WordPress 5.3, scheduled for release on November 12, 2019, introduces significant features including enhancements to the block editor, a new default theme, and improvements in admin UI. Key updates in the block editor feature new blocks such as the group block and improved image handling, alongside optimizations for load times and performance. Additionally, this version facilitates better admin email notifications, incorporates design improvements, and supports PHP 7.4 for developers.

1. 5.3
A glimpse into the next major WordPress Release
24 Oct 2019

2. Edmund Chan
edmund@nerb.com.sg //
www.edmundcwm.com
Developer

3. WordPress 5.3
• Scheduled release date - 12 November 2019
• Current Release - Release Candidate 2
• What to expect
– Block editor new features and improvements
– New default theme
– Admin UI enhancements
– and more…

4. Block Editor
• Twelve plugin version releases to be merged (v5.4
- 6.5)
• 1.5s reduction in load time for a sizeable post(36k
words, 1k blocks)

5. Block Editor
• New
– Group Block
• Improvements
– Column Block
– Image Block
– Table Block
– Button Block
and more…

6. Block Editor
• Group Block
– Allows nesting of inner blocks
– Aligning of child blocks
– Provides wide and full-width settings

7. Block Editor
• Column Block
– New width settings
– Layout selector

8. Block Editor
• Image Block
– New ‘Circle Mask’ style

9. Block Editor
• Table Block
– Support ‘Headers’ and ‘Footers’
– Text alignment support
– Colors

10. Block Editor
• Button Block
– Support ‘Border Radius’
– Support ‘Target’

11. TwentyTwenty

12. TwentyTwenty
• Focuses on clarity and readability
– New open source typeface - Inter

13. TwentyTwenty

14. TwentyTwenty
• Full support for the Block editor

15. TwentyTwenty
• Custom Colors

16. TwentyTwenty
• Cover template

17. TwentyTwenty
• Menus

18. Admin Enhancements
• Big image uploads
– Automatically detect large images and generate a “web-
optimized maximum size” (default size is 2560px)
– Original image will still be stored but not used
– Uploads will be resumed when they fail
– Always best to crop and optimise before upload!
• Image rotation
– Correctly rotated according to EXIF orientation metadata

19. Admin Enhancements
• Admin email notification
– Prompt to verify admin email after logging in if account hasn’t
been active in awhile

20. Admin Enhancements
• Show/hide password toggle
– Available on WP login screens for both mobile and desktop

21. Admin Enhancements
• Design and UI
– Improved color contrasts for form fields and buttons
Source - wpbeginner

22. Developers
• Code Modernisation
– Full support for PHP 7.4 (release end Nov)
– Use of the spread operator (…$args)
– Developers to update their code if applicable
• Date/Time component fixes
– More reliable and easy to work with date and time components
– Includes new functions like current_datetime(),
get_post_datetime()
– Presentation: How WordPress breaks time

23. Developers
• WP REST API
– Performance increase(30%-40%) in large API responses
– _fields param now supports nested fields e.g.,
wp-json/wp/v2/posts?_fields=title.rendered

24. Developers
• Search Engine Indexing
– Method used to discourage indexing will change
– Remove previously added ‘Disallow: /‘ in robots.txt
– Updated robots meta tag <meta name=‘robots’
content=‘noindex,nofollow’ />
– Will exclude indexing and further crawling

25. What’s next
• Test it out
– Install and activate the ‘WordPress Beta Tester’ plugin
– Tools > Beta Testing > Check Bleeding edge nightlies option
– Dashboard > Updates > Update Now
• Read more
– WordPress 5.3 Field Guide

26. Edmund Chan
edmund@nerb.com.sg //
www.edmundcwm.com
Developer