WordPress News Roundup: June 2021

Gutenberg 10.8 Adds New Typography Controls and Block Previews

This month WordPress rolled out more updates to Gutenberg, its built-in block editor. Some of the improvements include more control over typography and the ability to preview changes to block elements while in edit mode. Specifically, you’ll now have the ability to change the font weight of headings in the block editor and set font family with lists (but not paragraph text, oddly). While we welcome these updates, we think it’s just as important to establish a uniform typography hierarchy and stick to it. We’ve also noticed a tendency to use bold when it’s not necessary. Font size is usually better at signalling importance on the page than font weight, because it’s more readable. Gutenberg 10.8 also includes the ability to preview block in edit mode (a time-saver) and a bunch of bug fixes that you probably won’t notice, but will certainly make our lives easier.

Read more: Gutenberg 10.8 release notes at WordPress.org.

2021 WordPress hosting performance benchmarks published by Review Signal

Kevin Ohashi, the founder of Review Signal, has launched a new site to help consumers compare WordPress hosting platforms by server performance. The 2021 results are now available at https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/ and are broken down by price point. Ohashi’s methodology is highly transparent and measures a combination of simulated traffic (LoadStorm), cached performance (K6), uptime, and WordPress-specific benchmarks, like how fast PHP performs database operations. A few standouts include WPX.net, Pressable, Lightning Base, and Servebolt, which performed well across price points.

Visit site: https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/

WordPress 5.8 beta 1 is ready for testing

The WordPress development community is making strides toward the goal of core full-site editing (FSE) that would rival plugins like Elementor. The upcoming release solidifies WordPress’ site building and block editing capabilities. New blocks in 5.8 include Page List, Site Title, Logo, Tagline, Query Loop, and Duotone. The Query Loop block comes with layout options and the ability to further customize blocks within the loop, including typography, color, length of excerpt, etc. Another big improvement in the works: widgetized blocks. Instead of only being able to use shortcodes or clunky bits of html in widget areas, we’ll have the ability to insert any block into a widgetized area customize at the page level. Lastly, a new feature called Pattern Directory that makes design patterns available to folks designing their own sites is set to roll out with 5.8.

Let’s get testing, y’all! https://wordpress.org/news/2021/06/wordpress-5-8-beta-1/