WordPress 5.3 Beta 1 is out,…

WordPress 5.3 Beta 1 is out, with the final release still slated for November 12, 2019. The announcement of the beta came with other news and details of interest to developers and users.

For starters, WordPress 5.3 has introduced a new screen that allows site owners to verify, change, or defer management of their current admin email address. 📧

There are also some welcome updates coming for the recently introduced Site Health feature.

Twelve releases of the Gutenberg plugin are included in the WordPress 5.3 release. Performance has been a focus, and now you should see a decrease of 1.5s in loading time for long and block-filled posts, compared to WordPress 5.2. 🚄

Probably the most exciting thing about 5.3 is the introduction of the new Twenty Twenty default theme, which is based on Anders Norén‘s Chaplin theme. I plan to take a deeper dive into it soon.

For those following accessibility developments in WordPress core, a new aria-current attribute will be included in WordPress 5.3.