind of first step into this new world of block themes and starting to really open up the possibilities and all the flexibility that you have there.”
Colors, fonts, custom CSS, page width, and other factors that determine how a webpage appears are controlled by the configuration files (called Theme.json).
Users can switch between the different design options in these custom JSON files to find an appealing look.
Image, Quote, List, and Group Blocks Code Improvements
The removal of a DIV tag that surrounds every image was one of the improvements. This makes the code a little bit leaner, which is always a good thing.
The old way:
<div class="wp-block-image alignleft"><figure><img src="someimage.jpg" alt="" width="100" height="100"/></figure></div>
The new way:
<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft"><img src="someimage.jpg" alt="" width="100" height="100"/></figure>
Only themes that support the new theme.json file will see this change.
Another change is the removal of html elements known as “divs,” which were automatically added to any blocks with alignments.
WordPress 6.0 Is a Major Release That Deserves To Be Called That
The changes listed above are just a few of the improvements coming with WordPress 6.0. There are also improvements to WordPress accessibility, Bootstrap/Load performance, the cache API, and how media is handled performance, as well as a total of 97 enhancements and 131 bug fixes.
On May 24, 2022, WordPress 6.0 will be released.
Learn more from WordPress and read Vulnerabilities in the ThirstyAffiliates WordPress Plugin,
