The WordPress Site Editor has come a long way since it was first introduced in early 2022. In the last couple of months alone, the WordPress project has added a handful of game-changing features that give you even more control and convenience in customizing your site to be exactly what you need.
Below, we lay out how you can manage, create, and edit your content and design directly from this handy tool.
Easily view and organize your menus
When you click the “Navigation” tab in the Site Editor, you’ll get a great high-level view of your menus with the ability to preview, edit, and switch between each as you’d like. From here, you can organize menu links by simply dragging them with your mouse into the desired order.
You can also click the three-dot menu and organize your navigation that way; from there you can also click through to the individual post or page that you’re moving around, in order to make changes on the fly.
Create new pages; edit existing pages
You can now also access pages from the Site Editor — whether you want to edit existing content or add a brand new page. When you first click into a page from the Site Editor you’ll see some data on the lefthand side (date published, word count, time to read, etc.) and the page itself to the right of that.
When you click the page, you’ll be brought into editing mode for that page with the option to edit the template as you’d like.
Change up your style
Not only is streamlined content management here, but so is design editing. There’s now a top-level Styles section in the Site Editor which allows you to experiment with and apply various color and font combinations, when they’re available for your theme. You can also open the Style Book from the Site Editor to get an idea of what various blocks look like with the different styles.
Style revisions are also now accessible from the Site Editor, at the bottom of the left hand column, allowing you to easily see and revert to changes you’ve made in the past.
Work in peace with distraction-free mode
The popular distraction-free writing mode has been available for editing posts and pages for some time and we’re excited that it’s now available in the Site Editor as well. Work on your home page and templates without other controls or menus getting in your way.
Distraction-free mode is accessible via the keyboard shortcut “Shift + Cmd + \” for Mac and “Shift + Ctrl + \” for Windows, or in the top right options menu.
Resize the editor for quick previews
If you’re curious about how all these changes you’re making will appear on various devices, WordPress has added the ability to resize the Site Editor. With a simple click and drag, you’ll see what your site looks like on mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. If you resize to engage the full screen, you’ll automatically be placed in Edit View to begin editing.
Try out the Site Editor and let us know what you think in the comments. We’re always listening to your feedback.
It wasn’t long ago that customizing your website meant outsourcing your design to an experienced developer or learning to code for yourself. Times are changing, though. With the new WordPress.com block editing tools, you’re able personalize all aspects of your site with point-and-click simplicity.
Learn how by joining us for August’s featured webinar: Site Editor vs. Page Editor: Using the Power of WordPress Editing Tools to Create Your Entire Site.
In this live tutorial, we’ll introduce you to the new WordPress.com Site Editor, which allows you to customize your website from top to bottom—no special coding skills needed.
Whether you’re a new or seasoned site owner, our experts will guide you through:
Distinguishing the site editor from the page and blog post editor
Locating and editing block theme templates
Assigning a new template to revamp your page or post appearance
This webinar is 100% free. All you need is a working knowledge of the WordPress.com dashboard and an eagerness to master site editing. Don’t forget to bring along your questions for our live Q&A session after the presentation!
We’ve prepared an exciting range of webinars this month to help you explore the vast potential of the WordPress.com editing tools and understand the importance of a custom domain for your website. These sessions are designed to arm you with the necessary skills to take your WordPress.com site to new heights!
Mastering Custom Domains
Establish a unique online identity that mirrors your brand and sets you apart from the crowd. Come along with us as we walk you through the process of selecting, registering, and associating a custom domain with your WordPress.com site. In addition, you will learn how a domain-specific email address can positively impact your email open rates.
This session will demonstrate how you can effortlessly craft an outstanding header without needing to write any code. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a zealous blogger, this webinar is intended to give you the ability to create headers that truly symbolize your brand and connect with your target audience.
Be a part of our WordPress.com live webinars, deliberately designed for both novice and experienced website owners. All our webinars are open to attend at no cost and wrap up with a vibrant Q&A session, allowing you to engage in meaningful conversation with our expert Happiness Engineers.
The WordPress.com team is always working on new design ideas to bring your website to life. Check out the latest themes in our library, featuring beautiful new options with bloggers, diarists, and creators in mind.
Tenaz (“tenacious” in Spanish) is a classic magazine theme with a rich, dense homepage perfect for professional bloggers or small media networks. Customizable elements are somewhat limited for this theme, but the black and white color palette is versatile and timeless.
Takashi, the designer for this theme, was inspired by a visit to a design museum in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. Among the beautiful designs displayed there, the wall labels, written in both Japanese and English, also caught his attention. Takashi then started thinking about other examples of when dual language displays are needed, from road signs to posters in large immigrant communities. This theme, tomoni (“together” in Japanese), came to life from that idea.
Tomoni uses Noto Sans and Noto Sans Japanese, which makes both texts visually harmonic. There are eight color variations to suit a wide array of aesthetic flavors.
Entry is a uniquely styled block theme designed specifically for journalling. It features a blocky grid layout for posts, with every element contained in squared or rectangular shapes. This is a design that makes a statement.
Trellick is a minimalist, raw blog theme that strips away the polished veneer of the modern “sameness” of web design — this theme shows the untamed essence of the digital realm. Embracing the architectural concept of Brutalism, Trellick showcases a bold, unapologetic aesthetic.
This design features three columns. The left (header) and the right (sidebar) columns are sticky, and only the main content in the middle column scrolls. The small, square-shaped featured image contributes a distinctive look. Trellick is available in four different color schemes.
Covr is a beautifully crafted theme that boasts a clean and modern design, specifically created to showcase images in an immersive and captivating way. Its full-width home template elegantly displays your portfolio, photography, or personal blog posts, providing an enjoyable browsing experience for your audience. Whether you’re a photographer, artist, or blogger, Covr is the perfect choice to present your work and make an impact.
To install any of the above themes, click the name of the theme you like, which brings you right to the installation page. Then click the “Activate this design” button. You can also click “Open live demo,” which brings up a clickable, scrollable version of the theme for you to preview.
Premium themes are available to use at no extra charge for customers on the Premium plan or above. Partner themes are third-party products that can be purchased for $79/year each.
You can explore all of our themes by navigating to the “Themes” page, which is found under “Appearance” in the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Or you can click below:
Say hello to WordPress 6.3 “Lionel,” named after Lionel Hampton, the celebrated American jazz artist. A prolific jazz vibraphonist, pianist, and percussionist, Hampton gained notoriety working in harmony with greats from Charles Mingus to Quincy Jones and as bandleader of the eponymous Lionel Hampton Orchestra. His artistry and charitable work have been recognized with a Grammy, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the National Medal of Arts.
Be sure to turn up the volume of the musical stylings of Lionel Hampton as you discover all “Lionel” has to offer.
With “Lionel” you can create beautiful and compelling websites more efficiently than ever. Whether you want to build an entire site without coding or are a developer looking to customize every detail, WordPress 6.3 has something to pique your interest. As you unpack and explore this latest release, you will discover updated functions and navigation designed to help you work and create with less effort, design tools that give you more control over layout, and added functionality enriching the site-building experience.
“Lionel” marks a major chapter in the evolution of WordPress as a tool for expression. It’s the culmination of years of work from hundreds of contributors, bringing a more powerful and cohesive editing experience for crafting websites with blocks. It continues the quest of making web publishing approachable for everyone—so it’s also just a new beginning!
This momentous release opens new possibilities for the creative expression of designers, creators, and builders. Powerful tools and refined controls give users confidence and allow them to easily manage their sites.
Do everything in the Site Editor
WordPress 6.3 brings your content, templates, and patterns together in the Site Editor for the first time. Add pages, browse style variations, create synced patterns, and enjoy fine-tuned control over navigation menus. Spend less time switching across different site areas—so you can focus on what matters most. Creation to completion, all in one place.
Do everything with the Site Editor
Preview Block themes
Experience block themes before you switch and preview the Site Editor, with options to customize directly before committing to a new theme.
Preview a new block theme before you switch and commit
Create and sync patterns
Arrange blocks and save them to the ‘My Patterns’ section for use throughout your site. You can even specify whether to sync your patterns (previously referred to as “Reusable blocks”) so that one change applies to all parts of your site. Or, utilize patterns as a starting point with the ability to customize each instance.
My patterns: All your patterns in one place
Work faster with the Command Palette
Switch to a specific template or open your editor preferences with a new tool that helps you quickly access expanded functionality. With simple keyboard shortcuts (⌘+k on Mac or Ctrl+k on Windows), clicking the sidebar search icon in Site View, or clicking the Title Bar, get where you need to go and do what you need to do in seconds.
Get to know the new Command Palette
Sharpen your designs with new tools
New design controls bring more versatility for fine-tuning, starting with the ability to customize your captions from the Styles interface without coding. You can manage your duotone filters in Styles for supported blocks and pick from the options provided by your theme or disable them entirely. The Cover block gets added settings for text color, layout controls, and border options, making this powerful block even more handy.
New design tools
Track design changes with Style revisions
With a new audit trail, you can now see how your site looked at a specific time. Visualize these revisions in a timeline and access a one-click option to restore prior styles.
Style revisions: See your style revision history
Annotate with the Footnotes block
Footnotes add convenient annotations throughout your content. Now you can add and link footnotes for any paragraph.
Add footnotes effortlessly with the new Footnotes Block
Show or hide content with the Details block
Use the Details block to avoid spoiling a surprise, create an interactive Q&A section, or hide a long paragraph under a heading.
Display or hide content with the new Details Block
Performance gets a boost
WordPress 6.3 has 170+ performance updates, including defer and async support for the Scripts API and fetchpriority support for images. These improvements, along with block template resolution, image lazy-loading, and the emoji loader, can dramatically improve your website’s perceived load time.
Accessibility remains a core focus
Incorporating more than 50 accessibility improvements across the platform, WordPress 6.3 is more accessible than ever. Improved labeling, optimized tab and arrow-key navigation, revised heading hierarchy, and new controls in the admin image editor allow those using assistive technologies to navigate more easily.
Other highlights
Set aspect ratio on images
Specify your aspect ratios and ensure design integrity, especially when using images in patterns.
Build your site distraction-free
Distraction-free designing is now available in the Site Editor.
Rediscover the Top Toolbar
A revamped Top Toolbar offers parent selectors for nested blocks, options when selecting multiple blocks, and an interface embedded into the title bar with new functionality in mind.
List View improvements
Drag and drop to every content layer and delete any block you would like in the updated List View.
Build templates with Patterns
Create unique patterns to jumpstart template creation with a new modal enabling access to pattern selection.
Changes in PHP support
Support for PHP 5 is discontinued. The new minimum supported version of PHP is 7.0.0.
Failed update safeguards
WordPress will now auto-restore the previously installed version of plugins or themes if something goes wrong during a failed manual update.
Learn more about WordPress and 6.3
Explore Learn WordPress for quick how-to videos, online workshops, and other resources to level up your knowledge of the latest features in WordPress.
Check out the WordPress 6.3 Field Guide for detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress and get the most out of the latest release. Read the 6.3 release notes for additional technical details about this release, including feature recaps, installation information, file changes, fixes, and updates.
Read and subscribe to the Developer Blog for even more helpful WordPress content.
WordPress is a global software platform
61 locales have translated 90 percent or more of WordPress 6.3 into their language. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you, gracias, ありがとう, धन्यवाद, and ευχαριστώ to everyone who helps to make WordPress available in 200 languages.
Contributing to WordPress
WordPress believes in democratizing publishing and the freedoms that come with open source. Supporting this idea is a large community of people collaborating to strengthen the software. A big thank you to everyone who makes WordPress.
Our community of contributors has always been what makes WordPress wonderful. You are what makes sure our project continues to thrive, and our software remains secure, usable, and impactful. Thank you so much for joining together to make the web (and the world) a better place!
WordPress 6.3 arrives thanks to more than 650 contributors’ collective passion and effort in at least 52 countries. This release also includes over 205 first-time contributors!
The 6.3 release squad
The 6.3 release was led from start to launch by an active set of contributors from across many disciplines. Over several weeks, they kept the release on track and moving forward by connecting ideas, resolving issues, and removing roadblocks.
Complimenting the release squad is a diverse group of contributors whose global collaboration delivered hundreds of enhancements and fixes, ensuring a stable release for all—a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.
Many thanks to the community volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.
Get involved today
If contributing to WordPress appeals to you, learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress and explore the product roadmap on the core development blog. You can also use this interactive tool to help you decide which team is right for you.
Looking toward the future
20 years ago this past May, WordPress shipped the very first version, 0.7. What started with a blog post from co-founder Matt Mullenweg and a subsequent comment by co-founder Mike Little eventually evolved into the world’s most popular web publishing platform.
WordPress software continues to evolve and iterate based on the needs and desires of its robust and diverse user community. This release is the capstone of Phase 2 along the WordPress development roadmap. As the community looks to the future, all efforts turn to 6.4 and, subsequently, the transition into Phase 3, which is expected to introduce powerful collaboration tools to the website creation and management experience.
6.3 Haiku
A capstone release Ships tools for building great sites Collaboration
After introducing the Jetpack Mobile app earlier this year, we’re focused on making it the best WordPress experience on your mobile device. We’ve started by updating the design of the mobile editor.
Below we walk you through the changes we’ve made that streamline your writing and editing experience on mobile. You’ll find these improvements when your app updates to version 22.9.
Fresh color palette
We’ve replaced soft blue tones with a striking black and white style, which not only looks cleaner but is simply easier to see as well. Overall, we’ve aligned our styles more closely to the WordPress.com desktop experience, including the more familiar block inserter button.
Cleaner top navigation
We’ve hidden the site title to make room for global actions like “Undo.” Your site icon is shown next to the back arrow, where you can tap to leave the editor. We’ve also added a border to clearly separate the navigation bar from your content.
Faster media insertion
We’ve added in-line media blocks when you have no other block selected, so you can add an image or video faster without opening the full block list.
More space to write
We’ve hidden the blue border around the paragraph block while you’re typing to let you focus on writing.
Unified block controls
It used to be that some block controls were shown on top of the block, taking space from your content. Now all the block controls live in the toolbar, with the settings icon up first.
New ways to move blocks
The up and down arrows, which move blocks within your posts and pages, have moved to the right side of the toolbar. And if you missed it, we introduced drag and drop last year, so you can move blocks manually.
More to come
You’ll find these improvements when your app updates to version 22.9.
We’ll be continuing to make improvements to the mobile editor. In the meantime, we’d love to hear what you like, what challenges you’ve encountered, and any ideas you have. It may very well shape what we work on next.
These prebuilt, customizable templates can be used to create product listings, customer testimonials, payment interfaces, contact forms, and so much more. All told, we have more than 275+ Patterns you can mix and match in your pages and posts at the press of a button.
If you’ve never used Patterns before, they’re like any other site element: Access them by hitting the inserter (or “+”) button at the top left of the page or post you’re working on, then selecting the “Patterns” tab. You can also click on the “Explore” button to bring up our entire library of Patterns, organized by category.
Let’s take a look at a few of the newest business-focused Patterns we’ve added to our library.
Testimonials
Boost trust and credibility for your small business with compelling testimonials. Choose from a number of carefully crafted Patterns to beautifully showcase customer stories and experiences on your website.
Services
Every small business website needs a services section, delivering clear information about your offerings. Whether you’re a restaurant, beauty salon, or local cleaning service, we have the perfect Pattern to showcase your products and services.
Pricing
A well-designed pricing section can be the centerpiece of your business website and a big sales driver. We’ve added a number of Patterns to our library that will make this task easy and fun!
FAQ
Answer common questions about your business, services, prices, and more with a beautiful and functional Frequently Asked Questions section. Adding one to your website is as easy as picking one of our FAQ Patterns, and customizing as desired with your own colors and copy.
Contact
A contact page is a must-have in order to easily connect with visitors, encourage inquiries, solicit feedback, and discover new business opportunities. Pick a Pattern that best suits your business and you’ll never miss a lead.
Payments
Accept credit and debit card payments effortlessly with our Payment Button Block. Choose from a range of stylish design options, making the payment process even more convenient and visually appealing for your customers.
Explore all of our Patterns!
Let our patterns library spark your creativity. We have options for featured products, menus, events, coupons, and more. Dive in by exploring all the hundreds of patterns in the WordPress editor.
If you’re intrigued by Patterns but don’t have a site yet, get started by creating your own unique design today:
As the world’s most popular open source content management system, WordPress acknowledges the European Union’s initiative to bolster the cybersecurity of digital hardware and software products with the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). The Act’s effort to counter the increasing threat of cyberattacks and promote informed usage of digital products with increased security updates and transparency is commendable.
While we wholly endorse the objectives of the CRA, we are apprehensive about the Act’s implications on open source software due to unclear terms and definitions.
Specifically, the Act’s prohibition on “unfinished software” and ambiguous definition of “commercial activity” could inadvertently inhibit innovation and economic participation in the European digital landscape.
Open source projects, like WordPress, often rely on continual updates and improvements—a process that may technically fall under the label of “unfinished.” Furthermore, the ambiguous definition of “commercial activity” could unintentionally encompass open source projects that are largely driven by communities and operate on a not-for-profit basis.
Our letter to the EU Commission
We have jointly authored an open letter addressing these concerns alongside fellow open source projects Drupal, Joomla!, and TYPO31. The letter emphasizes the significant contribution of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to the EU’s economy and how the proposed regulations might undermine these efforts. Our shared goal is to further bolster the security of digital products without compromising the values of freedom, democracy, and innovation inherent to both the open source community and the EU’s Aims and Values.
The letter invites the EU Commission and interested parties to participate in a seminar in Brussels to discuss how we can align the objectives of the CRA with the realities and needs of the FOSS community. We are optimistic that, with mutual understanding and cooperation, we can achieve secure digital products without limiting the vital contributions of open source projects.
Drupal, Joomla!, TYPO3, and WordPress are the most popular FOSS content management systems on the web today. While all are based on the PHP programming language and distributed under the GPL open source license, each platform takes a different approach to website publishing. With strength in diversity, they form the Inter-CMS Working Group, promoting the values and benefits of free and open source software. ︎
WordPress 6.3 RC3 is ready for download and testing.
This version of the WordPress software is under development.Please do not install, run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should evaluate RC3 on a test server and site.
The WordPress 6.3 release is scheduled for August 8, 2023—just one week away. Now is your last opportunity to test it before the general release.
Since the RC2 release on July 25, 2023, there have been approximately 14 issues resolved in Github and Trac. To prepare for 6.3 general availability, RC3 also addresses several bugs and adds fixes for retrieving templates (#4940) and resolving child theme issues (#53138). Thank you for testing, WordPressers!
WordPress is open source software made possible by the community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline a variety of ways you can help, regardless of your technical expertise.
Download RC3 for testing
You can test WordPress 6.3 RC3 in three ways:
Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).
Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.3-RC3
Keep WordPress bug-free—help with 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. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is too.
Encountered 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.
New to testing? This detailed guide is a great place to start if you’ve never tested a beta/RC release.
The monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled between the Beta 1 release and the final release candidate (RC). 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.
Update your theme or plugin
Do you build themes or plugins? Your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for users of all types worldwide.
This is your final opportunity to test your latest versions against RC3. You will want to continue your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.3.
If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums.
A domain is your most valuable online asset. A great domain name says something about you—your personality, your work, your creative spark. People understand this intuitively: when coming up with new ideas for a business or website, we don’t start with design or specific content. We start by giving it a name.
But if your domain name is currently with Google Domains, things recently became complicated. You may have heard that your account has been sold to Squarespace. Everything is expected to transfer and close later this year.
Fortunately for you, you’re not locked into that deal. And we think we can do better. For the first million domains that move from Google to WordPress.com, we’ll pay your transfer fee, which also extends your registration for an additional year.
That’s just the beginning. Here’s our commitment to you when you bring your domain from Google to WordPress.com:
Your renewal price will be the same or even lower than what you were paying with Google Domains—and that goes for every one of the 400+ top-level domains (TLDs) we offer. This will also apply to existing WordPress.com customers across most domains, meaning that in many cases we’re lowering your prices!
This isn’t a temporary thing. We’re committed to keeping domain prices low, and will only raise them if our wholesale costs go up (we’ll run our domains business like Costco).
You may know WordPress.com as a leading platform for building stunning websites, but we’ve been a domain name provider for over a decade. You don’t even need a site or hosting plan to manage your domains with us.
And you’re getting much more than just a URL:
Performance: Our DNS speeds are faster than Google, GoDaddy, and Digital Ocean. But don’t take our word for it. Feel free to check for yourself at dnsperf.com.
Security: We install SSL for free for all domains hosted with us. And when you host your site at WordPress.com, we provide serious security features to keep your site running smoothly such as real-time backups, one-click restores, malware scanning, WAF (web application firewall), DDOS mitigation, and more.
What it really comes down to is that WordPress.com, along with the larger Automattic family, is committed to the open and inclusive web. Our mission is to democratize publishing for the entire world. Ultimately, we will always support your ability to truly own your content and identity on the web.
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