Featuring new Block Editor features, improved performance, and the new Twenty Twenty theme
Twelve releases of Gutenberg are going to be merged into 5.3, including:
- Accessibility Navigation Mode
- Improvements to multiple blocks (List, Table, Group, Gallery and more)
- Animations and micro-interactions
Gutenberg performance has been improved too:
The team working on the block editor managed to shave off 1.5 seconds of loading time for a particularly sizeable post (~ 36,000 words, ~ 1,000 blocks) since WordPress 5.2.
But it’s not just about the Block Editor; WordPress 5.3 Beta 1 ships with a number of admin-related improvements as well:
- Support for ‘Big Images’ that you would typically upload from a smartphone
- Automatic image rotation during upload
- Site Health Check
- Admin Email Verification
Twenty Twenty theme
The new default theme offers a higher level of compatibility with Gutenberg and is based on Chaplin theme by Anders Norén.
You can read more about this release on WordPress’ blog.
Please note: WordPress 5.3 is slated for release on November 12, 2019
How to update WordPress
To try the beta download WordPress 5.3 Beta 1 (.zip file) and install it manually. Make sure you make a back up of your website before doing so, or better still, test it out in a staging environment.
