WordPress 6.4 Introduces Twenty Twenty-Four Theme, Adds Lightbox, Block Hooks, and Improvements Across Design Tools – WP Tavern

WordPress 6.4 “Shirley” was launched at this time, named for famed American jazz pianist and singer Shirley Horn. This launch introduces a brand new batch of writing and design instruments that give customers extra highly effective customization capabilities contained in the editor. We coated a lot of the adjustments as they have been launched within the Gutenberg plugin and added to core, however listed here are just a few of the highlights.

Lightbox

WordPress now has core assist for loading photographs in a lightbox. It’s a easy, but elegant “broaden on click on” function that permits guests to broaden photographs to be full-screen with out leaving the web page. The lightbox could be enabled on a per-image foundation or site-wide beneath Types » Blocks » Photographs.

Redesigned Command Palette

The Command Palette has gotten a design refresh in 6.4 in an effort to accommodate a growing catalog of commands accessible to assist customers carry out duties extra effectively. Customers can entry the instrument contained in the Web site Editor and the Put up Editor alike, with particular contextual command choices for saving time throughout each enhancing experiences.

Checklist View Enhancements

The Checklist View continues to get enhancements to make it extra helpful for getting a condensed overview of the content material at a look. WordPress 6.4 provides media previews for the Gallery and Picture blocks within the Checklist View. It additionally permits customers to assign customized names for Group blocks, that are seen within the Checklist View to allow them to be simply organized.

Block Hooks

Block Hooks are a brand new developer function, initially launched in Gutenberg 16.4 for auto-inserting blocks. Builders can specify a location the place a block can be inserted, similar to earlier than or after a template. Customers can then reposition the blocks after insertion utilizing the editor instruments.

Twenty Twenty-4

WordPress 6.4 ships with a model new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four. It was designed to be a multi-purpose theme, appropriate for constructing a variety of internet sites, together with blogs, companies, and portfolios. The theme comes with greater than 35 templates and patterns. Take a look at a live demo to see all of the full-page patterns, part patterns, and elegance variations accessible in Twenty Twenty-4. It contains three completely different fully-built website demos for blogger, photographer, and entrepreneur use instances.

Different notable enhancements in 6.4 embrace the next:

• Writing enhancements with new keyboard shortcuts, smoother record merging, and improved toolbar expertise for the Navigation, Checklist, and Quote blocks
• Arrange patterns with customized classes, new superior filtering for patterns within the inserter
• Expanded design instruments: background photographs in Group blocks, capability to keep up picture dimensions in line with placeholder side ratios, add buttons to the Navigation block, and extra
• Share patterns throughout WordPress websites by importing and exporting them as JSON recordsdata from the Web site Editor’s patterns view

Take a look at the attractive 6.4 release page to see all the key options highlighted. Beneath the hood there are additionally greater than 100 performance-related updates and a variety of accessibility improvements that create a extra constant expertise within the website and submit editors.

That is the final main launch deliberate for 2023. It contains contributions from greater than 600 folks throughout 56 international locations, with 170 first-time contributors.

WordPress 6.4 was led by an underrepresented gender launch squad, which Launch Lead Josepha Haden Chomphosy organized “to welcome and empower various voices within the WordPress open supply undertaking.” Collectively they shipped 1,150 enhancements and fixes accessible now in 6.4.