WordPress 6.7 – A New Era of Content Creation and Design

Right on schedule, WordPress 6.7 dropped a few weeks ago, bringing a host of exciting features and improvements. This update will completely up your content game.

The latest WordPress update focuses on three things: enhancing your editing experience, improving design flexibility, and boosting your website’s overall performance and security.

There were over 750 contributors to this release and we’re proud to sponsor some of these contributors, as a total of 5 Rocket staff directly contributed to WordPress 6.7.

Two months ago, I started doing what I had been wanting to do: contribute to Make WordPress—and it has been an amazing experience ever since.

It all started when I joined Five for the Future – and our team has grown even more now:

This naturally opened up more chances to learn and contribute. I’m proud to be part of the newest release, WordPress Core 6.7 and the Polyglots team, as a General Translation Editor

It has been truly exciting! Thank you to everyone at Rocket.net for encouragement, and positive response. Also, thanks to Zunaid Amin for paving the way and bringing us together!

Can’t wait to contribute even more in the future!

Rocket.net WordPress Engineer: Maria Yohana

WordPress’s Latest Theme is really a Canvas

The biggest takeaway from the new update is that WordPress 6.7 is breaking from tradition. Sure, there is always an annual new theme but this one breaks the mold. The latest default theme isn’t just another neutral template.

“There’s a pretty big departure from how Twenty Twenty-Four works to how Twenty Twenty-Five works.“

Matt Meidros

Twenty Twenty-Five embraces your own artistic expression. How?  The theme design philosophy centers around the concept of transformation – fleeting moments and thoughtful visual elements.

You’re motivated to open it up and get designing now, right?

The default theme is versatile enough to accommodate any web project, but Twenty Twenty-Five really focuses on niche users. After a few minutes in the new theme, you can’t help but think “portfolios, personal websites, sophisticated blogs.” You know who much we love niche blogs!

The power of Twenty Twenty-Five is that it can be tailored to align with your unique vision and needs. And, it has accessibility and media library improvements.

“For me it’s the new Twenty Twenty-Five theme and the built in ability to upload HEIC photos.”

Syed Balkhi

More New Patterns

Twenty Twenty-Five contains a library of 70 customizable design patterns. That’s a seven and a zero! So, whether you need a simple button or an entire page layout, there are pre-built elements that serve as starting points for your design. Each pattern is a flexible foundation you can adapt and transform.

More Styles

The theme also offers amazing versatility through its in-depth style options:

• A default design plus eight distinct visual variations
• A carefully-curated selection of nine color schemes
• Eight typography collections for diverse visual expression (see our post about fonts)
• A typography library featuring nine font families, spanning both serif and sans-serif

You’ll find these customization tools in two places: use the Site Editor’s Style section for site-wide changes (available in block themes) or adjust individual elements directly within your pages and posts.

Zoom Out Mode: A Bird’s-Eye View of Your Content

One of the most anticipated features in WordPress 6.7 is the new Zoom Out Mode. And we love it!

Zoom Out allows you to edit content at a pattern level, providing a high-level view of the page layout. With Zoom Out Mode, you can:

• Add, rearrange, and edit patterns directly
• Access the Patterns tab in the block inserter by default
• View patterns instead of individual blocks in the List view
• Perform actions like drag, move up/down, and shuffle on selected patterns

This feature streamlines the editing process for complex layouts and long-form content, making it easier to maintain design consistency across sections.

Zoom Out Mode Has Some Limitations

While very cool, Zoom Out may not be suitable for precise editing tasks. The tool focuses on broader layout adjustments rather than detailed content manipulation.

This mode is best used for managing and styling sections or block arrangements. You may need to switch back to the regular view for more detailed edits.

Also, Zoom Out’s effectiveness can depend on the complexity of the page layout and your familiarity with using patterns. 

Fluid Typography: Responsive Text for All Devices

The next standout feature in this release is Fluid Typography. Sure, it came out with WordPress 6.1., but it’s still another of our favourite features.

Fluid Typography dynamically adjusts font sizes based on screen dimensions, ensuring optimal readability across all devices.

You can access Fluid Typography settings through the Site Editor, selecting typography links and font size presets:

• Access the Site Editor in your WordPress dashboard
• Navigate to the Styles section and select Typography
• Choose a font size preset (e.g., medium or large)
• Toggle on the Fluid Typography option that appears

This feature not only enhances design responsiveness but also improves accessibility for users with vision impairments by maintaining legible text sizes across different screen sizes.

“The default style variation of Twenty Twenty-Five uses the font Manrope for headlines and paragraphs. This style has white with dark grey and accents in yellow, pink and purple.The alternative fonts shipped with the theme are Beiruti, Fira Code, Fira Sans, Literata 72pt, Platypi, Roboto Slab, Vollkorn and Ysabeau Office.”

Twenty Twenty-Five Documentation

Bonus: Ask ChatGPT

Just for fun we asked ChatGPT, an AI assistant by OpenAI, if these fonts were accessible. The following is their answer. Take it with a grain of salt. Of course, we recommend that you always test your own site builds for WCAG requirements.

Color and Style Considerations

The color scheme (white with dark grey and accents in yellow, pink, and purple) is generally fine, but contrast should meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). For example:

• Ensure text meets contrast ratios: 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
• Avoid using color alone to convey meaning.

General Recommendations for Accessibility

• Use sans-serif fonts like Fira Sans, Roboto Slab, and Manrope for better readability in digital formats.
• Avoid overly decorative fonts (like Beiruti or potentially Platypi) for body text.

Test the fonts with screen readers and users with visual impairments to ensure they perform well in all environments.

Even More in WordPress 6.7: Enhanced Design Tools and Developer-Friendly APIs

Enhanced Design Tools

You want it bigger? WordPress 6.7 has you covered. Several design enhancements give you more control over your site’s appearance:

• Extended block supports for borders, backgrounds, and shadows
• Background image controls for Quote and Group blocks
• New font management tools for improved typography control

These additions provide greater flexibility in customizing the look and feel of websites without the need for custom code.

Developer-Friendly APIs

The new release also includes powerful APIs that expand WordPress’s capabilities.

Template Registration API

This API simplifies the process of registering templates and template parts for plugins. This makes it easier for developers to create custom layouts.

Preview Options API

Developers can now add custom preview options to the editor, too. This enhances flexibility in content creation and review processes.

Performance and Security Enhancements

WordPress 6.7 doesn’t just focus on new features; it also prioritizes:

• Speed optimization for faster page load times
• Responsive design improvements for better mobile experiences
• Advanced security measures to protect against vulnerabilities

“That last improvement to lazy loading should help improve core web vitals scores because the Auto Sizes feature helps the browser select the right image size from the CSS and use that to build the web page, rather than using the image size itself.”

Search Engine Journal

WordPress 6.7 is a Blogger’s Dream

Blog may be a four-letter word but blogging certainly isn’t. Don’t let it get you down either. Publishing your thoughts and demonstrating your expertise is core to any business. WordPress 6.7’s focus is on user-friendly editing tools, enhanced design capabilities, and improved performance. This is a big step in the right direction for everyone. We applaud another step forward in content creation and website design.

This update empowers you to create more sites with greater ease than ever before. Take it out for a spin today!

• Release details: WordPress 6.7 “Rollins” – WordPress News
• Full list of updates: WordPress 6.7 Source of Truth – Gutenberg Times
• The field guide: WordPress 6.7 Field Guide – Make WordPress Core

We’d Love to Show You What Real Performance Means for Your Site!

Among all of these updates, WordPress 6.7 made performance improvements. We’re glad that WordPress Core has made improvements for performance, but don’t forget that speed starts with an optimized, experienced hosting platform.