WordPress update 6.0 has been released named “Arturo” and introduces almost one thousand updates and enhancements that make WordPress more intuitive to use for everyone.

Every update of WordPress is named after a Jazz artist, with “Auturo” been named after Grammy-winning jazz musician Arturo O’Farrill of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra.

The major WordPress 6.0 updates updates include:

• Faster Website Performance
• Page Creation Patterns
• Block Locking
• Stack & Row Variations
• Global Style Variations
• Ability to Select Text Across Multiple Blocks

The official WordPress announcement explains:

“The latest version of the software takes full site editing one step further and looks to consolidate the ‘no code’ experience for site-building, expanding upon the existing customization tools, bringing new blocks, and focusing on the writing and design workflows.

An example of this is the new style switcher for block themes, one of the most anticipated features for the flexibility and creative opportunities it introduces without having to switch themes.

‘With thoughtful updates to the writing experience, building better block functionality, and adding a new intuitive style switcher, I’m really proud of the work that’s been done in this release to make a great site editing experience,’ says WordPress’ Executive Director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy.”

WordPress Performance Improvements

WordPress 6.0 performance improvements to how queries are executed against the database and also to how caches are managed, means fewer numbers and types of database calls resulting in greater efficiency that translates to faster performance for site visitors.

Page Creation Patterns

The Page Creation Patterns feature is one of the most important changes to WordPress 6.0, as with previous WordPress versions, when creating a web page a publisher might start with a blank layout.

Instead, Page Creation Patterns is a way to select from multiple layouts as a starting point but the WordPress core itself won’t ship with the layouts, this is something that theme developers need to build into their themes.

Block Locking

Block Locking is a feature that prevents an end-user from accidentally deleting or moving an important block, this feature is available through a block settings drop-down menu.

Stack & Row Variations

A useful addition is the ability to create dynamic flex-based containers by stacking blocks into a column or a row layout.

A flex-based container is so-called because it is flexible and automatically adjusts to viewport, shrinking for smaller mobile devices and expanding when necessary.

Multi-Select: Select Text Across Multiple Blocks

In the new blocked-based WordPress editors, creating a web page layout is done using what’s called blocks, building blocks which are like containers where content can be inserted, eg. images or text

An exciting change in WordPress 6.0 is the ability to be able to select text across multiple content blocks, that allows a user to select the content within multiple blocks without selecting multiple blocks themselves, which will also give publishers the ability to write and control content in an expected manner, contributing to a more intuitive writing experience.

Style Variations

Style variations allows theme authors to provide their customers an easy way to change the look and feel of their website without having to edit CSS or HTML, dramatically speeding up the process of getting a website up and running.