What’s New in WordPress Version 5.6 – Non Block Editor

Video Transcript

Continuing where we left off at in the previous class on the additions and changes within the WordPress version 5.6 upgrade, this class is going to have a look at the new default theme called 2021.

Now I briefly mentioned the new patterns in an earlier class. So that’s going to be a great place for us to begin this class. Now, some of the new patterns are theme specific, let me just show you what I’m talking about these patterns. And what I’m about to show you can be found in both pages and posts. This happens to be a page that I have opened in my editor window. But we’ve already selected the pattern section. Again, this is the block area here. But whenever you click on patterns, the very first item at the top is a drop down box. And within that drop down box, the very first item is the name of your active theme. This is the 2021 theme.

This example has the 2020 theme active and we hit the drop down. The other categories here are pretty much the same, at least ways right now, what’s inside of those may not be right now, though most of them are like, for example, the buttons available in the 2020 active theme have inherited the basic colors of that 2020 theme. And we come on back to the 2021 theme and go into bugs. Just as an example. You see that pretty much the same, except for the colors. they’ve adapted the colors of the active theme, in this case, the 2021 theme. But the one thing I want to point out here, though, are the themes, specific patterns for 2021.

You’ve got a lot of them in here. So definitely check through these, unlike any pattern, once you’ve brought that pattern onto the editor window, you can customize it however you want. And back to the old 2020 theme. And go into that theme specific patterns, you see, you’re kind of limited. But still, no matter what the pattern is, it’s a great starting point. But the patterns are just one of the changes or additions to the new 2021 theme. Because there’s a lot of attention paid to the accessibility guidelines. That way everybody can benefit from your content, no matter how they’re accessing it. Let me head on back to our about page and scroll down about halfway down the page here to show you more about what I’m talking about right here.

So kudos to the folks at WordPress for focusing a lot of attention here. And you’re gonna see how this plays out here in just a second whenever I head over to the customizer to further demonstrate some of the cool things about this 2021 theme. But while I’m here, I also wanted to scroll down just a bit more. So I can talk about the pre selected color palettes. They’re all in pastel. So if you’re not a fan of the pastel colors, don’t worry, you can always customize it even further. It just so happens that these are the standard sets. But one of the cool things about this again, as I’m going to show you here in a second, the background color. Even if you choose your own custom color, the text will automatically adjust color to make sure the contrast between the background color and the text color can still be read by the site visitor no matter how they’re reading it.

And again, it’s all done automatically. You don’t get that little error popping up saying, hey, the background color you chose makes the text look funky. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it. Now, WordPress automatically adjust the text for you. Let me show you. Let’s head on over here to the customizer. And you can see we’ve got the 2021 themes selected. And under colors and dark mode. Oh, and by the way, there’s also a dark mode. Click on background color. Here’s those pastel colors presets for us. And you see as I adjust the background color, the text kind of changes a little bit. Even if I go off the presets.

The text automatically adjusts color. Let’s go back to one of these presets. And now let’s select the dark mode option. And you might notice down here in the lower right corner, you get this button that pops up. This is not just in the admin area. This is also on the front end as well. Let me save this draft here and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. Go ahead and go to our homepage. As a site visitor open this up in a new private window. And you see as a site visitor I have the option to turn off your dark mode, and it automatically switches to your dark modes alternate color. But if it’s one of those funky colors, maybe I prefer the dark mode, I now can turn it back on as your site visitor. Let’s go ahead and turn off the dark mode. Go back to the original color. Save that draft.

And that’s going to bring us to the end of this class on the new 2021 default theme found within version 5.6 of the WordPress upgrade. Thanks for checking it out and you have a great day.