New in 5.5
WordPress 5.5 Release Candidate 2 landed this week, and the final release date (August 11) is next Tuesday. Here are the latest updates and news about it:
- There is more support for modernized JavaScript i18n, which Justin Ahinon explains. Take note: “some previously globally accessible localization variables could stop working and cause breaks in your code.”
- We will be getting the latest version of Gutenberg (version 8.7.0) in core, which focuses on stability and accessibility. According to Riad Benguella, this particular release “saw a lot of improvements to the Post block suite that constitutes one of the important bricks for the Full Site Editing project.”
- Isabel Brison explains there are some new responsive styles your custom blocks can use in the editor, along with new editor preview options for different screen sizes. Replacing the old preview button there is now a dropdown with “Desktop,” “Tablet,” and “Mobile” sizes, as well as the existing front end preview option.
- It’s possible to register default values for metadata. According to Jonny Harris on Twitter, it took over two years of work to get this into core. Jonny thinks “this is going to be massively useful for developers when using metadata.”
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Anne McCarthy has a rundown of the a11y improvements with some helpful screenshots and videos.
With new development on WordPress 5.5 coming to a close, there is already a need for feedback on the wishlist for WordPress 5.6. 🏃💦
Chloe Bringmann has some specific questions, including one directed at Component Maintainers: “what tickets of yours do you think will be ready to ship in 5.6 and need some review/feedback/approval/etc?”
