WordPress 5.8 and onward

WordPress version 5.8 with the name “Tatum” came over the summer. This is perhaps the biggest update since the block builder Gutenberg came a few years ago. This update brings a lot of exciting improvements for content creators and developers, especially with regard to the block editor and its user interface.

Here are some of the most important news:

Template editing is a big news in WordPress 5.8 and is a way to build templates, which is very much like Reusable blocks. It will be a way for editors to design reusable custom templates without leaving a post editing feature – a new approach and a step towards faster and freer editing and control over website design. This will be an ongoing change of WordPress in the coming updates.

Another new and ongoing change is Full site editing. WordPress block builder is being expanded so that in the future it will not only be for content but can also be used in other parts of the site, such as footer and header.

Editors will love List view – with clearer handling of blocks and when working with more complex layouts.

Reusable blocks get a visual update and become clearer and easier to handle.

WordPress 5.8 now comes with built-in support for using the WebP image format directly in the media library.

The WebP format was created by Google and can be said to be the next generation image format. WebP provides significantly better image compression – approximately 30% smaller file size compared to PNG and JPEG. Which gives a marked increase in performance on sites with many images. The support of WebP in browsers is now really good.

Outdated Internet Explorer 11 browser support shuts down. If you are still using this browser, upgrade to a more modern one

For developers, there will be a new approach to configuring style and editing settings with theme.json.

If you have any questions, contact us!