Welcome to “Misha”

Say hello to WordPress 6.1, “Misha,” inspired by the life and work of Soviet-Norwegian jazz pianist Mikhail “Misha” Alperin. Misha introduced the work of jazz ensembles in the USSR and globally. He is also celebrated as a founding member of the Moscow Art Trio.

“Misha” further refines the site-building experience. Inside WordPress 6.1 you’ll interact with enhancements that continue to make site creation more intuitive while pushing your creative boundaries further than ever. Don’t forget to enjoy some of Misha’s jazz piano as you take in all WordPress 6.1 has to offer.

The third major release of 2022 is here. Download it now! As of the time of this release, WordPress powers 43% of websites worldwide.

Site owners and administrators should upgrade today to take full advantage of the many stability, performance, and usability enhancements. Furthermore, WordPress content creators will enjoy a suite of new features geared toward improving the writing and designing experiences.

This release includes features that many in the WordPress Community have been most excited about since the start of this project. Additional enhancements and improvements to the editor give site owners more control and easier customization while offering a more cohesive experience to users. A lot of writing-focused improvements are included in the release, because if you’re giving voices to the voiceless you’ve got to focus on folks writing the copy.

Some of my favorite enhancements are the refined ability to select partial paragraphs in a block; settings to keep list view open by default; and the keyboard shortcut to add internal links expanded to all blocks.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director

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What’s Inside

Twenty Twenty-Three:
A fresh default theme with 10 distinct style variations

After introducing foundational elements for block themes and style variations in releases 5.9 and 6.0, WordPress site builders welcome a new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Three, that is powered by 10 different styles and tagged as  “Accessibility Ready.” These intentionally unique styles ensure users can apply a different look and feel to their site with a single click—all within a single theme.

New templates for an improved creator experience

New and more refined templates now give site builders more control over the creation of their sites. In this suite of new templates, find a custom template for posts & pages in the Site Editor. Create and edit template parts like headers and footers more quickly with a new search-and-replace tool and easily view your new site.

Design tools for more consistency and control

Thoughtful upgrades to the controls for design elements and blocks make laying out and building your new site a more consistent, complete, and intuitive experience.

Manage menus with ease

New fallback options in the navigation block mean you can edit the menu that’s open; no searching needed. Plus, the controls for choosing and working on menus have their own place in the block settings. The mobile menu system also gets an upgrade with new features, including different icon options, to make the menu yours.

Cleaner layouts and document settings visualization

View and manage post and page settings with a better-organized display improving the use of features like template picker and scheduler.

One-click lock setting for all inner blocks

When locking blocks, a new toggle lets you apply your lock settings to all the blocks in a containing block like the group, cover, and column blocks.

Improved block placeholders

Various blocks have improved placeholders that reflect customization options to help you design your site and its content. For example, the Image block placeholder displays custom borders and duotone filters even before selecting an image.

Compose richer lists and quotes with inner blocks

The List and Quote blocks now support inner blocks, allowing for more flexible and rich compositions like adding headings inside your Quote blocks.

More responsive text with fluid typography

Fluid typography lets you define font sizes that adapt for easy reading in any screen size.

Add starter patterns to any post type

In WordPress 6.0, when you created a new page, you would see suggested patterns so you did not have to start with a blank page. In 6.1, you will also see the starter patterns modal when you create a new instance of any post type.

Find block themes faster

The Themes Directory has a filter for block themes, and a pattern preview gives a better sense of what the theme might look like while exploring different themes and patterns.

Keep your Site Editor settings for later

Site Editor settings are now persistent for each user. This means your settings will now be consistent across browsers and devices.

A streamlined style system

The CSS rules for margin, padding, typography, colors, and borders within the styles engine are now all in one place, reducing time spent on layout-specific tasks and helps to generate semantic class names.

Updated interface options and features

Updates include styling elements like buttons, citations, and links globally; controlling hover, active, and focus states for links using theme.json (not available to control in the interface yet); and customizing outline support for blocks and elements, among other features.

Continued evolution of layout options

The default content dimensions provided by themes can now be overridden in the Styles Sidebar, giving site builders better control over full-width content. Developers have fine-grained control over these controls.

Block Template parts in classic themes

Block template parts can now be defined in classic themes by adding the appropriate HTML files `parts` directory at the root of the theme.

Expanded support for Query Loop blocks

New filters let Query Block variations support custom queries for more powerful variations and advanced hierarchical post types filtering options.

Filters for all your styles

Leverage filters in the Styles sidebar to control settings at all four levels of your site—core, theme, user, or block, from less to more specific.

Spacing presets for faster, consistent design

Save time and avoid hard-coding values into a theme with preset margin and padding values for multiple blocks.

Content-only editing support for container blocks

Thanks to content-only editing settings, layouts can be locked within container blocks. In a content-only block, its children are invisible to the List View and entirely uneditable. So you control the layout while your writers can focus on the content. Combine it with block-locking options for even more advanced control over your blocks.

Other notes of interest

• 6.1 includes a new time-to-read feature showing content authors the approximate time-to-read values for pages, posts, and custom post types.
• The site tagline is empty by default in new sites but can be modified in General Settings.
• A new modal design offers a background blur effect, making it easier to focus on the task at hand.

Enhancing WordPress 6.1 Accessibility

Accessibility is an integral part of the WordPress mission of fostering an inclusive community and supporting users of all types around the world. With this in mind, WordPress 6.1 includes nearly 60 updates specifically focused on enhancing the accessibility of the platform. Read these updates to learn more about the continual initiatives aimed at improving accessibility.

Improved Performance in WordPress 6.1

WordPress 6.1 resolves more than 25 tickets dedicated to enhancing performance with improvements for every type of site. A full breakdown can be found in the Performance Field Guide.

Learn More About WordPress 6.1

See WordPress 6.1 in action! Watch a brief overview video highlighting some of the major features debuting in WordPress 6.1.

Explore learn.wordpress.org for brief how-to videos and lots more on new features in WordPress. Or join a live interactive online workshop on a specific WordPress topic.

Developers can explore the WordPress 6.1 Field Guide, complete with detailed developer notes to help you build with and extend WordPress. Read the WordPress 6.1 Release Notes for more information on the included enhancements and issues fixed, installation information, developer notes and resources, release contributors, and the list of file changes in this release.

The WordPress 6.1 Release Squad

The group listed below tirelessly supported the release, from conception to ship date, and beyond:

Release Lead: Matt Mullenweg 
Release Coordinators: Héctor Prieto and Jonathan Desrosiers 
Core Tech Co-Leads: Mike Schroder, David Baumwald, and Jeff Paul
Editor Tech Co-Leads: Michal Czaplinski, Bernie Reiter, and Carlos Bravo
Core Triage Co-Leads: JB Audras and Ahmed Chaion
Editor Triage Co-Leads: Nick Diego and Anne McCarthy
Documentation Co-Leads: Birgit Pauli-Haack, Milana Cap, and Femy Praseeth
Marketing & Communications Co-Leads: Jonathan Pantani and Dan Soschin
Test Lead: Brian Alexander
Design Lead: Rich Tabor
Default Theme Co-Leads: Beatriz Fialho & Sarah Norris

Thank you to all the contributors who dedicated time and energy to bring the best WordPress experience to everyone.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy

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WordPress 6.1 would not have been possible without the contributions of more than 800 people in over 60 countries. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver hundreds of enhancements and fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.

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Haiku Fun for 6.1

Another release,
Mark it down as completed.
Breathe, relax, and cheers!