I came across an article by wptavern discussing a video on youtube about the progress that has been made with the site building features of WordPress. this video and article documents the advancements made from WordPress 5.9 to the upcoming WordPress 6.2.
WordPress 5.9 (AKA “Josephine”) was released in January 2022, but that seems like ages ago when you compare the advances made in site building over the past year across the web. Anne McCarthy, an Automattic-sponsored contributor who is the head the Full Site Editing Outreach Program, has published a short video that tours the important changes in WordPress over the past few major releases. The video also doubles as a preview of some of the features coming in 6.2.
If you are using the Gutenberg plugin, instead of upgrading to the latest release, and have been tracking the relentless progress of the Site Editor, you will notice how limited the design options are in 5.9 and how much more consistent and expansive they have become today. In 5.9 users could only add a Front page template, and the site building interface is disjointed and less polished.
McCarthy demonstrates how WordPress 6.2 will introduce smoother interactions with the all new browse mode. It will also greatly expand the template options available for users to add and includes a new colorized list view to check out.
The Navigation block has had a long and rocky journey but seems to have been reborn in 6.2. McCarthy showed how much more intuitive it has become with the new experience of editing navigation in the sidebar, and repositioning via drag and drop with live previews.
The instant Style Variations were introduced back in WordPress 6.0, it seems like they were always there. Looking back at 5.9 in the video, the Site Editor appears bare without them. WordPress 6.2 will extend this feature even further with improved block style previews, a style book, and a new zoomed out view that makes it easy to see all the changes at a glance.
Everything coming in 6.2 is converging towards better usability and more design options for site editors. The challenge here though, is to continue introducing new features without the interface becoming cluttered and chaotic to use. Many of these features are still going through the process of being ironed out. For example, McCarthy mentioned that the Edit button is still a work in progress and may soon be relocated to be in a more prominent spot in the Site Editor.
The video above gives a quick visual summary of what is being done to wrap up the full-site editing phase of the Gutenberg project before contributors move on to the next stage known as Collaboration. It is worth a watch to see the site building progress that contributors have made to this project in just one year.
If you want to get involved in making sure all these features in 6.2 are ready for the release, check out McCarthy’s latest FSE Testing Call: Find Your Style. It will plunge you right into the new features of the Site Editor to perform a few tasks. It’s essentially a guided opportunity to explore the new interface while contributing back to WordPress, and you will earn a fancy testing contributor badge that will display on your WordPress.org profile for all to see.
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