Twenty plus years and counting since WordPress made its arrival and quickly became the platform of choice for anyone who felt that what they had to say was worth sharing on the World Wide Web. The reason it caught on so thoroughly was because of the simplicity it offered for publishing content in a form that was doable for the Internet, and since then WordPress expanded its horizons to become a website creation and launching platform too. Here we are in the middle of 2024 and it’s now possible to upgrade to WordPress 6.5.
This new WordPress update is getting a good bit of fanfare, and for legitimate reasons as it has expanded those horizons yet again and is set to enable users to do even more with creating websites and publishing content online. For the first decade and then some of its existence the predominant value for WordPress was in its vast array of plugins that made customizing pages a cinch and really allowed you to add design flair to the site with no need for web design capability or savvy at all.
That part of the appeal of WordPress is still there, but the new slate of WordPress 6.5 features takes this appeal to a whole new level. And does so based on so much more in the way of accessible functionality for people who choose to build a website with WordPress. That’s a good number of people, and more all the time considering the way that it’s not just businesses or bloggers that need to have a website these days.
There are all sorts of creative ventures out there that need a website for promotion and visibility, and that’s just one of example of many where the growth and vitality of society and culture have so many people deciding they need a simple yet attractive – and inexpensive – website for themselves. We imagine they’ll be keen to get started with WordPress 6.5, and we’ll lay out why that is here with this blog entry where we go into dtail about the newest iteration of WordPress and what makes it so great.
Super Enhancements
The WordPress 6.5 release was the first major one for 2024, and coming loaded with multiple enhancements that have been designed to streamline your website design and management experience. It can be a good fit for either those building their first website without coding knowledge or for seasoned developers who build websites from scratch. Going with WordPress 6.5 is going to make the process maximum user-friendly and efficient.
There are so many standout features that can benefit your site that it is hard to know where to start in lauding all of them, but we’ll just go ahead and choose one and it is the new and expanded font library that is included in the latest WordPress update. It really is a standout addition with typography that is tailored to you. With it you have the ability to directly upload or install your favorite Google Fonts.
This provides so much more capability with personalizing a site’s typography without the need for additional plugins. That’s something that is in line with establishing brand identity nowadays, especially considering how visual detail is so much more of accessory part of brand identity building.
The fonts you currently have installed on your WordPress theme are displayed by default with this feature. Adding additional fonts from your computer is immediately possible by moving them to the Upload tab. And if you’d like to use Google Fonts for the site all you need to do is click on the Install Fonts tab to connect your website to Google Fonts.
Interactivity API: Upping User Engagement
Another of the WordPress 6.5 improvements that everyone is taking real notice of is the way users can transform your site with the Interactivity API. It’s a wonder of a tool that is designed to make your pages more dynamic and engaging. This API gives users the ability to implement real-time interactions without needing a page to reload. For example, you can make color changes such as color changes to a product. What this does is create a smoother and more interactive experience for your visitors.
If you go to the WordPress website you can view a demo website that showcases the new update’s capabilities and what is possible with these WordPress 6.5 tools. Smoother drag & drop is another one of them. It is so much easier to move things around with less friction and you’ll also receive visual cues when an object is displaced. If that happens you can properly reposition to any location within your workplace so much more easily now.
Pattern duplication is another one of the WordPress 6.5 features that’s worth getting excited about. With it you can easily duplicate patterns on your site, including the ability to have synced patterns. This is a powerful tool for simplifying the process of creating consistent layouts. Consider improved list view too. With this feature users can access block settings with a right-click and rename blocks directly from the list view, making for a more intuitive navigation and editing experience.
Next up with WordPress 6.5 improvements is the optimized site editor. With it you can enjoy a cleaner, more organized site editor interface with personalized presentation options. Take advantage of the options that include bulk editing capabilities, filtering, and sorting. It seems users that have already taken 6.5 for a spin are also quite enthused about the new aspect ration and box shadow for blocks features too.
With these you can customize the appearance of your cover blocks with aspect ratio controls and make images so much better with real depth. Columns with box-shadow support are visually superior too, and this is something that users will quickly agree with once they seen them. Gallery and social block updates are especially welcome additions too.
Benefit from the new randomize feature in the Gallery block and an updated icon for Patreon in the Social block that enhances visual dynamics and improves on the social connectivity that is possible for the site.
Simpler & More Insightful Updates
We’ll go even further encouraging an upgrade to WordPress 6.5 here. The new features that are rolled out with it make it so much more versatile, and that’s building on an existing WordPress platform that was pretty darn versatile to begin with. We haven’t talked about all the WordPress 6.5 features yet, so we’ll continue doing just that. The greater ability users have with site icon changes now is a big plus too.
They can update their WordPress site icon with ease and make the change directly from the General Settings. This applies to both block and classic themes. Lots to be said for enhanced link management with WordPress 6.5 too, With this improved feature you have immediate access to link settings upon addition, and this is hugely beneficial for streamlining content creation. The same goes for style revision insights, which increase the ease and intuitiveness that users have with deciding on design changes. Using the style revision feature you will see how it offers descriptions and timestamps for each modification.
Making the Move to WordPress 6.5
The reasons people continue to look to 4GoodHosting for the best managed WordPress hosting in Canada are varied, but a part of it is the way we don’t miss a beat in being receptive to the latest WordPress updates and making it so that our WordPress site host clients can take full advantage of them right away. We’ve made WordPress 6.5 available on our Web Hosting and Managed WordPress plans.
The one thing we’ll mention though is that for complex website with several plugins in use it may be best to stall a bit before upgrading because some are reporting that major upgrades may break some plugins or themes. Once it’s all systems go for an upgrade you can initiate it from your WordPress dashboard or cPanel.
Those who’ve opted to go with a Managed WordPress plans may want to try testing out the new version through a staging site. What this does i create a copy of your live website in a separate staging environment for testing and it won’t affect your production site. Another big advantage with the new WordPress update.
We’ll conclude by saying that WordPress 6.5 is so well put together, and it’s so easy to agree that it can and likely will take your website customizing experience to enjoyable new heights with new functionalities and design enhancements. This stretches from typography freedom with the Font Library to interactive user experiences via the Interactivity API. With 6.5 you are so much more empowered to make your site more attractive, functional, and much more inviting for those who want to interact with after choosing to visit.
