WordPress Version 5.9 Released

WordPress, the popular content management system for website deployments, has been updated to version 5.9. The latest version of WordPress has a redesigned default block theme called Twenty Twenty-Two, but according to the makers it is more than simply a new default theme.

They claim it’s a whole new method to interact with WordPress themes. Block themes provide users with a plethora of aesthetic possibilities, including color schemes and font combinations, as well as page layouts and picture filters, all within the site editor.

WordPress 5.9 also includes new font tools, more flexible layout settings, as bug fixes, new compatibility tools, and greater control over aspects such as space, margins, and more.

Twenty Twenty-Two Theme

The new default block theme was designed with complete site modification in mind. The theme developers concentrated on making the theme customizable via theme.json and the new editor, resulting in minimal CSS use.

The Twenty-Twenty-Two theme includes a variety of page templates, such as 404 error pages, single post pages, and archive pages. A footer and three other styles of headers are also included in the template sections.

SEO: Lazy Loading

The WordPress team discovered that not lazily loading the initial content picture on the page increases the average Largest Contentful Paint by 7% without increasing the average image bytes.

This modification was made in WordPress 5.9, which modified the picture lazy loading function to improve page performance thus SEO.

Gallery Blocks, PHP 8.1 

One of the most eagerly awaited features in WordPress 5.9 is the gallery block refractor.

The gallery block in previous WordPress versions did not treat the images contained within it individually. You couldn’t add alt text, links, or a custom border to each image as a result.

The upgraded gallery block treats each picture as a separate block, which means that its design tool is comparable to the image block, with alt text and links for each image.

Furthermore, WordPress 5.9 also included an upgrade to the PHPUnit testing framework. This is due to the addition and deprecation of PHP functionality, most notably the newly released PHP 8.1.

To learn more about the latest WordPress version, visit the WordPress.org website here.