WordPress 6.6
16 July 2024
WordPress version 6.6 is now available (major release).
Upgrading to WordPress 6.6
WordPress 6.6 can be upgraded to (or installed) using any of Installatron's products. Use Installatron's optional Automatic Update feature to automatically apply WordPress updates as new versions are released, or use Installatron's Clone feature to duplicate an existing WordPress install to test the 6.6 upgrade prior to applying it live. Get started managing your WordPress installations with Installatron
What's New in WordPress 6.6
WordPress 6.6 delivers on the promise of a better web by bringing style, finesse, and a suite of creative possibilities to your site-building experience. This version helps you do more with ease, putting enhanced tools at your fingertips and giving you unprecedented power behind the scenes. You will find more ways to create beautiful, coherent design elements across your site, a new layout for quick page previews in the Site Editor, and the safety of automatic rollbacks for failed plugin auto-updates—among many other highlights.
What's New
- Add more design options to block themes: Create color or font sets to multiply design combinations across one theme. These sets offer more contained design possibilities, allowing visual variety within the site’s broader styling guidelines.
- Simplify your workflow with a new layout for pages in the Site Editor: See all of your pages and a preview of any selected page with the new side-by-side layout in the Site Editor.
- Auto-update your plugins with peace of mind: Enjoy the convenience of plugin auto-updates with the safety of rollbacks if anything goes wrong—offering your site a new level of security, enhanced functionality as it becomes available, and almost no time or bandwidth from you to make it happen.
- Customize content in synced patterns: Make content changes in each instance of a synced pattern while maintaining a consistent style across them. Set these overrides for Heading, Paragraph, Button, and Image blocks when placed in a synced pattern.
- Performance: WordPress 6.6 features important updates like removing redundant WP_Theme_JSON calls, disabling autoload for large options, and eliminating unnecessary polyfill dependencies. Other highlights include lazy-loading post embeds, a new data-wp-on-async directive, and templates in the editor that load approximately 35% faster overall.
- Accessibility: This release includes 58 accessibility fixes and enhancements. These focus on foundational aspects of the WordPress experience, particularly the data views component powering the new site editing experience and areas like the Inserter, which provide a key way of interacting with blocks and patterns.