What’s Coming In WordPress 6.0 Update- New Template Types, Blocks and Features

What’s coming in WordPress 6.0 Update

WordPress 6.0 Beta has been released and we decided to test the new features included.

The version 6.0 of WordPress will be the second major update of the year and is supposed to be released on 24th May 2022.

Before we move forward, it is important to know that WordPress 6.0 is not officially released yet.

And this means some of the features that we will discuss in this article might not make it to the stable or final release.

Also, if you are looking to try and test the new features included in WordPress 6.0 before it is released then you can do that by installing the Beta Tester plugin on a local site.

Kindly note, it is not recommended that you install this plugin and test this version of WordPress on a LIVE / production site as it is not a stable release.

Keeping this in mind, in this article we have covered everything you need to know about what’s coming in WordPress 6.0.

What’s coming in WordPress 6.0 – New Features and Improvements

If you have been following Blogging Unplugged then you must be familiar with the fact that the Template Editing feature was released in WordPress 5.8 and in WordPress 5.9, the new site editor for the block based themes was released.

This means a minor part of Full Site Editing was included in WordPress 5.8 and a major chunk was released in version 5.9.

WordPress 6.0 will further enhance the full site editing process and its release could be the conceptual wrap for the phase 2 of Gutenberg.

It is important to know that, this WordPress release is not the ending of the Gutenberg Phase 2 as by the end of this only the major features would have been added and these will require some more work before it is marked as finished.

Keeping this is mind, in this article we have tried to cover most of the new features and improvements included in WordPress 6.0 Beta and below are the topics

Improvements to the Site Editor in WordPress 6.0

There are quite a few improvements that have been released for the site editor in WordPress 6.0 and in this section we have briefly discussed each of them.

New Template Types in Add New template option

If you have been using the new site editor then you must be familiar with the fact the when you add a new template it only has the option to select the Front Page template.

In WordPress 6.0, the template type options has been expanded and now you will get the option to add templates for

• Categories
• Tags
• Date
• Taxonomy
• Author

Multiple Style options in WordPress 6.0

In WordPress 6.0, block theme authors will be able to bundle multiple theme styles with the theme itself.

What this does is, it gives the users another set of styles to choose from and the best part is if you are looking to update the look and feel of your site then you will not have to go through all the design settings or changing themes in extreme cases.

And this will allow you to refresh the look with just one click.

To show you this feature below are a few screenshots

• Style Settings before WordPress 6.0

• Style Settings after WordPress 6.0

As you can see in the screenshots above that there is no additional style options available before WordPress 6.0. However, there is a new Browse Style option in WordPress 6.0.

When you click Browse Style, it will show you other Style combinations for the theme.

Here you can choose / change to any of the options by selecting it and the styles will be applied automatically.

Before we move forward, it is important to know that in case the block based theme you are using does not come with alternate styles then you will not see this option.

Quick block inserter prioritizes Patterns over Blocks

Another change that you will notice in the new site editor us that the Quick Inserter now prioritizes Patterns over individual blocks.

To understand this below are a few screenshots

• Before WordPress 6.0

• After WordPress 6.0

As you can see in the screenshots above when you click the inserter in between the Header and Query Loop block, it allows you to add blocks before WordPress 6.0.

And Patterns after WordPress 6.0.

It is important to know that you will always see patterns in the quick inserter after every templates part or a main section.

When you click any of the inserters inside of a template part or section it will only show you blocks.

In case you do not want to add patterns and instead you want to add a block then you need to click Browse All

And it will show you the blocks in the main block inserter.

Introduction of Code Editor to the New Site Editor in WordPress 6.0

If you have read our article or watched our video on WordPress 5.9 then you must be familiar with the fact that unlike the post / page editor in WordPress, the new site editor did not come with the code editor.

• Before WordPress 6.0

This will change in WordPress 6.0 update as the code editor option has been added to the new site editor in this update.

All theme files included in Export

WordPress wants to make the theme creation process as simple as possible.

And now on exporting themes from the Site Editor, the package will include all the theme files.

In situations where you have made edits, those will be included as well.

In case you want to include Patterns with your theme then you need to simply copy the HTML of the pattern that you have created in the block editor in a new file inside the Patterns Directory in the theme folder.

With the introduction of these features WordPress is quickly heading towards codeless visual theme building.

Improvements to the Block Editor in WordPress 6.0

In WordPress 6.0, you will notice quite a few changes and improvements to the block editor that you use to create posts and pages in WordPress.

And in this section we have some of them.

Block Lock option in WordPress 6.0 update

In WordPress 5.9, the lock attribute was introduced and in version 6.0 of WordPress, you will find an option in the block ellipsis menu that will give you more control over what actions can be performed on both individual blocks and reusable blocks.

When you will click this lock option, it will show you 3 options

• Disable Movement- The block can’t be moved
• Prevent Removal- The block can’t be deleted
• Disable Editing- The block can’t be edited (only in reusable blocks)
• Lock All- Will block all of the above actions

In case you want to remove this feature then you can follow our tutorial on how to disable block locking in WordPress

Gap Support for Gallery Block in WordPress 6.0 update

In WordPress 6.0, support for block spacing has been introduced in the Gallery Block.

And using it you will be able to add spacing between images and create unique designs.

Changes to List View in WordPress 6.0

There are quite a few changes that have been introduced in the list view and in this section we have covered all of them.

Automatic anchor text generation for headings is now optin

Automatic anchor generation for headings is a feature that was introduced in Gutenberg 11.8.

This feature was included in WordPress 5.9 and several backward compatibility issues were reported.

Taking this into consideration, this feature is not an opt-in and you can enable it by adding the mentioned code snippet to the functions.php file.

add_filter(
	'block_editor_settings_all',
	static function( $settings ) {
		$settings['generateAnchors'] = true;
		return $settings;
	}
);

List view is now collapsed by default

If you have been using WordPress then you must have come across / used the list view more than a few times.

In case not then let me tell you list view is a list of all the blocks that you have used on a page / post / template.

The blocks in this list are in the same order as they are on the page and when you open this the experience can be a bit overwhelming as all the nodes / groups / container blocks are open by default.

See the screenshot below for reference

Keeping this in mind, to make things easier for the users, in WordPress 6.0 all the nested blocks / containers / nodes / groups will be by default collapsed in the list view.

This will make things more organized if you are looking to select and edit blocks / nodes that are towards the middle or the end.

New Shift + Home and Shift + End keyboard shortcut for multiple block selection

In WordPress 6.0 you will be able to select multiple blocks using the shortcut Shift + Home or Shift + End depending on where you are on the list.

To adjust the selection you will be able to use Shift + ↑ and Shift + ↓

Improvements to the Color Picker in WordPress 6.0

There are quite a few changes / improvements that you will see in the color picker in WordPress 6.0.

And the first one is that you will now see the color picker either display the name of the custom color or just custom color when you select a color using it.

Along with this you will also see a new transparency control that will allow you to create unique custom color and control transparency in WordPress.

It is important to know that color transparency control was available in some blocks before. But now you will find it in almost all blocks with color support.

Another improvement that you will notice in the color panel for the text blocks is that now it allows you to select the elements that you want to change the color of.

For example in paragraph block you are most likely to change the color of the background and text itself.

But do you know there is an option available in block based themes that lets you change the color of the links as well.

Please note– If you are using a classic theme or a customizer based theme then you will not find this option. This for now is only available for block based themes.

Now think about this, you will most likely never have to change the link color for just a paragraph block. If you want to make any such change then that will most likely be at a global level.

In a rare scenario where you will need the color support for links in a paragraph block this option has been made available to you.

To make things more organized an ellipsis menu has been introduced in the color tab that will give you the option to select such elements for in case you need to make the change.

In situations where you want to change the color of the link all you have to do is click the ellipsis menu, select the link option and make the changes.

Retain styles when transforming blocks

If you have been using WordPress then you must be familiar with the fact that when you transform a block it looses all its style.

This will change in WordPress 6.0 as styles like colors, font size / style will be maintained on transforming to another block.

Select text fragments across multiple blocks

One of the pain points of using the block editor as a blogger is that if I want to select a few lines from different blocks then it will not allow me to do that.

Rather it will automatically select all blocks.

This is a problem that you must have faced as well and a solution to this problem will be released in WordPress 6.0

And that is after the release of WordPress 6.0 update you will be able to select partial text across multiple blocks and will be able to perform actions as per your needs.

Featured image in Cover Block in WordPress 6.0

In WordPress 6.0, the Cover block has received an improvement where you will be able to add the featured image in it with just one click.

You will find this option on the block toolbar and on clicking, it will automatically add the featured to the cover block.

Improvements to Group Block

A group block is a collection / combination / grouping of multiple blocks in a container. It allows you to customize various aspects of it as per your requirement.

Below is an example of a group block that I generally use and it has a heading and a form block.

Using it you can subscribe if you are finding this article informative and want to receive updates from us on a regular basis.

If you have been using a Group block in WordPress then you must be familiar with the fact that it allows you to change color, customize width, add padding and more.

However, it does not come with any variations or layout options.

This has changes in WordPress 6.0 and now the group block has 2 other variations apart from the Group itself and these are

• Row
• Stack

First things first, you will find these variations in Group block settings in the sidebar.

Also, in case you want to add these directly then you will find these under the Design section in the block inserter.

Using these you will be able to create responsive layouts easily.

New Blocks in WordPress 6.0

There are quite a few new blocks that will be introduced in WordPress 6.0 update . We have briefly touched on some of these in this section.

New Post Author Biography block

In WordPress 6.0, you will see a new Post Author Biography block using which you will be able to add the bio / description of the author of the post.

This block is basically a part of a bigger effort to split the existing post author block so that you can use its components individually as well.

You will find this block under the Theme block section in the block inserter.

New Read More block

Another new block that will be included in the WordPress 6.0 update is the Read More and it is intended to be used inside the Query Loop block.

Using this you will be able to easily add a link to the post that will let the users know where to click in order to visit the page or post.

You will find this block under theme section in the block inserter.

WordPress 6.0 Release Schedule

• 12th April 2022- Beta 1
• 19th April 2022- Beta 2
• 26th April 2022- Beta 3
• 2nd May 2022- Beta 4
• 3rd May 2022- Release Candidate 1
• 10th May 2022- Release Candidate 2
• 17th May 2022- Release Candidate 3
• 23rd May 2022- Dry Run
• 24th May 2022- WordPress 6.0 release day.

How to update to WordPress 6.0

Updating to WordPress 6.0 is quite straight forward.

And the first step is to check if the stable version of WordPress 6.0 is available.

You can check it by clicking the Dashboard tab in your WordPress admin and it will let you know if the WordPress 6.0 update is available or not.

Before you start updating, it is important to know that if you are using Managed WordPress hosting then your hosting company will take care of this for you.

And you don’t have to think about updating at all.

Keeping this in mind, if you are on a shared hosting plan and the update is available then you need to take a complete backup of your site for safety reasons, in case things don’t go as per plan or there are compatibility issues.

For taking complete backups you can use Updraftplus.

Once you are done taking a backup, the next step is to head over to Updates section in your WordPress dashboard and click Update to WordPress 6.0.

Doing this will start the process.

And that’s it you have successfully updated your site to WordPress 6.0

Having said that,

I hope you will find this article helpful and now know what’s coming in WordPress 6.0.

In case you have any queries feel free to reach out.

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