The new version WordPress 6.0 has been released. The version was named after Grammy-winning Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban jazz musician Arturo O’Farrill, who has a website running none other than WordPress!
What a great reminder of how WordPress powers many independent websites.
UI updates in WordPress 6.0
Users upgrading to WordPress 6.0 can expect to see changes. The improvements mainly affect the interaction when creating pages on their websites.
With new features such as:
- You can now select text in multiple blocks and edit them simultaneously.
- New keyboard shortcuts like: [[, which you can use to open the link menu.
- New design tools like the new color panel, frame controls and more.
- Blocks can now be locked to prevent them from being accidentally moved or removed when locked.
- Blocks retain their style when the block type is changed.
- Block themes can now contain multiple style variations, making it easy to change various settings such as color, font, and other options on the fly.
- Five new template options for author, date, categories, tag, and taxonomy.
- Improved visibility of the sample menu.
In addition to the UI updates for site editing, there were also numerous improvements made by two key teams.
Other new features in WordPress 6.0
The WordPress Accessibility Team has unveiled dozens of accessibility improvements that have been incorporated into WordPress 6.0.
The WordPress performance team has also made numerous improvements to boost the performance of WordPress websites with more than 10,000 users, handle multiple data taxonomies in WordPress and to enhance the WordPress caching API.
There are also a long list of bug fixes (131), enhancements and feature requests (97), and other bugs that have finally been closed with the release of WordPress 6.0. If you’re a developer or just interested in the details, you can check out the WordPress 6.0 Release Field Guide to learn more.
Should I upgrade to WordPress 6.0?
With all these great features and improvements, should you upgrade your site to 6.0 right away?
There’s no reason to rush feature updates for your sites. Unlike security updates, you can take your time to take care of the updates.
Take the time you need to test the sites you want to update. And take the time to test things out. Don’t forget to back up your site’s files and database before updating, just in case you need to revert the changes.
Of course, if there are new security vulnerabilities in the WordPress core system and a security release is released, you should update your sites quickly. Maybe it would be a good time to switch from 5.9 to the 6.0 branch then.
Don’t forget to back up your site’s files and databases before you update, though, just in case.
You can keep up to date with WordPress security updates by installing the Patchstack plugin or keeping an eye on the WordPress security updates page.
For more information and a WordPress Beginner’s Guide and how to configure and assign the different user roles, check out these pages and our blog.
