Atlanta, GA | November 13, 2023 – The latest and greatest, WordPress 6.4, just made its grand entrance, going by the cool codename Shirley. Picture this: a shiny new default theme strutting onto the scene, loaded with tweaks that may be small, but trust me, they’re mighty. It’s like giving WordPress a makeover, making it the smoother, more intuitive content maestro we all adore.
Let’s hear it from the maestro herself, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the brain behind the brilliance at WordPress HQ. According to her, this update falls into the “small but mighty” category. It’s like the David of updates, packing a punch that goes beyond its size.
Twenty Twenty-4 theme is like the chameleon of WordPress themes, adapting to your needs with the grace of a seasoned dancer. These updates are the unsung heroes, making life easier for content creators and web wizards alike. Because who doesn’t want a high-value, low-hassle WordPress experience?
Default Theme
Guess what’s making waves in the latest WordPress update? It’s none other than the snazzy Twenty Twenty-4 default theme, bringing with it a whopping 35 webpage layouts, lovingly dubbed “patterns.” These aren’t your run-of-the-mill designs—they’re full-page layouts ready to sprinkle some magic on your web creation game. Say goodbye to the drag-and-drop struggle, and hello to swift webpage crafting.
Source: WordPress.org
It has the capability to categorize patterns with personalized names. Users can craft intricate patterns and assign them distinctive names, adding a layer of simplicity to identification. Unleash your creativity as you navigate through this innovative functionality, where each pattern carries a name infused with significance, making identification a breeze.
According to Andrew Wilder (LinkedIn profile) of WordPress assist firm NerdPress.internet:
“Many of the modifications I’m seeing for six.4 aren’t terribly “attractive” — however there are lots of of smaller enhancements that, collectively, will preserve WordPress transferring ahead properly, so I’m joyful to see the progress being made.
The modifications to attachment pages might be a giant assist for web optimization. By default, WordPress creates a separate “attachment web page” for each media merchandise, which may create lots of (or hundreds!) of ineffective, “skinny content material” pages. We nonetheless see shoppers who’ve these attachment pages however aren’t utilizing them, and even conscious that they exist. Significantly with the Useful Content material Updates not too long ago, eliminating these can actually assist enhance a web site’s total web optimization posture.
This replace received’t change any current websites — particularly as a result of some websites, like images websites, should need them — however new WordPress installations can have these attachment pages disabled by default.”
Katie Keith (LinkedIn profile), CEO of Barn2 Plugins (a plugin growth firm) was captivated with this launch.
Katie noticed:
“I’m delighted that the brand new Twenty Twenty-4 theme has been launched as a part of WordPress 6.4 as a result of it’s far superior to the previous couple of years’ default themes.
Like different latest themes, it’s a totally accessible block theme – however this time, it has a clear, generic and trendy design which might be appropriate for a variety of non-public and enterprise web sites.
The brand new picture lightboxes in WordPress 6.4 might be actually helpful, as so many web site guests anticipate to have the ability to click on on a picture to see an even bigger model of it.
In reality I’m shocked that this wasn’t already accessible!
I used to be happy to see that WordPress 6.4 has a brand new choice to mark hyperlinks as nofollow. Beforehand, you had to do that by switching to code view and including the nofollow attribute manually, so having an possibility for that is rather more user-friendly.”
Elevating Writing Proficiency
Enhancements for Smoother Writing:
The update brings enhancements to make the writing process smoother and more frictionless.
New Keyboard Shortcuts:
Introduces new keyboard shortcuts to streamline the writing experience. These shortcuts are likely designed to make common tasks quicker and more accessible.
Improved Interface Focus:
The update includes enhancements to help users focus on writing rather than getting distracted by the interface.
New Toolbar Interface:
Introduces a new toolbar interface specifically designed for navigation, list, and quote blocks. This toolbar is attached to the parent block, ensuring it stays unobtrusive but readily available when needed.
Streamlined Navigation:
The new toolbar interface likely contributes to a more streamlined navigation experience within the WordPress editor.
Increased Functionality for Blocks:
The update appears to enhance the functionality of blocks, making them more versatile and user-friendly.
The WordPress announcement defined:
“New enhancements guarantee your content material creation journey is clean. Discover new keyboard shortcuts in Record View, smarter listing merging, and enhanced management over hyperlink settings.
A cohesive toolbar expertise for the Navigation, Record, and Quote blocks allows you to work effectively with the tooling choices you want.”
Source: Searchenginejournal.com
Several fresh design tools have been introduced, including a lightbox feature that allows website visitors to click on and engage with images. Users now have the capability to assign custom names to group blocks, enhancing organization. The addition of new image previews in the listing view facilitates the discovery of image blocks. Furthermore, users can now import and export patterns for use on other websites.
Developers can benefit from useful features such as block hooks.
According to WordPress:
“Block Hooks permits builders to routinely insert dynamic blocks at particular content material places, enriching the extensibility of block themes via plugins.
Whereas thought of a developer instrument, this characteristic is geared to respect your preferences and offers you full management so as to add, dismiss, and customise auto-inserted blocks to your wants.”
WordPress 6.4 includes more than 100 performance improvements.
The inclusion of these performance improvements signifies the core developers’ commitment to ensuring that each release consistently enhances overall system performance.
WordPress 6.4 lacks major flashy features, but it boasts numerous small enhancements that collectively elevate the user experience significantly. Despite reported conflicts with the Oxygen Visual Page Builder, the overall response is positive, with much appreciation directed towards the WordPress core team for yet another excellent release.
A customer happiness engineer, Sonny has over 6 years of experience in WordPress and WooCommerce. He has a strong commitment to high standards of web design, user experience, usability and speed for clients’ websites.
