WordPress is Updating - Digital Experience Hub

As part of our ongoing efforts to maintain security and plugin compatibility on our multisite environment, we are pleased to announce the upcoming upgrade to WordPress 6.1.1. This upgrade will bring new features, improved dashboard and editor functionality, continued plugin compatibility, and AODA compliance, among other enhancements.

Please note that this upgrade will tentatively take place during Reading Week (February 18th - 24th), subject to any unforeseen delays. During this time, you may experience some temporary outages.

What does this mean for you? Read below to see the new changes that this update provides, from interface changes to pattern block enhancements, and additional resources.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to Jason and Tayo at cpadigit@yorku.ca or join us at our weekly drop-in sessions for hands-on support, taking place every Wednesday at 1:30 PM. The invite link can be found here: LINK

Welcome to WordPress 6.1.1

This page highlights some of the most significant changes to the product since the May 2022 release of WordPress 6.0. You will also find resources for developers and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of WordPress.

A new default theme powered by 10 distinct style variations

Building on the foundational elements in the 5.9 and 6.0 releases for block themes and style variations, the new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Three, includes 10 different styles and is “Accessibility Ready”.

A better creator experience with refined and additional templates

New templates include a custom template for posts and pages in the Site Editor. Search-and-replace tools speed up the design of template parts.

More consistency and control across design tools

Upgrades to the controls for design elements and blocks make the layout and site-building process more consistent, complete, and intuitive.

Menus just got easier to create and manage

New fallback options in the navigation block mean you can edit the menu that’s open; no searching needed. Plus, the controls for choosing and working on menus have their own place in the block settings. The mobile menu system also gets an upgrade with new features, including different icon options, to make the menu yours.

Improved layout and visualization of document settings

A cleaner, better-organized display helps you easily view and manage important post and page settings, especially the template picker and scheduler.

One-click lock settings for all inner blocks

When locking blocks, a new toggle lets you apply your lock settings to all the blocks in a containing block like the group, cover, and column blocks.

Improved block placeholders

Various blocks have improved placeholders that reflect customization options to help you design your site and its content. For example, the Image block placeholder displays custom borders and duotone filters even before selecting an image.

Compose richer lists and quotes with inner blocks

The List and Quote blocks now support inner blocks, allowing for more flexible and rich compositions like adding headings inside your Quote blocks.

More responsive text with fluid typography

Fluid typography lets you define font sizes that adapt for easy reading in any screen size.

In WordPress 6.0, when you created a new page, you would see suggested patterns so you did not have to start with a blank page. In 6.1, you will also see the starter patterns modal when you create a new instance of any post type.

The Themes Directory has a filter for block themes, and a pattern preview gives a better sense of what the theme might look like while exploring different themes and patterns.

Site Editor settings are now persistent for each user. This means your settings will now be consistent across browsers and devices.

The CSS rules for margin, padding, typography, colors, and borders within the styles engine are now all in one place, reducing time spent on layout-specific tasks and helps to generate semantic class names.

More than 40 improvements in accessibility include resolving focus loss problems in the editor, improving form labels and audible messages, making alternative text easier to edit, and fixing the sub-menu overlap in the expanded admin side navigation at smaller screen sizes and higher zoom levels. Learn more about accessibility in WordPress.

6.1 includes a new time-to-read feature showing content authors the approximate time-to-read values for pages, posts, and custom post types.

The site tagline is empty by default in new sites but can be modified in General Settings.

A new modal design offers a background blur effect, making it easier to focus on the task at hand.

Updates include styling elements like buttons, citations, and links globally; controlling hover, active, and focus states for links using theme.json (not available to control in the interface yet); and customizing outline support for blocks and elements, among other features.

The default content dimensions provided by themes can now be overridden in the Styles Sidebar, giving site builders better control over full-width content. Developers have fine-grained control over these controls.

Block template parts can now be defined in classic themes by adding the appropriate HTML files to the parts directory at the root of the theme.

New filters let Query Block variations support custom queries for more powerful variations and advanced hierarchical post types filtering options.

Leverage filters in the Styles sidebar to control settings at all four levels of your site—core, theme, user, or block, from less to more specific.

Save time and help avoid hard-coding a values into a theme with preset margin and padding values for multiple blocks.

WordPress 6.1 resolved more than 25 tickets dedicated to enhancing performance. From the REST API to multisite, WP_Query to core block registration, and new Site Health checks to the addition of the async attribute to images, there are performance improvements for every type of site. A full breakdown can be found in the Performance Field Guide.

Be among the first to get the latest improvements by adding the Performance Lab plugin to your WordPress test site or sandbox.

Thanks to content-only editing settings, layouts can be locked within container blocks. In a content-only block, its children are invisible to the List View and entirely uneditable. So you control the layout while your writers can focus on the content.

Combine it with block locking options for even more advanced control over your blocks.

Learn more about WordPress 6.1.1

See WordPress 6.1 in action! Watch a brief overview video highlighting some of the major features debuting in WordPress 6.1.

Explore learn.wordpress.org for tutorial videos, online workshops, courses, and lesson plans for Meetup organizers, including new features in WordPress.

Check out the latest version of the WordPress Field Guide. It is overflowing with detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress.

Read the WordPress 6.1 Release Notes for more information on the included enhancements and issues fixed, installation information, developer notes and resources, release contributors, and the list of file changes in this release.