Step into WordPress 5.7

Named after musician Esperanza Spalding, the first WordPress release of 2021 offers features such as an easier to use editor and the ability to accomplish more without writing custom code.

With this new version, WordPress brings you fresh colors. The editor helps you work in a few places you couldn’t before—at least, not without getting into code or hiring a pro. The controls you use most, like changing font sizes, are in more places—right where you need them. And layout changes that should be simple, like full-height images, are even simpler to make.

WordPress 5.7 is compatible on all of our Managed WordPress hosting plans.

Our customers will enjoy the automated upgrade on our Managed Platform or simple 1-click upgrade on our unmanaged plans.

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Now the editor is easier to use

Font-size adjustment in more places: now, font-size controls are right where you need them in the List and Code blocks. No more trekking to another screen to make that single change!

Reusable blocks: several enhancements make reusable blocks more stable and easier to use. And now they save automatically with the post when you click the Update button.

You can do more without writing custom code

Full-height alignment: have you ever wanted to make a block, like the Cover block, fill the whole window? Now you can.

Buttons block: now you can choose a vertical or a horizontal layout. And you can set the width of a button to a preset percentage.

Social Icons block: now you can change the size of the icons.

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A Simpler Default Color Palette

This new streamlined color palette collapses all the colors that used to be in the WordPress source code down to seven core colors and a range of 56 shades that meet the WCAG 2.0 AA recommended contrast ratio against white or black.

The colors are perceptually uniform from light to dark in each range, which means they start at white and get darker by the same amount with each step.

Half the range has a 4.5 or higher contrast ratio against black, and the other half maintains the same contrast against white.

Find the new palette in the default WordPress Dashboard color scheme, and use it when you’re building themes, plugins, or any other components. For all the details, check out the Color Palette dev note.

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From HTTP to HTTPS in a single click

Starting now, switching a site from HTTP to HTTPS is a one-click move. WordPress will automatically update database URLs when you make the switch. No more hunting and guessing!

New Robots API

The new Robots API lets you include the filter directives in the robots meta tag, and the API includes the max-image-preview: large directive by default. That means search engines can show bigger image previews, which can boost your traffic (unless the site is marked not-public).

Ongoing cleanup after update to jQuery 3.5.1

For years jQuery helped make things move on the screen in ways the basic tools couldn’t—but that keeps changing, and so does jQuery.

In 5.7, jQuery gets more focused and less intrusive, with fewer messages in the console.

Lazy-load your iframes

Now it’s simple to let iframes lazy-load. By default, WordPress will add a loading="lazy" attribute to iframe tags when both width and height are specified.

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Check the Field Guide for more!

Check out the latest version of the WordPress Field Guide. It highlights developer notes for each change you may want to be aware of. WordPress 5.7 Field Guide.