Exploring WordPress 6.4 (RC-1)

Upcoming and pending features

Damon Cook

Developer Advocate at WP Engine

October 18, 2023

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WordPress 6.4

The third major release of 2023.
Tentatively due November 7, 2023.
Led by an underrepresented gender release squad. 👏
Primarily focused on extending existing features for block and site editors.
Includes the following Gutenberg releases: 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, 16.7.
Make – WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle

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Pushed to the Next Release (6.5)

Font Library (54169)
New blocks: Time to Read (53776), Table of Contents (42229), Scrolling Marquee (41730)
Public Interactivity API – merged, but not available for public use (50906)
Revisions to Templates and Template Parts (57704)
Post Formats for block themes (53049)

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Block Hooks

Briefly referred to as auto-inserting blocks.

Allows developers to attach blocks and insert them in specified locations:

before – inject before the target block.
after – inject after the target block.
firstChild – inject before the first inner block of the target container block.
lastChild – inject after the last inner block of the target container block.

See: Developer Resources > Block API Reference > Registration > Block Hooks

🔴 🟡 🟢

block.json

{
    blockHooks: {
        'core/verse': 'before'
        'core/spacer': 'after',
        'core/column': 'firstChild',
        'core/group': 'lastChild',
    }
}

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Help with Testing 🐛

Join us in testing!

Weekly scheduled Test team meetings: make.wordpress.org/meetings/#test
Download and test on a local development and never in production!
- Local Blueprint – WordPress Beta Tester ❤️ wpeng.in/6-4_beta-1/
- WordPress Beta Tester plugin: wp.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester
- WP-CLI – wp core update --version=6.4-RC1
Make.WP.org – Test team “Help Test WordPress 6.4”

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Thanks

The WordPress community is us. Not “we”, or “I,” or “them.”

This presentation was created with the following:

Bounds theme – wp.org/themes/bounds/
Icon Block – wp.org/plugins/icon-block/
Lots and lots of help from Anne McCarthy’s (@annezazu) Source of Truth

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