WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 Released – Let’s Test!

WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 main image

WordPress 5.9 Beta 1, the first beta for the next major release is here. It has been released with many new and exciting features and enhancements. The highlights in WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 include Full Site Editing, Twenty Twenty-Two Default Theme, New Nav Block, Better Gallery Block, Block Pattern Directory, and other enhancements.

The software is still in development, so the development team recommends you to not run it on a production site and so do we. Simply set up a testing site and play around with the new version first.

The major release, WordPress 5.9 is targeted for release on January 21, 2022. It is our responsibility to help the team roll out the major release with minimum (to no) issues. Therefore, let’s start testing v5.9.

To test WordPress 5.9, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge”). Or you can download the beta here (zip). Another way you can test is by using WP-CLI to test: wp core update –version=5.9-beta1.

Check out the big items to test to find as many bugs as possible in the coming weeks to make things easier for the developers.

WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 Highlights

The Styles Interface

The Styles Interface lets you interact directly with your blocks and other elements in the WordPress Admin itself. This enhanced design interface means a design change is possible without a theme switch. From Typography to palettes, you can change whatever you wish to make your site unique and that too without any coding knowledge.

Improved Theme.json

Theme.json has now been improved to enable features and default styles for your site and its blocks. Other improvements include child theme support, duotone enhancement, coordinated layers of style, enhanced border-radius property, flexible layouts, typography, and more.

New Navigation Block

A new navigation block has been introduced in WordPress 5.9 to build navigation in the easiest way. The block comes with many customization options such as menu options, submenu options, built-in keyboard accessibility, adding extra blocks, alignment, and more.

Block Pattern Directory

The Pattern Directory offers a range of prebuilt block patterns, from a couple of blocks that show an image and text, to an entire page layout with columns and sections. Since the 5.8 release, the directory has become a hub for exploratory UI and patterns, taking submissions and offering them to the community. So now, your creation can help other people build out their perfect site.

Better Gallery Block

With a better Gallery block, you can now make every image in your gallery different and unique. Features like inline cropping, duotone, drag and drop, and more, your images are now more flexible.

A New Default Theme – Twenty Twenty Two

A new default theme will ship out in WordPress 5.9 – Twenty Twenty Two. Like any other theme released by WordPress, Twenty Twenty Two default WordPress theme is also clean, simple, and visually aesthetic. With a simple and minimal outlook, the theme provides extreme flexibility at its core.

Know more about the new Twenty Twenty Two Theme here.

Other Improvements in WordPress 5.9 Beta 1

WordPress 5.9 addresses more than 297 tickets. It includes 110 new features and numerous small bug fixes and improvements to help smooth your WordPress experience.

As mentioned above, the WordPress 5.9 Release is up for January 25, 2022, and the development team can surely use all the help. If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.

News Source: WordPress.org

1 thought on “WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 Released – Let’s Test!

  1. urs says:

    hi and good afternoon,

    Thank you very much for the site – and your great news. They are really very, very great – they inform you about important topics in the WordPress world.

    The many topics that are addressed here – The site is great. Your enthusiasm is simply contagious.
    There is so much information needed about the topics and developments of the new WordPress:

    I look forward to hearing more from you here in the future – about the topics;

    -Wordpress 5.9 – about the news in general – and especially about
    -Full site editing
    -Query loop
    -Gutenberg and Block Themes
    -Blocks + intrinsic web design
    -Navigation menus
    -Interface for theme.json

    To learn more here, that would be great. Your site – and your books are very, very valuable and have helped me many times.

    You report a lot on current WordPress topics:
    The things mentioned above are fully part of the innovations – especially in WP 5.9.
    The community would be happy – and the news would certainly have a lot of attention.
    Carry on like this in all cases. Thank you for the great site and best regards
    Urs

    Reply

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