WordPress 5.7 Beta 3 is now available for testing!

This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.

You can test the WordPress 5.7 Beta 3 in two ways:

• Install/activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and the Beta/RC Only stream)
• Direct download the beta version here (zip).

The current target for final release is March 9, 2021. That’s just three weeks away, so your help is vital to making sure that the final release is as good as it can be.

Some Highlights

Since Beta 2, 27 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of some of the included changes:

• Adjusted color contrast on various admin buttons to improve accessibility and readability (#52402)
• Several fixes for the Twenty Twenty-One theme (#52287, #52377, #52431, #52500, #52502, #52412)
• Replaced editor typeface with system fonts to improve privacy and performance (#46169)
• Added i18n support to register_block_type_from_metadata function (#52301)
• Media upload errors are now more accessible (#47120)
• New filter to modify how pagination links are rendered when using paginate_links function (#44018)

How You Can Help

Watch the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.7-related developer notes in the coming weeks, which will break down these and other changes in greater detail.

So far, contributors have fixed 171 tickets in WordPress 5.7, including 64 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.

Do some testing!

Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute.

If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.

Props to @audrasjb and @lukecarbis for your peer revisions.

Finish line ahead
Defects in focus
We are almost there…