WordPress 5.4 «Adderly»

WordPress 5.4 «Adderly», a new major update of WordPress was released on March 31. This version is named after Nat Adderly, an American jazz trumpeter.
With this update, WordPress includes more features in the block editor to make posts and pages more vivid.

Block editor features

New and enhanced blocks

• The block editor has now two more blocks and the already included once are now enhanced.
• Social Icons and Buttons allow users to follow you on various social networks.
• More color options on Buttons and Cover blocks and text blocks. You can easier access the color options for Rich Text blocks and make color changes to Group and Columns blocks.
• You can include multimedia now in almost every block in the same way and don’t have to search for the options on how to do so.
• The Media+Text block is now able to link a picture to every link, for example, a brochure, you choose.

The UI is now easier than every

• Clearer block navigation with block breadcrumbs
• The Tabbing and focus with a keyboard has been improved, you can also tab over to the sidebar now.
• The performance is now up to 50% better.
• A welcome guide lets you learn how to use the block editor.
• Know at a glance whether you’re in a block’s Edit or Navigation mode.

For more features and latest upgrades to the block editor, you can install the Gutenberg plugin.

Privacy features

WordPress makes it easier to handle regulatory compliance for user data with new features and a cleaner look for the privacy tools.

• Now personal data exports include users session information and users location data from the community events widget.
• See progress as you process export and erasure requests through the privacy tools.

For developers

Add custom fields to menu items

• Two new actions let you add custom fields to menu items—without a plugin and without writing custom walkers. On the Menus admin screen, wp_nav_menu_item_custom_fields fires just before the move buttons of a nav menu item in the menu editor.
• In the Customizer,  wp_nav_menu_item_custom_fields_customize_template fires at the end of the menu-items form-fields template.

Block features for developers

• You can style blocks the way you need them. And, a refactor got rid of four redundant wrapper divs.
• If you build plugins, now you can register collections of your blocks by namespace across categories.
• Two new APIs: block variations and gradients.

All changes for developers can be found on WordPress 5.4 Field Guide.

Remember to create a backup before installing updates.