Get Ready For More WordPress Upgrades
The next WordPress Upgrade (WordPress 6.0) is due to be released on May 24. Apart from some bug fixes, the developers are indicating there will be several new features that are meant to enable users more flexibility and customisation options.
I suspect most of the heralded changes will be unlikely to interest to most book bloggers — they’re more targeted at people who want to dig into the technical backroom and customise templates or add functionality that helps them interact with customers. Frankly, many of these changes are way over my head.
But there are a few changes to the block editor that could be helpful to book bloggers so I thought I’d just give you some insight on what to expect with WordPress 6.0.
Change Text Across Multiple Blocks
One big change will be the ability to select and reformat text across multiple text blocks. At the moment if you try to do this , the editing tool automatically makes changes to all the blocks you’ve selected. It will not allow you to change just one line in each block or part of a line. With the upgrade, we should be able to highlight and change specific text across different blocks.
Lock Reusable Blocks
I’m a big fan of the re-usable blocks feature within WordPress. As I explained in a post I did on this a while back, if you use the same content or image in different posts, then reusable blocks can save you time.
But this feature isn’t without its frustrations. My main gripe is that if I want to make even a small change, to the reusable block, unless I’m very careful, it affects every page on which you’ve used that block.
I know there are plugins that lock the reusable block but I don’t want to install yet more plug ins (and not all users have the ability to add plug ins anyway).
WordPress 6.0 is expected to deliver a fix for this issue.
Miscellaneous Block Changes
Several new blocks are likely to be introduced in WordPress 6.0 such as “post author biography” and “comment form” that you can incorporate into each post.
Block style preview. Under the current WordPress version if you want to see how a particular block will look once live, you have to click on preview. A new block will give you the ability to hover over the block style options in the design tool to see a live preview in the content area.
Border for Columns: The revised columns block will now give an option to place a border around the whole of the block, so the text stands out more.
Gallery Image Spacing: The gallery block could be useful if you want to include several book cover images, for example in a Six Degrees of Separation post. IThe result would look like this:
It’s clean and neat with every edge perfectly aligned. What I can’t do however is to add more white space between each column or each row. The upgraded gallery block will give the option to increase the spacing between individual images, making it seem less cluttered.
WordPress 6.0 is now out for final testing prior to going live on May 24. Once the new version is available, I’ll be playing around with it and will let you know how I get on.
I had to buy a subscription for my book review blog as I suddenly ran out of space – quite annoying, but it’s done. I’m going to delete my one about my books if I have to start paying, hoping there’s still a free option of some kind. I’m struggling with the SEO field in the paid for version: I put keywords in there then they suddenly appear in my Facebook post when I share the link manually …
Liz, one way to release some space is to optimise all your images. Scale them to the right size before uploading. Aim to get each image down to 100Kb if you want the image to go across the whole page; 30kb for smaller images. Also use a file compression tool – there is a free one at https://imagecompressor.com/. Another option is to use the Insert from URL option to add the image to your site – this means the image doesn’t live in your own media library but is pulled from another site.
As for the SEO field, send me a screen grab via Twitter DM (@bookertalk so I know which field you are struggling with and I’ll a look
Oooh, highlighting across multiple blocks will be SO HELPFUL! And being able to preview a block will save a bit of time, too. Appreciate the heads up, I’ll be looking forward to the update 😁
I’m really hoping there is more flexibility to edit text within blocks – I find it frustrating at the moment if I want to add a colour for example, just to a few words
Thanks for the head-ups. I’ve been using blocks for a while now and find they make editing and layout changes a breeze. They’re especially handy for the library visit posts that I do which tend to have over a dozen images. Before blocks, moving images and paragraphs around was such a headache for me.
Have you come across anything about reusable blocks being bad for SEO? It would seem odd that WordPress would add a feature that would tank a user’s SEO, but I remember hearing people grumbling about reused content lowering search results when blocks were first introduced.
I think there is going to be an option to select multiple blocks and move them together which would be useful.
Not heard anything about re-usable blocks having a negative effect on SEO. Search engines don’t like duplicated content but that relates more to a post that largely repeats what is already on the blog – just one duplicated paragraph shouldn’t be a problem.
Some of these sound useful to me. There are still some basic things lagging behind though. Let’s hope they come before too long. Always appreciate your summaries keeping me informed!
From what I’ve read, the next focus or WordPress will be on collaboration tools rather than customisation so whatever basic things you’re missing now may not get attention unfortunately
Okay but… I’m still not using the Block editor. I’ve made old posts from the classic editor into draft templates that I use for new posts, because I hate the Block editor so much. I hope this won’t be a problem. Mind you, recently WP has been causing me problems like, I can’t highlight more than one paragraph and delete it all at once – I have to delete each paragraph separately.
I’ve been having issues with deleting too even though I am using the block editor.
A Block Editor refusenik here as I’m still using the Classic block and just copy and paste content from Word. Or I just use Copy Post for regular posts, such as Top Ten Tuesday, and amend as required.
You’re not alone Cathy, plenty of bloggers seem to want to stick with classic editor
You can install a plugin that will give you the ability to add special characters. – info is here https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-add-special-characters-in-wordpress-posts/#:~:text=Inside%20the%20paragraph%20block%2C%20click,insert%20it%20into%20the%20editor.
I’ll check on the adding colour question when the new version is released – there is nothing specifically in the release info about this. Definitely no plans for capitalisation sorry.
Good one, Carol. I still call up Classic block every now and then to get accented characters, and also, my personal favourite, a line across the post.
Thank you Karen, again, for keeping us up to date. I still haven’t dealt with the increased payment/reduced picture space changes.
I’ve just answered Carol’s question about the special characters. The options are either to install a plug in or add HTML code – I can’t be bothered with either so I just find the shortcut keys on my keyboard, put that into a blank document and copy/paste to WordPress
Re line across a post — do you mean a line to separate one paragrph from another? If so, there is a block called Separator which will insert a short solid line.You can then change this to dots or to increase the depth of the line. You can’t change the width of the line unfortunately
OO-ER
I suspect Derrick that you can ignore all of them unless you want to make improvements to your site. They’ll be options from what I can see
Thanks for this, Karen – not that I’ll be using most of them, but one or two might help presentation for me.
I don’t have the enthusiasm to delve into some of the more complex ones which look targetted more at people who want their blogs to look like a website. But the ones I’ve mentioned in the post could be of interest
I just hope the whole thing doesn’t explode and put my blog all over the room! I only recently rescued it so I am always apprehensive of the changes. I will look forward to what you write. 😳😳😳
I don’t think you’ll notice much impact unless you go looking for the new options Pam
Nothing yet about “special characters” on the tool bar or facilitating the use of color for selected text? Or basic word processing features like an automatic capital at the beginning of a sentence? I’m still using classic! 😂😂😂