WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 is ready for download and testing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This beta version of the WordPress software is under development<\/strong>. <\/strong>Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 1 on a test server and site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can test WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 in three ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current target for the final release of WordPress 6.4 is November 7, 2023<\/strong>. Your help testing this version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The WordPress 6.4 release is brought to you by an underrepresented gender release squad<\/strong><\/a> to increase participation of and partnership with those who identify as gender-underrepresented in the WordPress open source project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get an overview of the 6.4 release cycle<\/a>, and check the Make WordPress Core blog<\/a> for 6.4-related posts<\/a> in the coming weeks for further details.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This post has been updated as of October 5, 2023, to reflect the latest changes.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it\u2019s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute\u2014whether you have experience or not. This detailed guide<\/a> will walk you through testing key features in WordPress 6.4.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha\/Beta area<\/a> in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac<\/a>. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core<\/a> and join the #core-test channel<\/a> on Making WordPress Slack<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learn more about Gutenberg updates that have debuted since WordPress 6.3 by reviewing prior editions of What\u2019s New in Gutenberg<\/a> posts for 16.2<\/a>, 16.3<\/a>, 16.4<\/a>, 16.5<\/a>, 16.6<\/a>, and 16.7<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 contains over 400 enhancements and 370 bug fixes for the editor, including more than 190 tickets for WordPress 6.4 core<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between Beta 1 and the final release candidate (RC) for each new WordPress version, the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled<\/a>. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project\u2019s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page<\/a> and in the security white paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WordPress 6.4 will introduce a versatile default theme, new features, and numerous updates designed to enhance your WordPress experience across multiple areas\u2014from writing and design to workflow efficiency. All while the foundational work continues for Phase 3 of the WordPress roadmap<\/a>. Read on for some highlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty Twenty-Four<\/a> is a new default theme that will launch with 6.4. With a versatile collection of templates and patterns, this theme covers a diverse range of use cases, from entrepreneurs to small businesses to artists and writers. Twenty Twenty-Four also emphasizes the latest design tooling and site editing features, enabling you to leverage the flexibility of blocks and unlock numerous creative possibilities with just a few tweaks. Follow the theme’s progress and report any issues on this GitHub repo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WordPress 6.4 will introduce new font management features:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Font Library<\/a> enables you to handle fonts across your site, regardless of your active theme\u2014just like you manage assets in the Media Library. Easily install local and Google Fonts and choose which to activate for each theme. This new font manager is a powerful way to control a fundamental piece of your site’s design and branding without coding. Thanks to its extensibility<\/a>, custom typographic collections can expand your font choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, Font Face<\/a> provides server-side Update (October 5, 2023): <\/strong>The Font Library feature will not debut in WordPress 6.4. Instead, it has been postponed to the next major release, 6.5. WordPress is committed to delivering the best possible experience, meaning this feature requires more feedback and testing to shine. Thank you for your understanding!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Showcase your images in an interactive fashion with lightbox functionality<\/a>. This new core feature will be available for Image blocks, allowing visual assets to be opened and enlarged on top of the existing content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many enhancements<\/a> in 6.4 will ensure that your WordPress writing experience remains smooth and enjoyable, from new keyboard shortcuts to more reliable pasting from other sources. Moreover, a fresh toolbar experience will be available for the Navigation<\/a>, List<\/a>, and Quote<\/a> blocks, making working with their tooling options more efficient and intuitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New design tools will improve the overall creation experience with WordPress while providing greater layout control and flexibility. Some updates include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Site Editor continues to evolve and expand its capabilities, so do the interface and tools that support it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First introduced in WordPress 6.3, the Command Palette<\/a> helps you perform actions, search, and quickly navigate your site’s content and settings. It will receive significant updates in 6.4, featuring an updated design<\/a>, new commands<\/a> to accomplish block-specific actions, and better command language and action consistency<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n List View<\/a> provides a great way to browse and work with the blocks that make up your site. This release will introduce enhancements to its interface and usability, making it even more powerful. You can rename Group blocks<\/a>, view media previews for Gallery and Image blocks<\/a>, and duplicate blocks with a keyboard shortcut<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patterns<\/a> <\/strong>play an essential role in site editing, and its importance remains prominent in the upcoming release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6.4 will allow you to better organize your synced and unsynced patterns with categories<\/a> as part of the creation process. These categories are available for sorting within the insertion flow to make discovering and adding patterns easier. In addition, you can conveniently access all your custom patterns from the same place\u2014the Patterns section of the Block Inserter, which removes the separate tab for synced patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other improvements include importing and exporting patterns as JSON files<\/a>, ensuring backward compatibility with Reusable blocks, and enabling pattern transfer across sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lastly, building on the groundwork laid in WordPress 6.3, this release will improve the pattern management experience for non-block themes<\/a> by adding a Patterns tab<\/a> under the Appearance menu, allowing access to the Pattern list page of the admin screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Update (October 2, 2023): <\/em><\/strong>While 6.4 will bring several exciting pattern advancements, the previously mentioned improved pattern management experience for non-block themes will regrettably not be included in the 6.4 release. Thank you for your understanding, and be on the lookout for it in WordPress 6.5.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Block Hooks<\/a> is a new powerful feature that enriches the extensibility of block themes, drawing inspiration from the familiar WordPress Hooks<\/a> concept. Upon activation, plugins can automatically insert blocks into content relative to another block. For example, a “Like” button block can automatically be inserted after the Post Content block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While developer-centric, Block Hooks enhances the user experience by making block usage more intuitive and allowing for further customization and control over where and how the auto-inserted blocks appear. A new block inspector panel<\/a> named “Plugins” is designed to respect creators’ preferences, ensuring you can add, dismiss, or relocate Block Hooks as desired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WordPress 6.4 has 70 accessibility improvements slated for inclusion, 60 of those are included in Beta 1. Notable updates focused on enhancing the user interface (UI) experience include better button placements<\/a>, improved context for \u201cAdd New\u201d admin menu items<\/a>, and upgraded spoken messages in Site Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, fixes for image editing in the Media Library<\/a>, error reporting on the login screen<\/a>, and “no motion” settings for GIFs<\/a> have been implemented. The cause of some false positives in automated UI tests<\/a> has been corrected, and users without JavaScript now see a direct link to install the Classic Editor plugin<\/a>. Learn more about these changes and other accessibility improvements for 6.4 on WordPress Trac<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WordPress 6.4 will include more than 100 performance-related updates, including improvements to template loading performance<\/a> for Block Themes and Classic Themes, usage of the new script loading strategies \u201cdefer\u201d and \u201casync\u201d<\/a> in core, blocks, and themes, and new functions to optimize the use of autoloaded options<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please note that features in this list are subject to change before final release.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Inline fonts, lightbox Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @<\/span>meher<\/a>, @<\/span>sereedmedia<\/a>, @<\/span>meaganhanes<\/a>, @<\/span>rmartinezduque<\/a>, @<\/span>annezazu<\/a>, @<\/span>cbringmann<\/a>, @<\/span>flixos90<\/a>, @<\/span>richtabor<\/a>, @<\/span>francina<\/a>, @<\/span>joedolson<\/a>, @<\/span>priethor<\/a>, @<\/span>davidbaumwald<\/a><\/em>, @<\/span>chanthaboune<\/a>, @<\/span>luminuu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 is now ready for download and testing!<\/p>\n This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 1 on a test server and site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15289967,"featured_media":16011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[515,184,409],"class_list":["post-15994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development","category-releases","tag-6-4","tag-development","tag-releases","mentions-annezazu","mentions-cbringmann","mentions-chanthaboune","mentions-davidbaumwald","mentions-flixos90","mentions-francina","mentions-joedolson","mentions-luminuu","mentions-meaganhanes","mentions-meher","mentions-priethor","mentions-richtabor","mentions-rmartinezduque","mentions-sereedmedia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wordpress.org\/news\/files\/2023\/09\/WP-6.4-Beta-1-Featured-image.png?fit=1600%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pZhYe-49Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15289967"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15994"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16094,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994\/revisions\/16094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
wp core update --version=6.4-beta1<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n\n
How you can help: Testing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A first look at WordPress 6.4<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Meet the Twenty Twenty-Four theme<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Manage fonts across your site<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
@font-face<\/code> style generation and printing support. It introduces a new global function called wp_print_font_faces()<\/code>, which processes font data received from styles set in the editor or by the active theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAdd lightbox functionality to your images<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Enjoy new writing improvements<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
More design tools, greater creativity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Upgrades for smoother workflows<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pattern advancements<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Introducing Block Hooks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Accessibility<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A haiku for 6.4<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Command blocks like CLI
Almost to 6-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n