The recent release of WordPress 6.4 marks the third major update of 2023.
This update introduces a host of new features, bug fixes, and enhancements designed to streamline your website creation and management.
In this article, we will explore the new features of WordPress 6.4, complete with screenshots for better understanding.
Please Note:As WordPress 6.4 is a significant release, if you are not using a managed WordPress hosting service, you will need to manually initiate the update. Refer to our guide for step-by-step instructions on safely updating WordPress.
Important Reminder:Make sure to create a full backup of your WordPress site before proceeding with the update.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the new features introduced in WordPress 6.4:
- New Default Theme – Twenty Twenty-Four
- Enhanced Pattern Management with Custom Categories
- Attachment Pages are Disabled by Default
- Images Displayed in Lightbox Pop-Up
- Revamped Command Palette
- Improvements to the Block Editor
- Background Images for the Group Block
- Enhanced Toolbar for Parent and Child Blocks
- Refined Outline and List View
- Link Preview Now Opens in a New Tab
- Block Hooks Are Now Available
- Under-the-Hood Enhancements
Introducing the New Default Theme – Twenty Twenty-Four
As the final release of the year, WordPress 6.4 comes with a fresh default theme named Twenty Twenty-Four.
This versatile default theme is designed to accommodate various types of websites.
With an emphasis on flexibility and customization, Twenty Twenty-Four is user-friendly and easy to modify. It offers six different style variations to choose from.
WordPress block patterns allow users to quickly design content layouts for their posts and pages.
Twenty Twenty-Four includes a wide array of patterns that you can implement on your site.
This features section patterns that enable you to add commonly used areas to your layouts, such as FAQs, calls to action, services, and more.
Enhanced Pattern Management with Custom Categories
Patterns are collections of blocks that are pre-arranged for quick use throughout your website.
WordPress 6.4 simplifies the management of all your patterns within the site editor.
You can now create your own pattern categories when adding a new pattern.
The pattern creation modal maintains a consistent appearance across your WordPress admin area.
Within the Site Editor, the Patterns tab displays your patterns organized by categories.
Attachment Pages Now Disabled by Default
In the past, WordPress automatically created a separate page for each attachment uploaded to your site.
These pages displayed only the attachment (such as an image or media file) along with its description. Search engines crawled these pages, which were often deemed unhelpful for your WordPress site’s SEO.
Many users depended on SEO plugins like All in One SEO to turn off attachment pages and redirect visitors to the original post containing the image or media.
With the release of WordPress 6.4, attachment pages will be disabled by default for all newly created websites.
If you already have an existing WordPress site, it will continue to function as it did before. However, if you wish to disable attachment pages, you can insert the following custom code snippet into your website.
update_option( 'wp_attachment_pages_enabled', 0 );
Show Images in a Lightbox Popup
A popular method for showcasing larger images is through lightbox popups.
WordPress 6.4 now offers users the option to enable lightbox popups for images within their posts and pages.
After inserting an image, you can activate the Expand on Click feature in the block settings to display it in a lightbox popup.
This user-friendly image popup feature allows visitors to enlarge images without navigating away from the current page.
This newly introduced feature is quite straightforward. For example, when creating an image gallery, you’ll need to configure settings for each individual image.
To enhance user experience with stunning image galleries, we suggest utilizing Envira Gallery or NextGen.
These are the top WordPress photo gallery plugins ideal for photographers and portfolio sites, offering elegant lightbox popups, animations, slideshows, various gallery styles, and more.
Revamped Command Palette
The command palette debuted in WordPress 6.3, enabling users to quickly input commands using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+K.
WordPress 6.4 introduces several enhancements to this tool, along with new keyboard shortcuts. Notably, there is a subtle design refresh that makes text elements slightly darker for improved contrast.
New commands and actions have been added to facilitate working with blocks, including options to duplicate, transform, delete, or insert.
You can also select multiple blocks and transform them conveniently using the command palette.
Improvements to the Block Editor
WordPress 6.4 incorporates several updates from the Gutenberg project (the name for the block content editor) within its core, each bringing new features and enhancements.
Here are some of the most significant improvements in the Block Editor.
Background Images for Group Blocks
Grouping blocks is the simplest method to create distinct layout sections in your post, page, or full site editor.
In previous versions, adding a background image to a block was not an option in the block editor. With WordPress 6.4, users can now easily set a background image for any group block.
Enhanced Toolbar for Parent and Child Blocks
When working with blocks that contain child blocks, the toolbar would often shift and change as you navigated between blocks.
This created a less than ideal user experience for blocks such as Navigation, List, and Quote.
With WordPress 6.4, the child toolbar is now automatically linked to the parent block, providing a consistent user experience as you navigate through inner blocks.
Revamped Outline and List View
The List view offers a quick overview of your page or post layout within the site or block editor.
WordPress 6.4 introduces an updated list view with new features and an improved user experience.
You can now rename Group blocks directly in the list view.
This enhancement helps you easily identify the purpose of each group block, making your layouts more organized and readable.
In previous versions, the list view displayed only the label image or gallery, requiring users to scroll manually to identify the specific image or gallery.
With the release of WordPress 6.4, users can now see a preview of the image directly in the list view.
Open in New Tab Option in Link Preview
In WordPress 6.3, the option to ‘Open in new tab’ was moved to the Advanced settings in the link preview control.
This change added a few extra clicks to the process of opening a link in a new tab.
This feature was frequently utilized by many users.
Responding to user feedback, the core team has introduced a new checkbox in the link preview modal, allowing users to easily set a link to open in a new tab without navigating to advanced options.
Introduction of Block Hooks
WordPress 6.4 introduces block hook functionality for developers.
Inspired by the hooks in WordPress core APIs, block hooks enable developers to dynamically extend blocks.
For example, plugins can incorporate their own options into a block, which will be displayed in the block settings panel, allowing users to enable or disable them as needed.
Significant Under-the-Hood Updates
WordPress 6.4 also features several updates aimed at developers. Here are some of the most important changes behind the scenes.
- New admin notice functions have been introduced for improved notifications. (Details)
- The TEMPLATEPATH and STYLESHEETPATH constants are now deprecated. (#18298)
- A new framework has been added to enable revisions for post meta in WordPress. (#20564)
- Theme developers can now set their own default minimum and maximum viewport widths for better fluid font size calculations. (#59048)
- A block hook field has been added to block types for enhanced customization. (#59346)
We hope this article has helped you discover the exciting new features of WordPress 6.4. We’re especially enthusiastic about the new block hooks for developers and the numerous quality-of-life improvements in the block editor that will simplify content creation for users.
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