August 8, 2023, signaled the latest release of WordPress. Join us in issuing a warm welcome to Lionel! WordPress 6.3 isn’t just an exciting new update: It also marks the completion of Gutenberg Phase 2, solidifying block-based editing through the Site Editor and further enhancing user experience.
Lionel is named in honor of Lionel Hampton, an acclaimed American jazz musician, Grammy winner, National Medal of Arts winner, and Alabama Jazz Hall of Famer.
Along with over 170 performance upgrades, WordPress 6.3 streamlines efficiency, design, and creative control. Let’s dive into the newest features so you can start making the most of Lionel on your WordPress website.
Exploring new features in WordPress 6.3
After WordPress 5.9 (“Joséphine”) ushered in full-site, block-based editing and the very first default block theme, WordPress has continued to iterate the Site Editor. Each new release has taken WordPress users closer and closer to a more holistic site creation experience. Lionel is another landmark in this journey, expanding your ability to customize your site with ease (and no coding whatsoever).
Lionel’s new features include:
The Command Palette
Save time and mental bandwidth by harnessing WordPress 6.3’s all-new Command Palette. This is a quick search tool that allows you to near-instantly execute commands, including creating new posts or pages, adding blocks, accessing style variations, changing editor preferences, and more.
Accessing the Command Palette is simple, and there’s three ways to do it. Use keyboard shortcuts (⌘+k or Ctrl+k), select the search icon in the sidebar in Site View, or click the Title Bar. Whichever route you choose, a quick search feature appears with a few default command options. Typing in the search bar reveals even more options.
Additionally, WordPress included an API for this feature, allowing developers to register their own static, dynamic, and contextual commands or even remove the default options as desired.
The Command Palette is a welcomed improvement to site editing, streamlining your work by delivering fast, convenient access to some of the most-used commands in WordPress.
New design tools
Design details bring life and personality to your site. With a few tweaks, you can rep your brand, create a site that’s wholly unique, and capture your audience’s attention. WordPress 6.3 takes design accessibility to new heights with more nuanced customization options. It also places the Styles menu in the Site Editor sidebar. There, you can browse style variations and get an instant glimpse of how different styles affect all blocks on the page.
Duotone filters are more easily accessible in the Styles menu, where you can set global filters or disable them altogether. You can also design and tweak your own caption styles without writing CSS code.
Lionel also supports enhanced customization of the Button and Cover blocks. Seamlessly adjust button border color, width, and style for eye-catching buttons. With the Cover block, there are new options for text color, layout, and border.
Again, these design tools require no CSS, so you don’t have to be a web designer to achieve incredible site appearance.
Style revisions
Have you ever regretted some of your site design choices and wished you could go back in time? Or, maybe you work in a collaborative environment where multiple people can implement site customizations. With Lionel, you can now access a digital trail of style revisions and revert back to your site’s previous design.
In the Styles menu, select the Revisions button and choose Revision history. This opens a timeline revealing every revision made to your site, including date stamps and who initiated the changes. Selecting the different entries reveals what the site looked like in real time, and with one click you can revert back to those previous designs.
This is a truly revolutionary collaborative feature, giving greater transparency to who customized the site, when changes were made, and how your site has looked throughout time. It also takes the pressure off as you experiment with different Styles — you can always revert back to earlier versions.
Footnotes block
Site visitors want a seamless experience with concise, at-a-glance information. Still, sometimes more context and sources are important. And that brings us to another appreciated new feature in WordPress 6.3: the Footnotes block.
Add annotations to any of your written content — a function previously only available via plugins. This feature adds credibility and context to your website’s content. Even better, it couldn’t be easier to implement. Simply highlight the text you want to annotate, select the Footnote block from the toolbar, and start typing and adding links.
Numbered annotations appear within your text. If you need to go back to an earlier portion of your content and add a new source, WordPress automatically reorders the annotations in the Footnotes block so everything is organized properly and logically.
Details block
Another new feature that keeps your site pages concise and clean is the Details block. This feature allows you to “hide” content, making it visible only if site visitors choose to expand and read.
There are near-endless use cases for this block. For example, if you’re a blogger who reviews the latest books or blockbuster films, you can post detailed opinion pieces while hiding spoilers that readers may or may not want to know. Or, if you run an eCommerce shop, you can add a detailed return policy under a product listing. The Details block is also great for FAQs, terms and conditions, and other important content that would otherwise make your pages very cluttered.
Like the Footnotes block, Details improves user experience by protecting site visitors’ bandwidth and reducing page length.
Get started with WordPress 6.3 today
What a fantastic suite of new features! Of course, these aren’t the only noteworthy improvements from WordPress 6.3, so be sure to check out the official release page to read about performance and accessibility enhancements. You’ll also find more information on the 6.3 release squad — the brilliant minds who made these advancements possible.
If you’re a visual learner, you may also be interested in video tutorials. Davies Media Design posted a concise walk-through, while WordPress.org offers a longer, more in-depth demo of Lionel.
Download WordPress 6.3 today and experience the power of the latest features first-hand.
