Table of Contents
What will we see when the WordPress 5.3 release becomes a reality?
On the 7th of May 2019, the much anticipated WordPress 5.2 update ‘Jaco’ was released (in honor of the American jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius). The WordPress community had been waiting excitedly for the update, which included several security updates, health check features, PHP error protection, new dashboard icons, and more.
The great thing about WordPress is that it’s constantly evolving, so, typically, the WordPress community is already weighing in on what the WordPress 5.3 release has in store.
With new and improved features in the Gutenberg page editor, here are three things you will likely see when version 5.3 becomes a reality.
The Group Block
One of the most exciting updates is the Group Block, which allows you to create and customize large content sections. It supports nesting other blocks inside and aligning them with any child blocks, including alignment settings. This will allow you more freedom with your site without complicated coding. For example, you can easily create a multi-column layout with a background color or image.
Currently, the group block is only available in the Gutenberg plugin, but we are sure it will be rolled out to replace traditional page builder plugins for less complex sites.
Improvements in The Column Block
The column block is restrictive because you can’t change a column’s width. Having different-sized columns is imperative for providing more flexible layouts, so being able to change their width will be a huge step forward for WordPress.
Hopefully, with WordPress 5.3 release, you can change column widths and make the cells in a row easier to see. So, while it is still somewhat basic, there is excellent potential to build more complex page layouts.
Changing or adding images
Changing or adding images to a page is labor-intensive because you must click ‘add media’ and then scroll through your image library. However, we feel certain that the WordPress 5.3 release will include a dragging-and-drop tool to add an image to a page or replace an existing image.
This will save a considerable amount of time and encourage users to swap out images more regularly.
While we can’t state with certainty what the WordPress 5.3 release has in store, it’s fun to make predictions. The new release probably won’t be here until mid-July, so we have a little while to wait before making the most of the latest features. Undoubtedly, subtle improvements are coming to the block editor experience and specific enhancements to the blocks themselves.
Now is a good time to get your WordPress website running to the best of its ability so that you can free up your time later to experiment with the new features. Some things you can look at in the meantime include a speed test of your site to see how it’s currently performing, backing up your website as a contingency to manage any human or technical errors, and layering your security to protect yourself and your customers.
If you need WordPress assistance, you can call WP Tech Support, which provides proactive and preventable WordPress support.