WordPress 5.9

25 January 2022

WordPress version 5.9 is now available (major release).

Upgrading to WordPress 5.9

What's New in WordPress 5.9

• Say hello to Twenty Twenty-Two: And say hello to the first default block theme in the history of WordPress. This is more than just a new default theme. It’s a brand-new way to work with WordPress themes. Block themes put a wide array of visual choices directly in your hands, from color schemes and font combinations to page templates and image filters, all from the Site Editor. So in one place, you can give Twenty Twenty-Two the same look and feel as your organization’s other materials—or take your site’s look in another direction.
  
• Your personal paintbox awaits: Twenty Twenty-Two is not the only theme built for full site editing. More block themes are in the Themes directory, and the number will grow. When you use any of those new themes, you no longer need the Customizer. Instead, you have all the power of the Styles interface inside the Site Editor. Just as in Twenty Twenty-Two, you build your site’s look and feel there, with the tools you need for the job in a fluid interface that practically comes alive in your hands.
  
• The Navigation block: Blocks come to site navigation, the heart of user experience. The new Navigation block gives you the power to choose: an always-on responsive menu or one that adapts to your user’s screen size. And your choices are remembered! In 5.9, the block saves menus as custom post types, which get saved to the database.
  

• Better block controls: WordPress 5.9 features new typography tools, flexible layout controls, and finer control of details like spacing, borders, and more—to help you get not just the look, but the polish that says you care about details.
  
• The power of patterns: The WordPress Pattern Directory is the home of a wide range of block patterns built to save you time and add to your site’s functionality. And you can edit them as you see fit. Need something different in the header or footer for your theme? Swap it out with a new one in a few clicks. With a nearly full-screen view that draws you in to see fine details, the Pattern Explorer makes it easy to compare patterns and choose the one your users need.
  
• A revamped List View: In 5.9, the List View lets you drag and drop your content exactly where you want it. Managing complex documents is easier, too: simple controls let you expand and collapse sections as you build your site—and add HTML anchors to your blocks to help users get around the page.
  
• A better Gallery block: Treat every image in a Gallery Block the same way you would treat it in the Image Block. Style every image in your gallery differently, or make them all the same, except for one or two. Or change the layout with drag-and-drop.
  

• Theme.json for child themes: In 5.9, theme.json supports child themes. That means your users can build a child theme right in the WordPress Admin, without writing a single line of code.
  
• Block-level locking: Now you can lock any block (or a few of them) in a pattern, just by adding a lock attribute to its settings in block.json—leaving the rest of the pattern free for users to adapt to their content.
  
• Multiple stylesheets in a block: Now you can register more than one stylesheet per block, which lets a given block load only the styles its markup requests, and not a whole sheet. Read the details in this dev note.
  
• A refactored Gallery Block: The changes to the Gallery Block listed above are the result of near-complete refactor. Have you built a plugin or theme on the Gallery Block functionality? Be sure you read this dev note. It tells you what you need to do for compatibility.