WordPress 5.5 is the second great release of 2020, which is out now. It was recently released to the public on the 11th of Aug 2020. Its main aim is to include the navigation menu blocks and it will automatically update the themes, plugins, and many more. It came with a lot of enhancements and bug fixes. It has more 450 improvements and various new features.
WordPress 5.5 Release Date: 11th of Aug 2020
To download the WordPress 5.5, you can simply go to the WordPress and update automatically from the dashboard > Updates in your admin site.
In this article, we are going to show you what are the new features of WordPress 5.5. So, let’s take a look at the exciting features from WordPress5.5.
WordPress 5.5: Features and Block Editor Improvements
WordPress has introduced the new style of writing around 2 years back in 2018 with the version of WordPress 5.0. This writing interface is known as a Block editor. Since then, every time WordPress release brings new features and various updates on the editor. WordPress Version 5.5 will give you a lot of features and improvements that will help you to get advanced writing experience. Below are the improvements that you need to try.
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Improvements in UI on Block editor
WordPress 5.5 has come up with major improvements in the block editor. If you don’t know about block editor, then blocks are the content elements that will help you to create content layouts. The items you add to the post or your blog is known as a block. Block patterns will help you in setting up a column layout on your page. Since the WordPress 5.5 version has been launched, you will notice the buttons and toolbars, and even new icons covered with borders.
As you move, there will be a highlighting focus across the block while writing. Even there is a change in (+) button and it is more noticeable than before and now it looks like a proper button. However, the number of patterns is limited now, but probably it will grow in the coming years.
The Block directory
The block directory is one of the pretty features that will help you to enhance your writing experience. This directory includes plugins that will help you in adding blocks to your block editor. The easy way to use this block directory is by adding new blocks. There are numerous of them.
Add new block, search works pretty fine. Try searching any feature in the search box, if you won’t match the block that you had search for, then it will pop up some matching results from the block directory. Then simply click on Add block. This directory includes single blocks.
Easy Block Navigation
In WordPress 5.5, one can easily move the block wherever you want in the content section. It can give you a different look on your post or blog. If you wish to use this particular feature just click on any block and just drag and drop wherever you want. Another improvement in this section is to select parent block which is there in nested blocks.
Block patterns
WordPress 5.5 introduced a great feature that is block patterns. It will give you a unique layout pattern. They are easy to use as they have ready patterns with a commonly used settings. It will make you easy to add to the layout. There were already plenty of pattens on Block directory, but in WordPress 5.5, this has been grown up as WordPress themes, plugins.
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Edit Images inline
In the previous version of WordPress, you were allowed to do some minor modifications to the uploaded image like crop, rotate, resize, and scale. WordPress has given a lot of options to edit images. But for that all, you will have to open the image in the media library to make some modifications.
Meanwhile, in WordPress 5.5, one can easily edit the images inline which means that you will not have to leave the block editor. There you can easily crop, resize, rotate, and scale an image quickly. So, this will prove to be one of the best WordPress 5.5 features.
Automatic Update Feature
Another best feature of WordPress 5.5 is that they allow you to enable the auto-updates for WordPress plugins and themes. In the previous version of WordPress, they were allowed to enable the auto-update feature by your internal config. or with the help of an auto-update plugin. But in WordPress 5.5, it allows you to enable the automatic updates for plugins and themes through the admin dashboard itself.
WordPress 5.5 Auto Update Plugins: Simply open up the plugins page and and right there you can notice the button for enable auto update, just click on the button. So, with the help of this feature, whenever there is an update on such plugins, it will automatically get updated.
With the same process, one can also turn on the automatic updates for simply blog themes by clicking on the Appearance, then Themes page, and after that just click on the enable auto-update button visible there. WordPress Automatic Plugin Update will keep your site secure as you will not have to manually update each and every plugin when you are occupied with other important tasks.
Default XML Sitemaps
Now you must be wondering what is an XML Sitemap. Well, XML sitemap is basically a file that gives the search engine like Google directions to each and every content on your site. This file bundles up all the blog or website data in XML format. It helps Google to discover your blog pages and the posts, which is important for SEO. It is important to submit your sitemap to Google for indexing purposes.
WordPress version 5.5 has built-in features of sitemaps which will by default get enabled to your website. It will create a file for your blog sitemaps that is wp-sitemap.xml. This will contain all the data of your blog or website.
Well, if someone is using Yoast SEO plugin for your blog or site, your site will already have a sitemap generated by Yoast SEO plugin. The two most popular SEO plugins that are All in one SEO pack and Yoast SEO will continue to work as they used to because they offer the advanced features which will help in customizing to get help in rankings.
Lazy Loading Images: WordPress 5.5 Lazy Load
As you know the images take more time for downloading as compared to the plain text. Because of this, the page load takes more time. Website optimizing can help you to boost the performance and speed of your WordPress website. There are techniques to lazy load the page images, where it only allow to download images that appear on the screen. Other images will be visible as you scroll the website.
WordPress 5.5 Lazy Load made it default for all the websites by embedding an attribute of “loading” to the image tag. Lazy loading will support all browsers like Google, Firefox, and many more, but except Safari. It is very important for your website because it will save tons of bandwidth and will increase the performance of the WordPress hosting servers.
Zip File Upload for Themes and Plugins
Previously in WordPress, sometimes updates of the themes and plugins were not working, so you had to do it manually. With the help of WordPress 5.5, it will allow you to do inside the admin dashboard. You can simply go to the Plugins > Add New page, then click on the Upload button. Now Click on the “Choose file” and upload the zip file that you have downloaded for the plugin. Afterward, you will get the option to replace the already installed plugin with the new one.
Similarly, you can even upload the zip file for the theme. You can simply go to Appearance > Themes, then click on the “Add New” button. Then similarly click on the Upload theme button then choose zip file from the folder and upload it.
More Changes in WordPress v5.5
WordPress 5.5 has brought many changes to the developers to use their own plugins, themes, and projects to explore.
- It came up with several external libraries like phpMailer, the SimplePie, Twemoji, and other modifications.
- Dashicons have been updated with 65 new icons.
- The auto plugin update can be turned on or off b the site admin.
- It has come up with the scan feature to check if there is an issue with the compatibility.
So, these are the features that came up with the new version of WordPress 5.5. We hope that now you are aware with the changes in WordPress 5.5. You may have got the best idea of WordPress 5.5. If you found this article useful, then don’t forget to share it with those who wish to learn WordPress.
