We are less than three weeks out from WordPress 6.1’s official release on November 1, 2022. RC 1 was released this week, marking the hard string freeze, which means 6.1 is ready to be translated.

The features landing in this release are heavy on block and site editor improvements that will bring users a greater level of design control. Many of these features have been tested in the Gutenberg plugin but will need further testing now that they are in core, including the expanded template experience, better placeholders for blocks, new modal interfaces and preferences improvements, and updated menu management. WordPress 6.1 includes 11 releases of the Gutenberg plugin (13.1 – 14.1).

If you are monitoring WordPress’ core development blog, you may have seen the deluge of dev notes coming in ahead of 6.1. A few of the highlights include the following:

• Block API changes in WordPress 6.1
• Block styles generation (Style Engine)
• Editor Components updates in WordPress 6.1
• Simplified data access with new React hooks in WordPress 6.1
• Fluid font sizes in WordPress 6.1
• Create-block scaffolding tool updates

The WordPress 6.1 Field Guide has also been published. This guide includes all the technical details of the changes coming in the release, as well as the full collection of dev notes. There are a good number of updates that fall outside of the editor with ticket references in the Field Guide, including error logging and hooks added to wp-cron.php, database updates, addition of required attribute for required inputs on multisite site registration, updates to external libraries, REST API improvements, and many more miscellaneous core updates.

Plugin and theme developers are encouraged to test their extensions against RC1 and update the “Tested up to” version in the readme file. WordPress testers who are not comfortable filing a Trac ticket for bugs should report them to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums.