After the release of WordPress 5.9 in January 2022, the second major version of this year was released a few days ago, and it is called WordPress 6.0 Arturo. As always we are positively surprised by the new features within WordPress and all the options that this great CMS offers. This new version of WordPress comes packed with many new options that make your content writing and editing of extremely easy.
WordPress 6.0 Arturo comes with many improvements, and according to the authors there are more than 1000 improvements and bug fixes in this version. Since this is a major release, we advise you to upgrade your WordPress site. Of course don’t forget to back up your web site and database before starting the update process, just in case.
In this article we will describe some of the most significant options and improvements that the new version of WordPress brings.
WordPress 6.0 brings a new unique experience in content creation. Many options have been added to help authors create, share, copy and edit content. One of the best options we immediately noticed is the style switcher. This option allows you to easily change the style of your pages in just a few clicks. Of course you must have a theme that supports this option.
You can easily change the look of your entire page in seconds.
This option is still in beta but works perfectly. What we especially liked was the possibility that after you finish the design of your page style you can do an export – download your theme with updated templates and styles. This is a very useful option if you want to use the same or similar design on several sites. You don’t always have to tweak the style from the beginning, just import the theme you created earlier and your job is done.
When it comes to content creation, WordPress 6.0 contains 5 new template options for block themes:
– Author – displays latest posts written by a single author;
– Category – displays latest posts in single post category;
– Date – displays posts from a specific date;
– Tag – displays latest posts with a single post tag;
– Taxonomy – displays latest posts from a single post taxonomy.
A great option is that you can now use featured images in the cover block. New feature image sizing options are integrated to help you customize featured image attributes as you wish. When editing any template you will have a quick inserter that will display patterns and template parts that you can use in the design. This will make it easier for you to explore all the template options and decide which one to use.
When creating content there are some new options that were not present in WordPress 5.9 and that are very important in the process of writing text and adding content. For example, there is now an option to select text across multiple blocks to make copy/paste easier. This is something you could not do in the previous version of WordPress. Simply select the text with the mouse and copy it to another location. In the earlier version of WordPress you could only copy text block by block.
If you want quick access to recent posts or pages simply type two open brackets “[[” and type the first letter. The post or page name will appear, all you have to do is select and press enter. If you want to transform paragraph block to code block or vice versa, then you can keep the existing styles. When you create custom buttons and specify their style, each new button you create will retain the existing style automatically, without having to edit each button individually. These are just some of the great options for creating and manipulating content.
Some new design tool features have been added in the new version of WordPress. It is now very easy to control gaps, margins, typography all at once. Color customization enhancements have been added as well as new options to easily adjust borders. A new color panel design has been introduced and it is able to display all options while saving workspace.
One of the best options in Arturo is the page pattern. Please note that your theme must be compatible with this option. When you create a new page you will see a pop-up where you can select a pattern for your new page. A great option that will speed up the creation of new pages because you choose a predefined look and style.
WordPress 6.0 Arturo brings new blocks that can be used inside the theme editor, and they are:
– Comment Query Loop – a new block that contains additional elements such as author name, avatar, comment and many more fields.
– Read more block – you can add a customized “read more” button and make a specific styling to make it more noticeable
– Post Author biography – this option allows you to display more information about the post author, and can be combined with the avatar block option
– Avatar – a great block that allows you to display an avatar for a specific user or an avatar from the author of the post
From the list view you can select multiple blocks, modify them all in bulk, change their layout and position. You can do all this using simple keyboard shortcuts.
To make sure that the design of your site will not be accidentally broken, there is a great option to lock blocks. Each block can be locked so it cannot be moved, deleted or both. This option gives you the opportunity to freely explore your design without fear of accidentally deleting or changing any part of the site.
Considering that WordPress 6.0 Arturo comes with many novelties, you are probably wondering what its performance is. The development team has made several updates that are focused on WordPress performance. These include improving page load speeds, caching, reducing the execution time of various queries, optimizing and improving navigation menus, pages post-load speed and many more. Maximum optimizations have been made to ensure that pages load quickly and that your visitors have the best user experience. We will mention again that the main factor in website speed is a good and reliable web hosting provider.
In this article we described some of the options that come with the new WordPress. We hope you find the article useful and that you enjoy creating content on your site. However, we have mentioned only the options that we think are the most important and most striking, for a list of all available options and improvements visit the WordPress official site.
You can download WordPress 6.0 here or update to this new version from your WP admin dashboard.