WordPress 6.0 – “Arturo’s” new options

WordPress users can now take advantage of the latest version, WordPress 6.0, also known as “Arturo”. This newest version, which was released on May 24, 2022, pays tribute to the great Latin jazz performer and director Arturo O’Farrill. Along with countless new features and improvements, WordPress 6.0 continues to develop Full Site Editing. While WordPress 5.9 introduced the core of Gutenberg Phase 2, WordPress 6.0 aims to consolidate the customization options that were previously available. 

Make a backup before updating

There have been lots of new features in WordPress 6.0. We recommend that you create a backup and test the updated version in a staging environment before making changes to your live website. The following should be in your backup:

• WordPress database & files
• Media library
• Themes
• Placeholder text
• Plugins

Brand new blocks

• Comment Query Loop block

Similar to the Query Loop block, a new Comment Query Loop block shows post comments. It is a more complex block containing several inner blocks that may each be modified and configured independently. By choosing any of the blocks that make up the Comment Query Loop block, as shown in the example below, you can change how the block looks. Also, you can add new blocks and relocate or eliminate existing ones.

• Read More block

You can adjust the Read More button’s borders, colors, corners, typography, and more with a new and customizable Read More block (Source code). The Read More link can now be customized and placed outside of the Excerpt block, which is a great improvement.

• No Results in the Query Loop block

You can add any text or block to the No Results block to be displayed when the query returns no results. Simply select the Query Loop and use the quick inserter by clicking the + sign in the bottom right corner. This will add the No Results block to the Query Loop. Next, look for No Results. Query Loop is the only place where the block is available.

• Post Author Biography and Avatar blocks

Moreover, WordPress 6.0 adds new block types that allow you to divide the Author block into its components and use each one separately in your text. The Post Author Biography block contains a description of the authors. You can select amongst different site authors by using the Avatar block, which only displays a user’s avatar.

Improvement to existing blocks

What’s more, WordPress 6.0 adds many modifications and improvements to pre-existing blocks that could have a significant effect on how you modify content. There will be various changes to the Navigation block, but there will also be enhancements to the Query Loop, Featured Picture, Group, and Social Icons blocks.

• Navigation Block Improvements

The layout of the Navigation block has changed significantly in recent months and is now considerably more user-friendly. The Navigation Link block now has a detailed preview. When you click the link button in the block toolbar to add a link to a publicly accessible site, a preview image of that resource is displayed.

The editing process as a whole has undergone a few significant adjustments

If there is only one Navigation Menu available when you create a new menu, it will automatically default to that menu. This update should make editing easier if you just have one Navigation Menu. In the description area of Navigation Links, users can already add text to describe their navigation links. In earlier WordPress versions, themes couldn’t support this feature.

After the link’s label, a <span class="wp-block-navigation-item__description"> can be found in WordPress 6.0. The .wp-block-navigation-item__description class is non-visible by default in the Twenty Twenty-Two theme, but themes can use the display: block attribute to show the link description.

• Query Loop Filters and Featured Images

The Query Loop Filters settings section now shows input fields for custom taxonomies. This enables users to filter the current post type by one or more custom taxonomies registered for the selected post type.

It’s now also possible to filter posts by multiple authors, while in previous versions you were only allowed to select a single author from a dropdown.

In addition, you can now set the Featured Image dimensions inside a Query Loop block, too.

• Typography and Border Support in Responsive Group Blocks

Group and Row blocks now support Typography settings. This change allows users to apply the same typography settings to a whole group of blocks at once, saving a few clicks when it comes to formatting a group containing several nested blocks.

The Group block has been further improved and now you can easily group blocks in Stack or Row with a single click. Just select the blocks you want to group and pick one of the three controls available in the block toolbar: Group, Row or Stack.

Once you have grouped blocks, a new panel in the settings sidebar shows Group variation descriptions, enabling you to switch variations with a few clicks.

WordPress 6.0 adds margin support for Group blocks, allowing users to manage the top and bottom margins.

• Featured Image in the Cover Block

With WordPress 6.0 now you can use Featured Images in Cover blocks as a Use featured image toggle is now a part of the block toolbar. With the help of this new control, you can quickly transition from the current image to the featured image.

• Show/Hide Labels in Social Icons

Users can now turn on/off icon link labels thanks to a helpful improvement to the Social Icons block. When enabling this option, you can display the default service name or set custom labels for your icons separately.

• Additional Block Enhancements

The upcoming WordPress version also brings a great number of enhancements to many other blocks.

• You can control the borders of Columns blocks
• Ability to insert internal links using a simple [[ keyboard trigger
• The new Block spacing control makes it easier to adjust the space around photographs in a Gallery block

Summary

The newest WordPress version, 6.0, has been released, featuring Full Site Editing as a core component. Further enhancements are expected to be included in future versions, which will have a significant impact on the WordPress ecosystem and the web at large. Given that WordPress is currently used by 63.3% of known content management systems and represents 43.2% of all web pages, this is a significant development. Although there are numerous changes and features in WordPress 6.0, we have highlighted the ones that improve the editing experience and make it more user-friendly.