[Blog] WordPress Update 5.7 – What’s New?

[Deepansh]

WordPress 5.7 brings you new features and enhancements to your WordPress site! It was launched on 9th March 2021 to improve the overall editing experience and build more advanced blocks on WordPress. A small and experienced release squad led the development of new features and resolved defects that benefit users and developers alike.

As a user, you’ll see a refined block editor UI, lazy-loading iframes, streamlined migration from HTTP to HTTPS, standardized colors in WP-Admin to a single palette, and a new Robots API and media search engine visibility setting. There are 66 enhancements and feature requests, 127 bug fixes, and so much more! Of particular interest, there will be the ongoing cleanup after the update to jQuery 3.5.1.

Converting your WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS has been difficult until now. It can now be completed in a single click with this update. In addition, the WordPress dashboard's Site Health section now contains an HTTPS status check.

Here are some new features of WordPress included in the new update-​

1. Font-size adjustment in more places: In the List and Code blocks, you can now adjust the font size. There's no need to move to another screen to make changes.
2. Reusable blocks: Reusable blocks have been improved to make them more reliable and easier to use. After pressing "Update," they can now save automatically with the post.
3. Lazy-load your iframes: It is an optimization method in which non-vital elements of the website’s leading are deferred until they are in the user’s viewpoint. With the new update, it is quite simple to let iframes lazy-load. By default, it will add a loading="lazy" attribute to iframe tags when both width and height are specified.
4. Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS – In the new WordPress update 5.7, now you can migrate your site from HTTP to HTTPS! URLs in the database will be automatically replaced when the Site and WordPress Address are both using HTTPS. Also, Site Health will also incorporate HTTPS status checks.
5. Standard colors will be used in WP-Admin CSS to a single palette – This will make building components on the site that your users can read. The new range of colors will give you great contrast with white type and a half with black.
6. Ongoing cleanup after update in jQuery 3.5.1 – jQuery deprecations in WordPress Core and bundled themes will now show up a lot less than often, and the new notifications make more sense to the user.
7. New versions of the Gutenberg plugin – Bug fixes, improved performance, and s much more are part of this update.
8. Social Icons block: With this, you can change the size and colors of the icons. It also included support for size management within code blocks.
9. New Robots API –It will enable filter directives to be included in the ‘robots’ meta tag. The directive max-image-preview:large will now be included by default to allow large image previews to be displayed in search engines (unless the blog is not public).

Some Other Improvements​

1. Drag and drop – Blocks and block is now dragged directly into the post. Users will be able to drag any block from the inserter to place it on the post.
2. Full height alignment – Blocks will now have an option to fill the entire screen size.
3. Reusable blocks – Increased usability and stability of the feature, and reusable blocks are now saved at the same time that the post is saved.
4. Block variations – Now, the block inspector will show the icon and description of a block variation. The dropdown will enable you to change the variations.
5. Other Block Enhancements – Buttons block with the new update will now incorporate vertical alignment options, where you can change the width of a button to a preset percentage. Now, you will be able to change the icon size in the Social Icons block, and the font size in the List and Code blocks.

Written by @Deepansh