We start a new month with fresh news about WordPress . The new version WordPress 6.1 is now available and, as members of the community who love to stay up to date with all the news, we have prepared a summary with everything important you need to know before pressing the « Update to the WordPress version 6.1

Featured improvements in WordPress 6.1 version

wp_query cache

• Enhancement : With this version, database queries will be  cached using .wp_query
• Significance – If the same database query is executed more than once, the result will be loaded into the cache. As a consequence an abysmal performance improvement is realized . By caching all the queries, it will greatly improve the load of repetitive processes, both in WordPress administration and in the loading of pages and resources. We are facing one of the most important and significant changes in terms of performance in WordPress in recent years.

REST API

• Improvement – ​​Improvements made to the REST API will also help reduce the volume of queries to the database.
• Importance : This improvement also helps the performance of the site , avoiding unnecessary queries from the API and caching the most common queries.

Storage of editor settings and preferences

• Improvement: Editor settings and preferences are not lost . Previously the editor preferences were saved as in the browser. With this it happened that if the user cleared the browsing data or the browser cache, the settings were lost.
• Significance – With the new WordPress version 6.1, the preferences for each user are stored in the database, staying between sessions, browsing, and even devices.

block editor

As we are used to with each update, a series of new features are presented in the Gutenberg plugin.

• Global Styles : One of the highlights of WordPress 6.1 version is the one related to style changes . Style changes can now be made uniformly , by unifying these settings in the global styles section of the site editor. Thus, when changes are made in colors, fonts, structure or general aspects of the blocks, they will be applied to the entire web and will be unified in the same place in the editor .
• Fluid Typography – Introduced in the WordPress 6.1 block editor, this feature allows text to adapt fluidly to any screen size and device. To adapt to any block or classic theme, the theme.json. In addition, no changes will be seen in the font settings customization interface, but its operation, adapting to the size of any screen. You can make changes to the font size using em, rem, px, rem, vw o vh.
• More template types : In this new WordPress 6.1 version, the possibility of creating templates has been expanded. Now you can create templates for all types of content and taxonomies included in WordPress, as well as for custom content types (CPT) registered on your website. Also, by clicking on the new template patterns, you will be able to choose from various template types.
• Start Patterns on All Post Types – Among the improvements in the WordPress 6.1 release is the ability for plugin and theme authors to include full page patterns when creating a new post or page for any registered post type.
• Improved and Unified Layout Controls – A very significant improvement to the layout controls for the structure of the various elements of the site.
• Default navigation menus : in the new version 6.1, there is a default or alternative navigation menu functionality, which will work as follows:
  • In the absence of a block menu or classic menu, the navigation block menu will display a list of available pages using the page list block.
  • In the case of multiple block menus created, the navigation menu block will display the most recent menu block.
• Inner Block Locking – Now allows locking of inner blocks, those contained within the selected block, to prevent accidental modifications.

• Block Theme Browser – A block -specific search is added to this new WordPress 6.1 release. From now on, installing a new theme will display a special section dedicated to block themes.

Cache check in site health tool

Provides recommendations in the case of not being active caches that can improve the performance of the web.

New default theme “Twenty Twenty-Three”

As on previous occasions, this new version of WordPress offers us a new default theme that has the following new features (some of which we have already seen in detail above in the article):

• 10 style variations
• Accessibility Ready
• fluid fonts
• Templates and custom template parts
• Custom block patterns.
• Clear design.
• Fast charging, although less than Twenty Twenty-Two

Permalink Recommendations

Changed the recommendation text for using the %postname% permalink structure in settings.

No site description by default

With the new version of WordPress 6.1 you will be able to add a short description of the site that shows the specific content of the site. Until now, in the general settings, a generic description of the site (“Just another WordPress site”) was displayed. Now, by default, it will be empty to add a custom description of the website.

Upgrading to the new version of WordPress 6.1 will primarily provide a performance boost to your website, compared to the previous version. Although in the end the automatic conversion to WebP has been left in the pipeline, the improvements and new features incorporated substantially improve the WordPress experience.

What do you think of these notable improvements in the WordPress 6.1 version? Tell us in the comments!