Rich Tabor

Design. Engineering. Product.

WordPress 6.6

WordPress 6.6 is a solid mix of refinement and progression, most notably with enhanced design tools to level-up site creation, and rollbacks for plugin auto-updates.

Here’s my take on the most interesting parts of this release:

Color palettes and typesets

Add color palettes and typesets to WordPress themes, which can be each be applied independently of each other. Think of a library of colors and typography styles, all interchangeable with one another.

Variations for groups of blocks

Curate one-click styles for groups of blocks with this next big iteration of block style variations. Basically, mini-themes to use throughout your site, keeping each section on-brand.

Override content across patterns

Maintain a consistent layout and style across patterns while customizing content in any instance of a synced pattern, ensuring design consistency across your website.

Quick previews for pages

See a preview of each of your pages before editing with the side-by-side list layout in the Site Editor.

Rollbacks for plugin auto-updates

Auto-update WordPress plugins with the assurance of rollbacks, enhancing security and minimizing downtime in case something goes wrong.

Editor transitions

Experience seamless transitions when toggling the List View and Inspector panels, now enhanced with subtle transitions that provide context and clarity. Naturally, these respect your device’s motion preferences.

Editable shadow presets

Create and edit shadows across your site with new shadow controls in the Site Editor.

Negative margin

Overlap blocks to create more interesting layout designs with support for negative margins.

Grid block

Design creative layouts using the new Grid block, which leverages CSS grid for making intrinsically responsive designs.

Site background image

Add another layer of personalization to your site with the new background image controls in the Site Editor.

Custom aspect ratios

Break out of the mold by adding custom aspect ratios to your WordPress site within theme.json. Custom ratios will be available throughout the editing experience.

Refined publish flow

Experience a refined publish flow panel across WordPress, making it easier to scan a post’s publish settings.

Classic themes and patterns

Classic themes now use the new Patterns experience from the Site Editor, offering a modern approach to managing and creating patterns—no matter which theme you use.

My friend Anne has a nice video showcasing this.

Edit custom fields from blocks

Edit custom field values directly from connected blocks. That’s right, integrate data sources with block attributes—and edit those values right in the editor.

Reduced CSS specificity

Override generated styles more easily with broadly reduced CSS specificity for both block and theme.json styles.

Extensibility

Developers, WordPress 6.6 makes it easier than ever to extend the editing experience, as both the Post Editor and Site Editor now use the same slots and extensibility APIs.

Plus, many other enhancements…

WordPress 6.6 reflects the countless efforts of 630 contributors in at least 51 countries, including 154 first-time contributors.

It’s impossible to highlight every bit of effort that went into this release, but from the bottom of my heart—thank you all.

As I sit here writing this, I am incredibly impressed how WordPress 6.6 shaped up. Once again, I’ve never been more excited about the future of WordPress.

What about you?