The Road Ahead: WordPress 5.3 Updates and New Theme

The version 5.3 core update includes several big changes that may alter the way you use WordPress. It also debuts the new Twenty Twenty default theme. 

You can expect these updates to appear November 2019, but in this article you’ll get a preview of things to come.

Check out the official news release from WordPress.org for a detailed rundown of anticipated changes.

WordPress Core Updates

Here is a quick list of some of the changes that you can expect in WordPress 5.3:

• Updates to the Image and Media Library
• Updates to Site health scoring
• Several improvements for the Gutenberg editor
• SMS Integration
• Keyboard Navigation Improvements
• Several updates to blocks
• Block style variation change saves
• Better Timezone Support
• An update for WP-CLI to v2.3.0
• Updates to prepare for PHP 7.4
• Multi-Site improvements
• Optimized Bulk Plugin Updates
• Accessibility Improvements inside of Gutenburg
• And Periodic Admin email verification

Keeping up with change involves diligence, but InMotion Hosting is staying ahead of the game to make sure all WordPress hosting packages are up to date.

Gutenberg Editor Improvements

Gutenburg has had a pretty rough go of it getting off the ground. But feedback from the community has encouraged some big changes. Striving for the best user experience has already yielded promising results.

Among the many areas receiving due attention, accessibility is making great strides with: 

• Improved contrast on form fields
• More consistency between editor and admin interfaces
• Improved keyboard navigation mode allowing user to tab between blocks

New blocks are being added to Gutenberg to make more stunning designs and pages easier. The group block will allow you to easily separate your page into multi colored blocks. And the new motion feature will make moving and reorganizing blocks quicker with a more natural feel.

The new columns block adds support for fixed-width columns and predefined layouts. Moving and adjusting layout elements has never been easier. The headings blocks allows you to control the background as well as the text color individually. For advanced users, new style parameters make creative fine-tuning for virtually every page element as easy as a few clicks.

WordPress 5.3 Debuts The New “Twenty Twenty” Theme

The Twenty Twenty theme deploys the full expressiveness of block editing with a focus on flexibility. Shipping with every new WordPress installation, Twenty Twenty touts all the best new features of the Gutenberg editor in a clean, modern style.

The mobile responsive slide-out menu structure provides instant visual appeal and easy navigation. Enhanced customizer options let you change the color of icons, text, and hyperlinks to match your branding perfectly. Likewise, you can easily enhance your background image with a high-concept parallax effect. No coding required.

The theme’s responsive design does a great job of making your site look good on any device. The customizer gives you the ability to make different menus depending on the screen size. This allows you to have a different menu for desktop users compared to mobile users. It’s a very nice feature to have and will make development for mobile sites go much smoother.

A Bright Future Ahead

With the release of WordPress 5.3, currently slated for November 2019, we are going to see some radical improvements. No doubt the WordPress community is working hard and plotting a bright future. 

As the market demands shift more to mobile, WordPress is answering the call. This shows that WordPress is a true community-based software solution that listens to its users.