WordPress 5.8 Beta 1 has been released and is now available for testing. As this version is still in the development phase so running this on a production website is not recommended. You can run this on a test site if you are curious to know what all this new release has to offer. The final release is planned on July 20, 2021.
There are two ways you can use to test WordPress 5.8 Beta 1:
- Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. After activating the plugin, you will have to select the ‘Bleeding edge’ channel and ‘Beta/RC Only’ stream.
- You can also download the beta version directly from WordPress.org.
Main Features of WordPress 5.8 Beta 1:
Powerful Blocks:
- You can now discover several new blocks and expressive tools, including blocks for Page Lists, Site Title, Logo, and Tagline. A powerful Query Loop block offers multiple ways for displaying lists of posts and comes with new block patterns that take advantage of its flexibility and creative possibilities.
- Now interaction with nested blocks is a lot easier with a permanent toolbar button for selecting a parent. Block outlines are shown when hovering or focusing on the different block type buttons. Block handles are now also present for drag and drop when in “select” mode.
- A panel named List View has been introduced. It can be toggled and helps navigate complex blocks and patterns.
- Reusable blocks have an improved creation flow and support for history revisions.
- A cool new duotone block adds image effects that can be used in media blocks or supported in third-party blocks. Color presets can also be customized by the theme.
- Handpicked Patterns
- Patterns can now also be recommended and selected during block setup, offering powerful new flows. Pattern transformations are also possible and allow converting a block or a collection of blocks into different patterns.
- New collection of Patterns and an initial integration with the upcoming Pattern Directory on WordPress.org.
Better Tools:
- New template editor that allows creating new custom templates for a page using blocks.
- Themes can now control and configure styling with a theme.json file, including layout configuration, block supports, color palettes, and more.
- New design tools and enhancements to existing blocks, including more color, typography, and spacing options, drag and drop for Cover backgrounds, additions to block transformation options, ability to embed PDFs within the File block, and more.
- Includes improvements to how the editor is rendered to more accurately resemble the frontend.
Internet Explorer 11:
- WordPress will stop supporting Internet Explorer by the end of this year. In this release, most of those changes are being merged so you can use the Beta and RC periods to test!
Blocks in Widgets Area:
- You can now use any block in your theme’s widget areas using the all-new Widgets screen and updated Customizer.
- Existing third-party widgets continue to work via the Legacy Widget block.
- If you do not want a complete switch then you can ease the transition. You can use the Classic Widgets plugin and themes can call remove_theme_support( ‘widgets-block-editor’ ).
Enhancements:
- Improvements to Reusable blocks, Cover block, Table block, ListView, Rich text placeholder, Template Editing Mode, Block Inserter, and Top Toolbar
- Query loop block that uses a query/filter to create a flexible post list based on templates. Best used with patterns.
- Parity refinement between editor and frontend, Standardization to block toolbars organization
- Block widgets in the Customizer
- Introducing the Global Styles and Global Settings APIs: control the editor settings and available customization tools and style blocks using a theme.json file. Template editor opens inside an iframe to more accurately resemble the front end.
- Ability to transform Media and Text into Columns
- Embedded PDFs within File block
- Spacing options for Social Links and Buttons, Spacer block width adjustments
- Twemoji has been updated to version 13.1, bringing you many new Emoji.
- Editor performance improvements
- Hide writing prompt from subsequent empty paragraphs
- More descriptive publishing UI
- Added capability to set the default format for image sub-sizes as well as WebP support
- Added widgets block editor to widgets.php and customize.php
- Added block patterns to default themes
- Added ability to mark a plugin as unmanaged
- Enable revisions for the reusable block custom post type
- Enqueue script and style assets only for blocks present on the page
- Abstracted block editor configuration by deprecating existing filters and introducing replacements that are context-aware
- New sidebars, widget, and widget-types REST API endpoints
- Added support for modifying the term relation when querying posts in the REST API
- Site Health now supports custom sub-menus and pages
- Themes now display the number of available theme updates in the admin menu
- Speed cached get_pages() calls
- Underscore updates from 1.8.3 to 1.9.1
Wrapping Up!
If you have any queries regarding this update, you can get in touch with us. To get some expert advice you can call us on 1-866-332-0276. Our team of WordPress experts will assist you with all your queries.
