WordPress’s new features and updates are around the corner, moved forward with the release of WordPress 5.8 on July 20, 2021. The experts say it’s a big release with some significant changes and major features.
Are you excited to know what those are?
If yes, let’s dive deep and figure out what’s new in WordPress 5.8?
Did you know approx 409 million people viewed more than 20 billion pages per month through WordPress?
Yes, according to WordPress.com, the above-calculated figure is for May 2021.
Image Source: https://www.cminds.com/ultimate-guide-wordpress-statistics%E2%80%A8%E2%80%A8/
Since its inception, WordPress is known to be the high-level CMS (Content Management Systems). It’s an ideal choice for business people, content creators, bloggers, etc. With ample plugins, themes, features, and most importantly, SEO-friendly capabilities, it makes it the content creator’s best friend.
Apart from these, another thing that makes it win the race is its time-to-time updates. Consequently, we will talk about the major release- the WordPress 5.8 version.
Highlights of Contents
What’s New In WP 5.8 Version?
If you are a WordPress user, let’s delve into all the new features and improvements made to the latest version of WordPress, ie. WP 5.8 Version is named after Jazz Musician Art Tatum:
- WebP Image Support
WP 5.8 will support WebP images. It will work well with many web browsers such as Opera, Chrome, and Firefox. Besides, it would support image transparency that was originally possible only with 4PNG. The best part of using WebP images, it is a much smaller file size than 4PNG.
Earlier you couldn’t directly upload WebP images on your WordPress website. You have to use normal formats like JPG or PNG, but now you can compress your images in WebP format without using any external plugin, and then you can add it to your WordPress blogs or pages.
- Template Editor
All those using WordPress themes will get a template editor to edit and create custom templates using blocks. Plus, there will be a new list view panel; use it to have a complete overview of all the template blocks and sections.
While using the new WP template editor, you will get convenient control over blocks. It is a Full Site Editing (FSE), making it easy to post and design pages. Besides, with Gutenberg, you can add blocks within the content area, but with the help of FSE, you can make the entire site using blocks like you can add blocks in the header, footer, sidebar, or anywhere.
- Site Logo
- Site Title
- Site Tagline
- Post Title
- Page List
- Post Content
- Post Excerpt
- Post Date
- Post Featured Image
- Post Tags
- Post Categories
Moreover, initially, by default, the new template editor is disabled. But, by adding a line of code in the functions.php file, it will get enabled. In WordPress 5.8, you can now design your own page templates and then use them on any page or post that you create. Using these blocks, you will be able to make dynamic posts.
add_theme_support( ‘block-templates’ );
- Duotone Filters
You can now add duotone filters to images and media blocks. This is an excellent thing if you are involved in any sort of design work in WordPress.
Duotone Filters is a new design feature enabling publishers to colorize videos or images. It gives the advantage of adding more creativity to your page. In short, it is expressed as a black and white filter. You can mix and match the color with black or white to create the color you are looking for on your site.
Since we use various images on our pages and blog posts, you can go ahead and customize all these images with some dual-tone options. There are various ready-made filters available here, and if you are good at it, you can play around with these colors.
- Query Loop Block:
You can use this latest feature to customize the blocks via looping to get the desired results.
- Theme.json
WP 5.8 brings a new technique that aims to make the editor’s configuration much easier and accessible. It offers finer control in managing styles for the site. Meaning, you get the power to change the font and themes using theme.json. Even though you have a non-technical background, you can customize the existing theme whenever required.
- Widget
This area gets a fresh look, and the widget area has been redesigned. You can now use blocks as widgets which means you’ll also style them just like you would on your pages or posts. This section is a lot easier to use.
- Patterns Suggestions
If you are editing any page or and you are stuck, how should I design my page? Or how should I design my blog post? What elements to put in? Then this is a lifesaver for you. Now you have pre-made patterns or pre-made blocks that you can just copy-paste from the WordPress website into your own website now.
For this, go to the URL wordpress.org/patterns.
Here you will see beautifully designed layouts and blocks for your website. You don’t have to do anything; designs are made for you.
What Are Missing Out Or Will Not Be Supported By WordPress 5.8?
- Support For IE (Internet Explorer) 11 Dropped
The new version of WP will stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 due to a security risk completely by the end of 2021.
- Amount Of Core Code Reduced
Now, due to the reduction of core codes, the CMS is much faster to use.
WordPress 5.8 Server Requirements
Here is the recommendation for running WordPress 5.8, which means what its server requirements or what you need to run it smoothly are:
- MySQL 5.6 or higher
- MariaDB 10.1 or higher
- PHP 7.4 or higher
- Nginx or Apache
Wrap Up!
That’s all of the new features added in WP 5.8! We hope you find this helpful plus exciting to know how the new version can make your things much more accessible. So, dear readers, please let us know your thoughts in our comment sections.
Related Updates: What’s New in WordPress 5.7?
