This week, WordPress 6.5 certainly dominated the WordPress news cycle. Articles, Videos, Threads on X, and workshops are plenty available for every type of WordPress user.
This list of resources if for all who need to dive deeper into certain aspects or have to field questions about the new release. I didn’t aim for completeness, I might have missed past publications for sure. If I did, feel free to email a link to pauli@gutenbergtimes.com. If you are seeking information not posted here, Anne McCarthy has you covered:
📗 Anne McCarthy published the ultimate WordPress 6.5 Source of Truth for you. In this over 10,000-word opus, you’ll find the updates tagged for each group of WordPress users. They would be relevant to end users, theme or plugin authors, developers, site admins, and enterprises. For selective reading, you could use your browser’s “Find on page” feature and search for these tags. McCarthy lists 15 priority items, with an array of 26 sub-items, and then another 23 additional items, and closes with information about items that didn’t make it into the release for one reason or another.
Table of Contents
General Information
🎉 WordPress 6.5 “Regina” Official Release Post
🛬 WordPress 6.5 Landing page Check out the new WordPress 6.5 page to learn more about the numerous enhancements and features of this release—including short demos of highlighted features.
📗 Leonardo Nurugha, documentation co-lead of the release, posted: WordPress 6.5 “Regina” Is Here – Key Features and Changes
📗 Carlos Daniele took a deep dive into the most important features for the Kinsta Blog: What’s new in WordPress 6.5: Font Library, DataViews, Block Bindings, Interactivity API, and much more!
📗 Courtney Robertson published a What’s new in WordPress 6.5 walk-through and separated the updates for site builders and users from those relevant for developers.
🧵 Rich Tabor created an 18-message Twitter thread listing the main highlights of the release together with mini-videos. The list is also available on his blog
📘 Matt Medeiros has some sound advice for WordPress users around 6.5 in his video Watch BEFORE You Update to WordPress 6.5 “Regina”
📽️ Learn.WordPress contributor, Wes Theron, posted a walk -through the WordPress 6.5 version on YouTube. He covered:
- Improvements to the Cover block
- Renaming blocks and improved drag and drop functionality
- Box shadow support
- New powerful views in the Site Editor
- Robust revisions
- Using the Font Library
- General UX improvements
📽️ Jamie Marsland explains WordPress 6.5 in 250 seconds.
Design Tools
📽️ Dave Smith published a video to show off these tiny link editing changes that just made WordPress 6.5 so much better.
📙 Drop Shadow updates in WordPress 6.5 – WordPress 6.5 brings drop shadow options to the end user. This post summarizes how to use the controls for various blocks, and how to remove core presets.
Font Library
📙 How to register custom font collections for the Font Library – WordPress 6.5 will ship with the Font Library. Learn how to use a built-in API for registering custom font collections. (WordPress Developer Blog)
📽️ Anne McCarthy posted a new video: No Code, All Fonts thanks to the Font Library in WordPress 6.5. She wrote in the description:
- The Font Library operates globally, similar to the Media Library, allowing you to easily install, remove, and activate fonts across your entire site.
- Whether a font is installed by you or provided by your theme or plugin, the Font Library provides seamless selection across your editing experience.
- Google Fonts is integrated into the Font Library experience, offering various typography options and quick uploads.
- This new ability empowers you to control a foundational aspect of your site’s design without the need for coding.
- Extenders can provide their font collections and manage permissions, including turning the feature off.
Block Bindings API
📙 Introducing Block Bindings, part 1: connecting custom fields – The first tutorial in a two-part series that introduces the Block Bindings API in WordPress 6.5. Part 1 focuses on custom fields. (WordPress Developer Blog)
📙 Introducing Block Bindings, part 2: Working with custom binding sources – The second tutorial in a two-part series that introduces the Block Bindings API in WordPress 6.5. Part 2 focuses on registering and using custom binding sources.(WordPress Developer Blog)
🗞️ Brian Coords reported for the WPTavern on The Block Bindings API Brings Dynamic Data to Blocks. “As the block editor continues to evolve its content management capabilities, the lack of support for custom fields has been one of the key roadblocks for users and developers. While custom fields in WordPress are still widely used, in the block editor they’ve been relegated to a drawer at the bottom of the screen, and haven’t been as deeply integrated as many would like. With the coming Block Bindings API, things are about to change in a very good way.” he wrote.
📽️ In his latest video on YouTube, Brian Coords shows you how he uses Block Variations with the Block Bindings API and how you can offer a “no-code” experience for your users with Block Variations. Coords shared his code via GitHub
Block Hooks API
📽️ Bernie Reiter and Nick Diego took participants of the Developer Hours on the journey exploring Block Hooks in WordPress 6.5. In addition to covering the basics, they looked at practical examples that you can implement in your projects.
📙 Exploring the Block Hooks API in WordPress 6.5 – The Block Hooks API is an extensibility mechanism that allows you to dynamically insert blocks into block themes. Learn how to use the API in your projects in this comprehensive overview. (WordPress Developer Blog)
Interactivity API
🎙️ If you don’t have a lot of time, but are curious about the Interactivity API, you and listen to Mario Santos, Ryan Welcher and Josepha Haden Chomphosy on the 73rd episode of the WP Briefing discussing the Interactivity API. “a new foundational tool that helps developers create memorable interactive front-end experiences.” and the show notes lists a ton of resources.
🗞️ On the WPTavern site, James Giroux reported on Interactivity API Prepares for its Official Debut in WordPress 6.5. “The Interactivity API and how it uses WordPress could be a pivotal moment in the Project’s history. It could create a new way of working with WordPress. ” he wrote. And he might be right. It’s definitely exciting, and I am excited about all the tutorials and case studies that will be written in the upcoming months.
📙 An introduction to block-based mega menus – In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to build a Mega Menu block that integrates with the Core Navigation block using new features coming in WordPress 6.5. (WordPress Developer Blog)
📗 Jonathan Bossenger experimented with the Interactivity API and used WordPress as a game development platform. It’s a fun game, where the logos of other web development platform chase after the WordPress logo. I lasted 25 seconds. How long did you last?
2 Comments
This is a post for my whole weekend. Thanks again Birgit!
Hi Carsten! You are welcome. Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy your weekend.
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