Introducing 5.8 “Tatum”, our latest and greatest release now available for download or update in your dashboard. Named in honor of Art Tatum, the legendary Jazz pianist. His formidable technique and willingness to push boundaries inspired musicians and changed what people thought could be done.
So fire up your music service of choice and enjoy Tatum’s famous recordings of ‘Tea for Two’, ‘Tiger Rag’, ‘Begin the Beguine’, and ‘Night and Day’ as you read about what the latest WordPress version brings to you.
Three Essential Powerhouses
Manage Widgets with Blocks
After months of hard work, the power of blocks has come to both the Block Widgets Editor and the Customizer. Now you can add blocks both in widget areas across your site and with live preview through the Customizer. This opens up new possibilities to create content: from no-code mini layouts to the vast library of core and third-party blocks. For our developers, you can find more details in the Widgets dev note.
Display Posts with New Blocks and Patterns
The Query Loop Block makes it possible to display posts based on specified parameters; like a PHP loop without the code. Easily display posts from a specific category, to do things like create a portfolio or a page full of your favorite recipes. Think of it as a more complex and powerful Latest Posts Block! Plus, pattern suggestions make it easier than ever to create a list of posts with the design you want.
Edit the Templates Around Posts
You can use the familiar block editor to edit templates that hold your content—simply activate a block theme or a theme that has opted in for this feature. Switch from editing your posts to editing your pages and back again, all while using a familiar block editor. There are more than 20 new blocks available within compatible themes. Read more about this feature and how to experiment with it in the release notes.
Three Workflow Helpers
Overview of the Page Structure
Sometimes you need a simple landing page, but sometimes you need something a little more robust. As blocks increase, patterns emerge, and content creation gets easier, new solutions are needed to make complex content easy to navigate. List View is the best way to jump between layers of content and nested blocks. Since the List View gives you an overview of all the blocks in your content, you can now navigate quickly to the precise block you need. Ready to focus completely on your content? Toggle it on or off to suit your workflow.
Suggested Patterns for Blocks
Starting in this release the Pattern Transformations tool will suggest block patterns based on the block you are using. Right now, you can give it a try in the Query Block and Social Icon Block. As more patterns are added, you will be able to get inspiration for how to style your site without ever leaving the editor!
Style and Colorize Images
Colorize your image and cover blocks with duotone filters! Duotone can add a pop of color to your designs and style your images (or videos in the cover block) to integrate well with your themes. You can think of the duotone effect as a black and white filter, but instead of the shadows being black and the highlights being white, you pick your own colors for the shadows and highlights. There’s more to learn about how it works in the documentation.
For Developers to Explore
Theme.json
Introducing the Global Styles and Global Settings APIs: control the editor settings, available customization tools, and style blocks using a theme.json file in the active theme. This configuration file enables or disables features and sets default styles for both a website and blocks. If you build themes, you can experiment with this early iteration of a useful new feature. For more about what is currently available and how it works, check out this dev note.
Dropping support for IE11
Support for Internet Explorer 11 has been dropped as of this release. This means you may have issues managing your site that will not be fixed in the future. If you are currently using IE11, it is strongly recommended that you switch to a more modern browser.
Adding support for WebP
WebP is a modern image format that provides improved lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. WebP images are around 30% smaller on average than their JPEG or PNG equivalents, resulting in sites that are faster and use less bandwidth.
Adding Additional Block Supports
Expanding on previously implemented block supports in WordPress 5.6 and 5.7, WordPress 5.8 introduces several new block support flags and new options to customize your registered blocks. More information is available in the block supports dev note.
Check the Field Guide for more!
Check out the latest version of the WordPress Field Guide. It highlights developer notes for each change you may want to be aware of: WordPress 5.8 Field Guide.
The Squad
The WordPress 5.8 release was led by Matt Mullenweg, and supported by this highly enthusiastic release squad:
In addition to these contributors, many thanks to all of the community volunteers who contribute in the support forums. They answer questions from people across the world, whether they are using WordPress for the first time, or they’ve been around since the first release all the way back in 2003. These releases are as successful as they are because of their efforts!
Finally, thanks to all the community translators who help make WordPress available in over 200 languages for every release. 80 languages have translated 80% or more WordPress 5.8 and our community translators are hard at work ensuring more languages are on their way. If contributing to WordPress appeals to you, it’s easy to learn more. Check out Make WordPress or the core development blog.
In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy discusses the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to the fabric of the WordPress project and how we can move from a place of welcoming it to cherishing it.
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.
The third release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available!
WordPress 5.8 is slated for release on July 20, 2021, and we need your help to get there—if you have not tried 5.8 yet, now is the time!
You can test the WordPress 5.8 release candidate 3 in any of these three ways:
Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and then Beta/RC Only stream)
Directly download the release candidate version (zip)
Use WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-RC3
Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta/RC releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.
Plugin and Theme Developers
Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.8 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.8. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums so we can work to solve them in time for the final release.
For a more detailed breakdown of the changes included in WordPress 5.8, check out the WordPress 5.8 beta 1 post. The WordPress 5.8 Field Guide, which is particularly useful for developers, has all the info and further links to help you get comfortable with the major changes.
If you think you have found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
The second release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available! 🎉
WordPress 5.8 is slated for release on July 20, 2021, and we need your help to get there—if you have not tried 5.8 yet, now is the time!
You can test the WordPress 5.8 release candidate 2 in any of these three ways:
Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and then Beta/RC Only stream)
Directly download the release candidate version (zip)
Use WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-RC2
Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta/RC releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.
Plugin and Theme Developers
Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.8 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.8. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums, so they can get ready for the final release.
For a more detailed breakdown of the changes included in WordPress 5.8, check out the WordPress 5.8 beta 1 post. The WordPress 5.8 Field Guide, which is particularly useful for developers, has all the info and further links to help you get comfortable with the major changes.
If you think you have found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy talks about WordPress – In Person! The WordPress events that provide the dark matter of connection that helps sustain the open source project.
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.
Once you step into contribution time, your main concern is the users of WordPress, or new contributors, or the health of the WordPress ecosystem as a whole or the WordPress project. So you get all this subject matter expertise from competitive forces, collaborating in a very “us versus the problem” way. And when you do that, you’re always going to find a great solution.
In the “WordCamp Europe 2021 in Review” episode of the WP Briefing podcast, Josepha Haden talks about the importance of collaboration, which is vital in building WordPress. This edition of The Month in WordPress covers exciting updates that exemplify this philosophy.
We said hello to Gutenberg version 10.8 and version 10.9 this month. Version 10.8 adds rich URL previews, enhancements to the list view, and an updated block manager. Version 10.9 offers several performance enhancements, along with more block design tools and template editor enhancements.
The first major BuddyPress release of 2021, version 8.0 “Alfano,” came out on June 6. The short-cycle release offers features such as the ability to recruit new members, an improved registration experience, and profile field types. Download it from the WordPress.org plugin directory or check it out from its Subversion repository.
Further reading
WordCamp Japan 2021 was held from June 20- 26. The weeklong event, which had two session days followed by five contributor days, sold 1300+ tickets, with 45 speakers and 23 sponsors. Catch the event recording on YouTube!
The Core Team added block patterns and improvements to all legacy default themes. The team also shared a feature request that will allow developers to modify and extend the Site Health feature in Core.
The Design Team shared an update on the block pattern directory; the team is continuing to review suggestions and has offered some guidelines in this post.
Ujwal Thapa – co-founder of the Nepal WordPress community passed away due to COVID-19. Our community deeply mourns his loss and is thankful for his contributions.
The first release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available! 🎉
Please join us in celebrating this very important milestone in the community’s progress towards the final release of WordPress 5.8!
“Release Candidate” means the new version is ready for release, but with thousands of plugins and themes and differences in how the millions of people use WordPress, it is possible something was missed. WordPress 5.8 is slated for release on July 20, 2021, but your help is needed to get there—if you have not tried 5.8 yet, now is the time!
You can test the WordPress 5.8 release candidate in three ways:
Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and then Beta/RC Only stream)
Directly download the release candidate version (zip)
Using WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-RC1
Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.
What is in WordPress 5.8?
The second release of 2021 continues to progress on the block editor towards the promised future of full site editing with these updates:
WordPress 5.8 also has lots of refinements to enhance the developer experience. To learn more, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developer notes tag for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.
Plugin and Theme Developers
Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.8 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.8. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums, so those can be figured out before the final release.
The WordPress 5.8 Field Guide, due to be published very shortly, will give you a deeper dive into the major changes.
If you think you have found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
WordPress 5.8 Beta 4 is now available for testing!
This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.
You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 4 in three ways:
Install/activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and the Beta/RC Only stream).
Using WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-beta4
The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. That’s less than four weeks away, so we need your help to make sure the final release is as good as it can be.
Some Highlights
Since Beta 3, 18 bugs have been fixed. Most tickets focused on polishing existing default themes, fixing bugs in the new block Widget screen, and squashing Editor bugs collected during beta.
Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute. ✨
If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.
WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 is now available for testing!
This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.
You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 in three ways:
Install/activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and the Beta/RC Only stream).
Using WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-beta3
The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. That’s just four weeks away, so we need your help to make the final release is as good as it can be.
Some Highlights
Since Beta 2, 38 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of some of the included changes:
Block Editor: Move caching to endpoint for unique responses. (#53435)
Bundled Themes: Improve display of blocks in widget areas. (#53422)
Coding Standards: Bring some consistency to HTML formatting in wp-admin/comment.php. (#52627)
Editor: Include Cover block in the list of block types registered using metadata files. (#53440)
Editor: Include Cover block in the list of block types registered using metadata files. (#53440)
Media: Add new functions to return the previous/next attachment links. (#45708)
Media: Improve upload page media item layout on smaller screens. (#51754)
Media: Update total attachment count when media added or removed. (#53171)
REST API: Decode single and double quote entities in widget names and descriptions. (#53407)
Twenty Nineteen: Update margins on full- and wide-aligned blocks in the editor. (#53428)
Widgets: Add editor styles to the widgets block editor. (#53344)
Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute. ✨
If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.
In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy does a mini deep dive into WordCamp Europe 2021, specifically the conversation between the project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg, and Brian Krogsgard formerly of PostStatus. Tune in to hear her take and for this episode’s small list of big things.
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.
