📆 This is the June 2021 edition of “This Month in WordPress with CodeinWP.”
Hello folks, hope you all are fine and healthy. Here is a quick look at some exciting WordPress news from last month. We’re going to discuss some under-the-hood improvements made in Jetpack 9.7, a new feature to add colors to your images, Gutenberg’s new release towards Full Site Editing, and WordPress’ 18th birthday.
June 2021 WordPress News with CodeinWP
Jetpack 9.7: Behind-the-scenes improvements for your site
Jetpack 9.7 was released on May 4th with some improvements to make it compatible with the new features coming in WordPress 5.8, including the Full Site Editing.
Access features without logging in:
You can now access some features without connecting your WordPress.com account. Jetpack’s status will be set as activated as soon as you install and activate the plugin. You can get access to the features given below without connecting your WordPress.com account:
- Stats
- Site Accelerator (CDN)
- Contact form
- SEO tools
- Most Jetpack blocks
- Visit here for a full list of features
Keep in mind that to unlock the full scope of Jetpack features, you will still need to connect your account. But all in all, it’s a good inclusion for users who need just the basics.
Some other improvements include:
- Changes to improve performance on the pages where Carousel is being used
- Some bug fixes in the Instant Search
To get a detailed list of bug fixes and new features, please visit the changelog here.
Coloring Your Images With Duotone Filters
A new and “colorful” feature is going to be introduced with the release of WordPress 5.8. Duotone filters can be used to add a pop of colors to your images and blocks – to integrate your image style with your theme more effectively.
This feature is something like the filters you might have used on Instagram, but it doesn’t come with the adjustments to color and other aspects, it changes the color of your image entirely and provides a different tone.
This feature can be very useful for the background images where you need to make your text stand out. You can choose two colors to set a tone with one color being the shadow and the other being the highlight. It’s the same concept as Black & White, but it is colorful.
With the image block, this feature can also be used on the images and videos in the cover block. And, as Duotone uses CSS to apply the effects on your images, you don’t need to worry about changes being applied to the images permanently.
This feature is already available in Gutenberg 10.6, so you don’t have to wait for WordPress 5.8 to give it a go.
You may also be interested in:
- WP Engine and Automattic Trade Cease-and-Desist Letters After Matt Mullenweg Jabs
- Our First Look at the Upcoming Twenty Twenty-Five Default WordPress Theme
- WordPress.org Redesigns, Jetpack Stats Pricing, Woo Rebranding 🗞️ May 2024 WordPress News w/ WPShout
What’s new in Gutenberg 10.7? (26 May)
Gutenberg 10.7, a new version of the block editor, was released on May 26th. This release was completely focused on the Full Site Editing that’s a huge new feature everyone is waiting for. Here are some new exciting features that you will get to use in this latest release:
Persistent List View in the Post Editor:
The List View will now be available in the sidebar and will not close when you focus somewhere else on the page, like it did in the previous versions. It also includes some visual cues to let you know which block is selected. You will also be able to see the anchors added to your blocks in the List View.
Responsive Navigation block:
The first iteration of responsive menus in the navigation block is also available in this release. Now, if you enable the responsive menu option, then the menu will collapse into a hamburger menu when using small screens. This allows you to fully navigate the menu from your keyboard.
Some other features included in this release:
- More block design tools
- Top toolbar enhancements
- Loading patterns from the Pattern Directory
- Many Enhancements and Bug Fixes
Happy 18th Birthday, WordPress
WordPress celebrated its 18th birthday on May 27th. It all started 18 years ago with a release post titled WordPress Now Available, and the rest is history. It was considered an unofficial successor of the b2 software and provided a smooth migration for b2 users to a new blogging engine.
“WordPress is available completely free of charge under the GPL license.”
This one line in the release post was way more impactful than the features introduced. The WordPress ecosystem has now grown to have more than 58,000 free plugins, a lot of premium plugins, and themes that have provided web designers tools to create a website without worrying much about coding. It is now also helping small businesses and independent store owners to create their eCommerce sites to reach customers across the world.
Huge congratulations to all the users, code contributors, translators, community organizers, WordPress leadership, and everyone else in the WordPress community for making WordPress something that is powering 43.4% of the web today!
Great Articles From Around The Web
Custom Post Type UI Supports WPGraphQL
Upgrade Your Publishing Flow with the Post Descriptions WordPress Plugin
Over 600,000 Sites Impacted by WP Statistics Patch
Editing for style: Should you apply a style guide to your multilingual content?
Genesis Framework To Become Free, StudioPress Announces Changes
WordPress 5.7.2 Security Release
Getting Started with the Figma WordPress Design Library
Classic Widgets Plugin Disables WordPress 5.8’s Upcoming Block-Based Widgets System
No More Accidental Custom Plugin Overrides, WordPress 5.8 To Allow Developers To Set Plugin Hostname
That sums up our June 2021 WordPress news roundup. Anything we missed?
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