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2019-09-26T15:49:07+00:00 September 26th, 2019|Newsroom|By WP Hosting Editor|

WordPress 5.3 Beta 1 Release

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.

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