As the second out of the three significant WordPress core releases in 2021, WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” was officially launched last July 20. The most important thing to understand about WordPress 5.8 is its ability to do Full Site Editing (FSE) through the WordPress block editor. In addition, a number of enhancements and new capabilities have been added to the WordPress block editor, as well as a few new tools that developers will love.
With 96 improvements and feature requests, 170 bug fixes, and 8 Gutenberg releases, WordPress 5.8 is one of the most comprehensive versions yet. Additionally, WordPress 5.8 adds to the Gutenberg project’s Phase 2. Over the year 2021, WordPress will concentrate on the improvement of WordPress core functionalities with the objective of enabling full site editing (FSE).
Full Site Editing (FSE) in WordPress is a new idea that aims to make it easy to modify any area of your WordPress site using the block editor, such as the header, footer, navigation menus, sidebars, and widgets.
Using WordPress 5.8 has just become bigger and better. We’ll show you what’s new in this article.
Block-Based Widgets Editor and Customizer Live Preview
A new block-based widget editor, named the Block Widgets Editor, is introduced in WordPress 5.8 as one of the first milestones toward Full Site Editing (FSE).
Widget areas are now described as “global parts” of your website’s design that can contain blocks in WordPress 5.8 and beyond. Each theme has its own variations, but the most common is the sidebar and bottom of your website.
This new editor allows you to use WordPress blocks in widget locations throughout your website and test your revisions in real-time using the Customizer. To make widget customization easier, the new Block Widgets Editor provides an interface based on blocks for modifying widgets.
In Appearance > Widgets, you’ll notice a new Widgets welcome display, like the block editor, which introduces you to the new experience in Widgets.
Block-Based Template Editor
WordPress 5.8 also offers the ability to construct site-wide pages and post templates using the Block Editor. However, the template editor capability is hidden and disabled by default. Although it just needs a bit of code to enable it.
Nevertheless, even if this latest update is “hidden” from most people, it’s important to note it as among the best new features since it is such a great glimpse of how WordPress is aiming to achieve Full Site Editing. However, block-based template editing still seems extremely experimental and provides up a great deal of flexibility without coding.
Query Loop Block
More experienced users will enjoy WordPress 5.8’s innovative and robust WordPress blocks, as previously stated. The introduction of the Query Loop block is definitely a game-changer.
To show post kinds according to query parameters and aesthetic settings, just use the Query Loop block. By way of example in WordPress, querying or asking the database for posts based on predefined criteria is known as “querying”. A “loop” is a “cycle” or a “repeat” of each query and its output.
Login/Logout Block and Theme Blocks
WordPress 5.8 introduces a number of new blocks that allow much more capabilities. There is now a “Theme” category in the WordPress block inserter panel where you can locate most of these new blocks. Here are some of the new blocks in this latest version of WordPress:
- Login/out block – Your articles, webpages, and widget sections will all have a login/logout block that you may use to display login/logout links wherever you want them.
- Site Logo block – Shows your site’s logo in a piece of HTML code.
- Site Tagline block – Shows your site’s slogan in a block.
- Site Title block – Sets and enables modification of site title. Titles for web pages are often shown in the browser title bar as well as in search engine results. Additionally, this may be found under Settings > General.
- Post Title block – Enables showing of the title of a post or a page.
- Post Content block – Shows the content of a page or post.
- Post Date block – Sets and displays the date of a post.
- Post Excerpt block – Shows the excerpt of a post.
- Post Featured Image block – Shows the featured image of a post.
- Post Categories block – Shows the categories of a post.
- Post Tags block – Shows the tags of a post.
- Page List block – Shows a complete list of all webpages.
File Block for Embedding PDFs
The new file block recognizes whether you have uploaded a PDF and allows you to embed it in your page or post without having to do anything manually.
Just pick the File Block and choose a PDF file to upload. An embedded PDF file will be created by the block-editor when it is selected. The “Show inline embed” switch in the block settings panel may be used to toggle off the embedding feature. PDF embeds require a browser that supports them, and most mobile and tablet devices do not.
Duotone Image Editing
Using duotone filters, it is now possible to color correct images and cover entire blocks. Images or videos in the cover block can be styled with Duotone so that they blend well with your themes. As a black-and-white filter, the duotone effect lets you choose your own hues for shadows and highlights.
Element-Specific Style Options for Column and Table Blocks
The text color, background color, link color, and padding for specific elements inside a column block may now be customized to match the user’s requirements and preferences. This gives you a lot more control over how columns appear. In previous versions, styles were applied to the entire column block.
Similarly, table blocks now have additional color possibilities. Text and background colors may now be added to tables.
WebP Image File Support
An enhanced lossless and lossy online image compression standard called WebP, is a contemporary picture format for the web. In general, WebP pictures are about 30% smaller in file size than their JPEG or PNG counterparts, resulting in websites that load quicker and use less data. Uploading WebP files is now possible in WordPress 5.8.
Conclusion
WordPress 5.8 is a significant step on the way to Full Site Editing for WordPress users. That being said, there’s a lot to discover with WordPress’ second major release in 2021. For users and developers, there are plenty of enhancements to the block editor, along with new image editing and block style tools, and WebP image format support. These minor tweaks slowly and steadily enhance the overall webpage editing experience.
So, if you haven’t yet updated your WordPress to the latest 5.8 version, then this is your sign to do it.