The fourth Beta has been released for the upcoming WordPress 5.6 major release. The WordPress 5.6 Beta 4 update includes 42 fixes and enhancements. The enhancements were made after the Beta 1, Beta 2, and Beta 3 release in order to smoothen your WordPress experience.
Since the software is still in development mode, it’s best that you don’t run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 5.6, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).
Let’s now have a quick look at the highlights in WordPress 5.6 Beta 4.
Highlights in WordPress 5.6 Beta 4
- There was a change to the auto-updates implementation for new installations of the software. Next steps, and rationale are both available.
- Added better handling of unexpected values in Site Health.
- Added a way for developers to filter the available authors list in Quick Edit.
- More accessible handling of the tag cloud widget.
- Multiple improvements in the Media component.
- Multiple improvements in the Build/Test Tools component.
The Beta 4 version also has a handful of changes for the developers to play around with. Check out the developer notes on the WordPress Core Blog.
WordPress 5.6 Release schedule date is on 8th December 2020. And to make the major release smooth and bug-free, the developers need your help. Therefore, we suggest you start testing right away!
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. Moreover, if you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.