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WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 is ready for download and testing!

This beta version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 1 on a test server and site.

You can test WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 in three ways:

1. Plugin: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).
2. Direct download: Download the Beta 1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
3. Command line: Use the following WP-CLI command:
   wp core update --version=6.4-beta1

The current target for the final release of WordPress 6.4 is November 7, 2023. Your help testing this version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be.

The WordPress 6.4 release is brought to you by an underrepresented gender release squad to increase participation of and partnership with those who identify as gender-underrepresented in the WordPress open source project.

Get an overview of the 6.4 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.4-related posts in the coming weeks for further details.

How you can help: Testing

Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. This detailed guide will walk you through testing key features in WordPress 6.4.

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Learn more about Gutenberg updates that have debuted since WordPress 6.3 by reviewing prior editions of What’s New in Gutenberg posts for 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, and 16.7 (release pending).

WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 contains over 400 enhancements and 370 bug fixes for the editor, including more than 190 tickets for WordPress 6.4 core.

Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta 1

Between Beta 1 and the final release candidate (RC) for each new WordPress version, the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper.

A first look at WordPress 6.4

WordPress 6.4 will introduce a versatile default theme, new features, and numerous updates designed to enhance your WordPress experience across multiple areas—from writing and design to workflow efficiency. All while the foundational work continues for Phase 3 of the WordPress roadmap. Read on for some highlights.

Meet the Twenty Twenty-Four theme

Twenty Twenty-Four is a new default theme that will launch with 6.4. With a versatile collection of templates and patterns, this theme covers a diverse range of use cases, from entrepreneurs to small businesses to artists and writers. Twenty Twenty-Four also emphasizes the latest design tooling and site editing features, enabling you to leverage the flexibility of blocks and unlock numerous creative possibilities with just a few tweaks. Follow the theme’s progress and report any issues on this GitHub repo.

Manage fonts across your site

WordPress 6.4 will introduce new font management features:

The Font Library enables you to handle fonts across your site, regardless of your active theme—just like you manage assets in the Media Library. Easily install local and Google Fonts and choose which to activate for each theme. This new font manager is a powerful way to control a fundamental piece of your site’s design and branding without coding. Thanks to its extensibility, custom typographic collections can expand your font choices.

On the other hand, Font Face provides server-side @font-face style generation and printing support. It introduces a new global function called wp_print_font_faces(), which processes font data received from styles set in the editor or by the active theme.

Please note: The Font Library is slated for inclusion in upcoming 6.4 beta releases.

Add lightbox functionality to your images

Showcase your images in an interactive fashion with lightbox functionality. This new core feature will be available for Image blocks, allowing visual assets to be opened and enlarged on top of the existing content.

Enjoy new writing improvements

Many enhancements in 6.4 will ensure that your WordPress writing experience remains smooth and enjoyable, from new keyboard shortcuts to more reliable pasting from other sources. Moreover, a fresh toolbar experience will be available for the Navigation, List, and Quote blocks, making working with their tooling options more efficient and intuitive.

More design tools, greater creativity

New design tools will improve the overall creation experience with WordPress while providing greater layout control and flexibility. Some updates include:

• Background images for Group blocks, allowing for creative and customized layouts.
• Aspect ratios for image placeholders—a new feature that’s particularly useful when creating and using patterns. After setting a placeholder’s desired aspect ratio, you can drag and drop an image, and it will adjust to maintain the design consistency.
• Button and heading color customization in Group and Columns blocks, enabling you to define the appearance of these elements when placed within these container blocks. This feature takes a step towards allowing section-specific styling, which will continue to develop in upcoming releases.
• Alignment settings in synced patterns. When creating and converting a synced pattern with wide, full-width, left or right-aligned blocks, this improvement ensures alignment attributes remain intact for a seamless site editing and pattern creation experience.

Upgrades for smoother workflows

As the Site Editor continues to evolve and expand its capabilities, so do the interface and tools that support it.

First introduced in WordPress 6.3, the Command Palette helps you perform actions, search, and quickly navigate your site’s content and settings. It will receive significant updates in 6.4, featuring an updated design, new commands to accomplish block-specific actions, and better command language and action consistency.

List View provides a great way to browse and work with the blocks that make up your site. This release will introduce enhancements to its interface and usability, making it even more powerful. You can rename Group blocks, view media previews for Gallery and Image blocks, and duplicate blocks with a keyboard shortcut.

Pattern advancements

Patterns play an essential role in site editing, and its importance remains prominent in the upcoming release.

6.4 will allow you to better organize your synced and unsynced patterns with categories as part of the creation process. These categories are available for sorting within the insertion flow to make discovering and adding patterns easier. In addition, you can conveniently access all your custom patterns from the same place—the Patterns section of the Block Inserter, which removes the separate tab for synced patterns.

Other improvements include importing and exporting patterns as JSON files, ensuring backward compatibility with Reusable blocks, and enabling pattern transfer across sites.

Lastly, this release will improve compatibility with Classic Themes, building on the groundwork laid in WordPress 6.3 for pattern creation and management. A new Patterns tab under the Appearance menu of your dashboard will grant access to the pattern interface available in the Site Editor.

Introducing Block Hooks

Block Hooks is a new powerful feature that enriches the extensibility of block themes, drawing inspiration from the familiar WordPress Hooks concept. Upon activation, plugins can automatically insert blocks into content relative to another block. For example, a “Like” button block can automatically be inserted after the Post Content block.

While developer-centric, Block Hooks enhances the user experience by making block usage more intuitive and allowing for further customization and control over where and how the auto-inserted blocks appear. A new block inspector panel named “Plugins” is designed to respect creators’ preferences, ensuring you can add, dismiss, or relocate Block Hooks as desired.

Accessibility

WordPress 6.4 has 70 accessibility improvements slated for inclusion, 60 of those are included in Beta 1. Notable updates focused on enhancing the user interface (UI) experience include better button placements, improved context for “Add New” admin menu items, and upgraded spoken messages in Site Health.

Additionally, fixes for image editing in the Media Library, error reporting on the login screen, and “no motion” settings for GIFs have been implemented. The cause of some false positives in automated UI tests has been corrected, and users without JavaScript now see a direct link to install the Classic Editor plugin. Learn more about these changes and other accessibility improvements for 6.4 on WordPress Trac.

Performance

WordPress 6.4 will include more than 100 performance-related updates, including improvements to template loading performance for Block Themes and Classic Themes, usage of the new script loading strategies “defer” and “async” in core, blocks, and themes, and new functions to optimize the use of autoloaded options.

Please note that features in this list are subject to change before final release.

A haiku for 6.4

Inline fonts, lightbox
Command blocks like CLI
Almost to 6-4

Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @meher, @sereedmedia, @meaganhanes, @rmartinezduque, @annezazu, @cbringmann, @flixos90, @richtabor,  @francina, @joedolson, @priethor, @davidbaumwald, @chanthaboune, @luminuu.