What’s Coming in WordPress 5.9

January 29. 2022

In a couple of days, we’re expecting the first major release of 2022 – WordPress 5.9. Each year, everyone is looking forward to seeing what the next version of the most popular CMS on the planet will bring. Millions, if not billions of people are patiently waiting, eyes fixed on what the people behind WordPress’s core team are planning to bring to the new release. But you don’t have to go any further to find out what’s coming in WordPress’s new release. In this article, we’ll share with you some great new features and give you a sneak peek into what’s coming in this new release.

Before you get started with WordPress 5.9

Even though the final version of WordPress 5.9 still hasn’t been released, you’ll be delighted to hear that there is a WordPress 5.9 beta version available for you to test. However, have in mind that the full new version is still in development. Therefore, make sure not to test the beta version on a production site. Instead, set up a test environment and play around with interesting new features.

You can test the new WordPress version in two ways:

1. Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin which is the easiest way to get involved in WordPress testing.
2. You can download the beta version, install it in your testing environment and start exploring.

By testing out the new WordPress version before its release you’ll help developers resolve potential issues and ensure they are launching a bug-free product. Of course, you can always reach out to the WP Full Care team to help you in case you experience any problems along the way.

What’s new in WordPress 5.9?

Now we’ve come to the fun part! You’ll soon find out what new amazing features and changes are coming with the new WordPress update.

Say hello to the new default theme “Twenty Twenty-Two”

The first major release of 2022 is coming with a new default theme called “Twenty Twenty-Two”. This theme is designed to take full advantage of many interesting and helpful features that will soon be available in the new site editor.

WordPress developers went above and beyond and made the most flexible and the fastest WordPress theme ever. With its bold but minimalistic design, this theme suits everyone’s tastes. It also comes with many ready-made patterns for you to use when creating content for your website.

Full site editing on a whole new level

The site editing feature was first introduced in the previous version – WordPress 5.8. Given the great feedback it got, WordPress developers decided to build upon it.

In this upcoming release, you can expect a lot more features for site editing. They are designed to make it much easier to edit WordPress themes without having to use any code. This gives you a perfect opportunity to design a unique and one-of-a-kind website.

When you access the full site editor mode, you’ll be able to customize the look of your website using a simple drag and drop page builder. You’ll be able to add different blocks. For example, navigation, template part, header and footer, post comments, and many more.

Another great thing about the new site editor is that it will give you the ability to create entirely new styles for your theme. You can further apply them across your entire website without having to do anything manually. It will be as simple as clicking on the “Style” icon on the top right corner of any page you might be editing. You’ll be able to choose whether you want to save those changes for templates or as a global style for your website.

Great block editor improvements

Most WordPress users spend most of their time writing content for their websites. WordPress developers have that in mind. So with every new WordPress release, the block editor is treated with new features and improvements.

Here are some of the new features that will make your experience in the block editor even better:

• You will be able to move sections simply by clicking on an item and moving it up and down. You will be able to do this from the ListView on the toolbar.
• The navigation block from the site editor can now be used inside your WordPress pages and posts, too.
• WordPress 5.9 also comes with better social icons and buttons.
• You will have more design options for your heading. You will also be able to set a heading level from a vertical dropdown menu.
• When you hover your mouse over a link in your post editor, you will now be able to see rich URL previews for it.

Choose languages when you log in

Another new feature that’s coming in the upcoming WordPress release is changing languages in the login screen. If you have multiple languages installed on your website, your users will now be able to choose.

What’s new under the hood?

WordPress 5.9 brings many changes for developers, too. Everyone that’s using their own themes, plugins, and projects will be able to explore exciting new innovations.

For instance, WordPress core PHP Test Suite will start supporting PHPUnit 8. x. It will do this via the PHPUnit Polyfills library. For getting a URL for post revision, there is a new function – wp_get_post_revisions_url(). Also, a new template tag for wp_list_users() will be introduced in this new release.

Excited about WordPress 5.9?

We surely are! As you can see, WordPress 5.9 is bringing plenty of improvements that will make your website maintenance that much easier. But why not have it even easier than that? Simply get in touch with an experienced team from WP Full Care and they’ll handle all aspects of your website’s maintenance, security, and development.