WordPress Update 6 8

Last night (Dutch time), the latest major update of WordPress was released with version 6.8, which again contains a lot of improvements in many areas. In this blog post, we will discuss what has changed and how you can safely update your WordPress website to the latest version.

What's new in WordPress 6.8?

WordPress 6.8 is an enhanced version that focuses on performance, usability and security. Above all, this update brings improvements to existing tools that simplify your daily workflow. Below you can read what's new.

Renewed Style Book

The Style Book has a new, clearer layout with clear labels. This allows you to easily change the colors, typography and other styles of your website in one central location. What's new is that the Style Book now also works with classic themes that contain editor styles or a theme.json. You can find this feature under View > Themes, which is useful if you work with CSS or the Customizer and want to track your changes visually.

Improvements in the editor

The editor in WordPress 6.8 has received several small improvements that together make for a more pleasant experience. For example, it has become easier to display options in data views, and you can now exclude sticky posts in the query loop. In addition, there are dozens of small improvements that enhance the overall user experience.

Faster page loading with speculative loading

One new feature is speculative loading. WordPress can now automatically preload pages as soon as a visitor hovers over the page or clicks on a link. This enables almost instant transitions between pages, which is particularly noticeable on fast websites and in modern browsers. The function can be customized via a plug-in or with your own code.

Improved security with bcrypt

Special attention is once again being paid to security. Passwords are now encrypted by default with bcrypt, a stronger and harder-to-crack method than before. This change is completely automatic, without you having to do anything.

More accessibility

This version contains more than 100 accessibility improvements. Think of updates in all standard themes, improved navigation management, custom labels and improvements in the customizer. The block editor has also received more than 70 improvements, making it more accessible for everyone.

Performance and database optimizations

WordPress 6.8 includes several optimizations that improve the performance of your website, especially for websites with high traffic. For example, the way cache keys are generated in WP_Query has been optimized, which reduces the load on the database. There is also a particular focus on faster block loading, block type registration and query caching.

First step towards super-fast interactions

With the introduction of the Interactivity API, WordPress is taking a first step towards a future where every interaction on your website takes place within 50 milliseconds. With this API, interactive elements can be created even faster and more efficiently.

Update WordPress securely

The WordPress core is updated automatically, provided you have assigned the appropriate write permissions to your website. You can also do this manually by logging into your WordPress website and then navigating to Updates. The latest WordPress version 6.8 must then be available for updating. As also recommended by WordPress, it is advisable to create a backup of your WordPress database and the entire content of the wwwroot before updating. This will ensure that you can always fall back on it in the event of an error. This is especially possible if you have themes or plugins that are outdated. They will therefore not work with the latest WordPress version.

If you have a lot of plugins and themes installed on your website, it may be advisable to wait a few days before updating the WordPress core to give the components a chance to release patches for them before you update. This way you can check the operation of your website.

If you are still using a very outdated version of WordPress, it may also be necessary to manually update WordPress to the latest version. We have also created a knowledge base article on this so that you can make your website secure and up-to-date again.

Read how to do this here:

https://www.mijnhostingpartner.nl/client/knowledgebase/webapplicaties/cms/wordpress/wordpress-via-ftp-updaten/

Do you no longer want to spend time maintaining your of WordPress websites? Then take a look at our Managed WordPress hosting packages at our partner MijnWordPressPartner.nl! Here we have the perfect package for your project, where we take care of the maintenance for you for you!