WordPress 5.5 is now out!
Hello guys! I have good news for all of you. Yes, you can also guess because the title of this article itself shouts out that ‘WordPress 5.5” is now out. This is actually great news for all those who are already using WordPress. A lot of chit chatter has started taking place in digital marketing regarding WordPress 5.5 update. No doubt, this is the second major release of the 2020 year. The release is said to bring a lot of features with it which will enhance overall user experience.
Aren’t you curious to know about this update in detail? If yes, let’s dive in.
When did WordPress 5.5 update release?
In July 2020, the WordPress team made WordPress 5.5 Beta 1 available for testing. However, it is said that the project on WordPress 5.5 is still under process. Therefore, it is not a good idea to use it on a production site. That’s why the scheduled release date for the update is 11 August 2020. Moreover, this upcoming WordPress 5.5 update will expand the content management system’s auto-updating capabilities to themes and plugins. Here are some amazing features that are coming with this release.
Do you want to know what these features are? If yes, then keep reading the article below.
WordPress 5.5 New Features list
1. New features in Guttenberg block editor
This is the first feature which we will talk about. Basically, WordPress introduced writing experience with WordPress 5.0 in 2018. This is a new writing interface that is known as the block editor (aka Guttenberg). But now, WordPress 5.5 has come up with many improvements and new features that are there to enhance your writing experience in many ways. The features in block editor include –
#UI enhancement in Block Editor
Yes, you read it right. WordPress 5.5 will bring major UI enhancement to the block editor. Here you will have borders around toolbars and buttons, new icons and focus highlighting as you move across blocks while writing. Additionally, the “+” button has also become much broader to add new blocks. You will see it clearly now.
#The New Block Directory
This new feature is about WordPress plugins that add new blocks to block editor. The block directory is built-in to the ‘Add New Block’ search where you can easily search for a feature. In case, there is no block that matches your search results, then it will automatically show matching results from the block directory. However, the block directory includes individual blocks and not blocks library plugins.
#Streamlined Block Navigation and Movement
With block navigation and movement, WordPress 5.5 will make it easy for you to move blocks inside the content editor. You can simply drag up and down block.
#Inline Image Editing
Here WordPress 5.5 provides you some amazing features to do with your images. For example, you can edit images like crop, resize, scale and rotate. To enjoy these features, you need to open an image in the media library.
#Block Pattern in WordPress 5.5
Yes, you get a block pattern also. You can quickly add them in the layout from the setting. However, only a handful of patterns are available now. But soon, the pattern will grow as WordPress themes, plugins, etc.
2. Auto Update for WordPress Plugins & Themes
This new feature talks about the auto-update that comes with WordPress 5.5. It allows you to auto-update themes by changing your WordPress configuration or using a third-party plugin. Moreover, you can click on ‘Enable auto-updated; next to the plugins that you want to update automatically. Likewise, you can also enable auto-update for themes. First, click on Appearance > Themes page and finally click on ‘Enable-auto-update’
3. The New Default WordPress XML Sitemap
Google for over the past few years was working with the WordPress team to build into the core of WordPress the ability to generate an XML sitemap. And with WordPress 5.5, it is also out now. The XML sitemap helps Google to easily discover and index your content. Interestingly, it plays a great role in the WordPress Search Engine Optimization setup. However, all SEO WordPress comes with an XML sitemap feature built-in. The sitemap in WordPress 5.5 will support all types of posts, taxonomies, and author archives.
Pascal Birchler from Google announced on WordPress.org, “In WordPress 5.5, a new feature is being introduced that adds basic, extensible XML sitemap functionality into WordPress core.”
4. Themes Update and Plugins with a Zip File
This feature basically works when WordPress plugins or themes don’t work. In this case, you have to manually update a theme or plugin. So WordPress 5.5 allows you to do that inside the WordPress dashboard. Go to Plugins > Add New page and then click on the upload button. Likewise, you can install updates for WordPress themes. Go to Appearance > Themes page and click on the ‘Add New’ button. After that click on the Upload Theme button to upload your theme zip file.
5. Default Lazy Upload Images in WordPress
There is no doubt that images take longer time to upload than plain text. Therefore, optimizing images is as necessary as the optimization of any website. The common technique is lazy upload images this technique actually downloads images that are visible on the user’s browser screen. And other images are downloaded only when a user scrolls down the site.
Therefore, WordPress 5.5 makes it a default option for all sites by adding the “loading” attribute to the image tag. All modern browsers will support this feature (except Safari). This feature will definitely make websites faster.
The bottom line
Finally, I just want to say that WordPress 5.5 is an amazing update that will roll out officially in August 2020. However, the new features that WordPress 5.5 brings with it, I have explained it already to you. Moreover, it will also come up with the ability to scan the PHP compatibility issues more effectively. But the only advice I want to give here is that don’t use WordPress 5.5 now because it is not released officially yet. Still, I hope, this article helped you get a good idea of what’s coming in the WordPress 5.5 release.
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