Objective
WordPress 5.6 gives you endless ways of freeing up your thoughts and bringing them to life. Bring life to your website with more tools that allow you to edit your layout without any coding. Single column blocks, templates in your cover block using mixed widths and columns, full-width headers and gradients, make small or large changes with equal ease! The release of “Simone” is huge and also unique as it marks the first release squad entirely led by women in the history of WordPress. The newest version of our favorite open-source program focuses on the flexibility and accessibility of end-users’ layout. They support a new drop-down for pattern categories. They also contain several block editor updates, improvements to usability, REST API application password support, and a new default theme.
Since December 8, WordPress 5.6 “Simone” has been around, and users have nothing to say but praise the publication. The name Simone is dedicated to Nina Simone, the legendary singer, and activist. One of the new features is that the new WordPress 5.6 supports PHP 8. Hence, this feature eliminates all your worries. After the launch of PHP 8, WordPress developers made a successful decision to launch WordPress 5.6. They came to know the problems that come with PHP 8, worked on them, and made PHP 8 adaptable with the new WordPress. Through their updates, WordPress has a reputation.
New Features in WordPress 5.6 Simone
Improved Block Editor:
You’ll love this release if you enjoy playing with block patterns. It supports an array of built-in blocks that enable images, colors, text, or video to create and customize different layouts. They have expanded their flexibility in many ways:
- A larger paragraph and header which will be updating your layout text and color.
- The heading will be above the column, not in the text box.
- There will be a dot separating the quote, which is present at the bottom, and the images will be above the quote.
- Additional space will be present between the chapter number and the title.
- It comes with improvements in efficiency and usability as well.
Greater Layout Flexibility:
Flexibility in the layout can refer to many things. But what it means is that tools substitute coding to help you edit templates easier and faster. It doesn’t matter how complicated or simple a job is with WordPress 5.6. It’s all equally easy and the same as earlier. You can arrange your columns, combine them, use mixed widths, or create headers of full width in your cover block.
Video Position Control for the Cover Block and Subtitles:
One of the critical aspects that makes WordPress 5.6 such a welcoming gift to developers is that it enables custom location controls inside the cover block for video backgrounds. You can alter the location values with a simple click on the preview field. They use the arrow (up, down, left, right) keyboard keys to set these values. You can get 9*9 grid for every value update—the ability to use video subtitles or captions in Video Blocks. You can save so much time by adding video subtitles and captions to your block editor. This makes you feel less reluctant to add subtitles to your videos.
Pattern organized in categories:
Finally, getting your design arranged in categories will add order and gradually improve the block inserter’s navigation. Now the Patterns tab has a drop-down menu that lets you sort your patterns by category.
Keyword variation to improve block search:
Understanding the search function’s value, WordPress further expanded its block search functionality by enabling developers to store variations of keywords.
API Application Password:
The release “Simone” introduces changes to the Login. They release a registration component that ultimately gives developers the opportunity to make authenticated requests via application passwords to different WordPress APIs. These are 24-character passwords consisting entirely of upper and lower-case letters and numbers created by wp_generate_password (). We can achieve this without using any of the special characters. This makes it simpler and safer for third-party integrations, as it allows you to track and access linked apps.
Automatic WordPress Release Updates:
WordPress has so far provided its users the opportunity to trigger automatic updates for smaller things, such as plugins. So people knew when to update which plugin. This has been brought to the next level with WordPress 5.6 by enabling users to toggle on automatic notifications for major releases of WordPress.
Enhanced PHP 8 Supports and Support Updates:
The WP contributors have worked hard to make PHP 8 work with version 5.6. This marks the first step towards the new version of Core PHP support. Part 2 of the jQuery WordPress update, covered in three patches (5.5, 5.6, and 5.7), also comes with the new release.
A substantial update to the jQuery library is included in “Simone.” The WP team suggests running the update test plugin to search your website for problems.
A New Auto-Update UI:
In the Updates area, website administrators will now enjoy the latest core auto-update user interface (UI). This enables automatic updates and also deactivate for significant versions. On WordPress, this functionality already exists, but the latest version allows users easy access to the settings directly from their dashboard. Both the major and minor updates will be auto-enabled by default for new WP installs.
Twenty-Twenty One:
Each release brings a new default theme named after the release year. So, WordPress 5.6 also comes with a default theme to keep up with this tradition. For its minimalist style, which includes a single column layout and a footer sidebar. Twenty Twenty-One, can be representing a very light and sleek new theme. It is also a blank canvas for your thoughts, and block editor will be the best brush. It is designed for the block editor, and you can only get it in the default themes filled with brand-new block patterns. You have a pastel green backdrop and two dark grey shades for the text color as your current default theme.
This will help you reach the highest degree of international standards of accessibility. They also help to pick plugins easily that are available! They send you various pre-selected pastel color palettes, all of which comply with AAA contrast requirements. You can select your own background color for the theme as well. Moreover, the theme automatically selects accessibility-conscious text colors for you. WordPress 5.6 comes with a default system when it comes to typography.
How to update to WordPress 5.6?
You can update your latest WordPress 5.6 Simone edition automatically from your dashboard. All you need to do is go to dashboard> Updates. This helps to update your WordPress. You can also download and use the WordPress updated version. We require the following specification to run WordPress 5.6:
- PHP Version 7.4 or greater.
- MySQL of version 5.6 or Version 10.1 or higher of MariaDB.
- Apache or Nginx.
Wrapping up
With every publication, WordPress has been improving its quality. So, if you want to keep your WordPress website up-to-date, accept the new WordPress update. WordPress has always aimed to make it as open as possible for the website. With version 5.6, the aim is accurate, and also follows the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The release of WordPress 5.6 was the third and last major update on 2020.
A variety of updates, enhancements, and bug fixes are included in WordPress 5.6. During this development, not everything went as scheduled; instead, some characteristics or features were pushed to 2021. But a few current improvements, however, are particularly significant. Compatibility with PHP 8, automatic updates, and the new Twenty Twenty-One standard theme are some of the latest major releases. WordPress 5.6 also has some scope for emerging problems due to the main versions auto-update and also due to the jQuery upgrade. By keeping your plugins and themes updated and ensuring that you don’t use plugins that are no longer created, you can avoid those problems.
Are you planning to build a website using WordPress? Then contact us! We can help you to achieve your goal. Our solutions improve overall user engagement and conversion.
