WordPress 5.2 Beta 1 is now available, WordPress.Org blog announced.
The block editor has received significant performance improvements since WordPress 5.1, shaving 35% off the load time for massive posts, and cutting the keypress time (how responsive it feels when you’re typing) in half.
Accessibility continues to improve, too. The block editor now supports your browser’s reduced motion settings. The post URL slug has better labeling and help text. The focus styling for keyboard navigating through landmarks is clearer and more consistent.
Also, there are new blocks:
An RSS block
An Amazon Kindle embed block
A Search block
A Calendar block
A Tag Cloud block
To help you keep track of these blocks, and only show the ones you need, there’s a new block management tool to switch blocks on and off.
Block Management Modal
We’re constantly working on existing blocks, too. There are hundreds of bug fixes and improvements in the block editor, you can read more about them in the Gutenberg plugin releases: 4.9, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3.
The WordPress Mobile Apps
The block editor isn’t just for websites, either. The WordPress mobile apps now include an experimental version of a built-in block editor. This is still under development, but you can try it out now!
Site Health Check
Site Health Check is an ongoing project aimed at improving the stability and performance of the entire WordPress ecosystem.
The first phase of this project (originally scoped for WordPress 5.1) is now included in WordPress 5.2. F
With this release, WordPress will increase its minimum supported PHP version to 5.6. To help you check if you’re prepared for this change, WordPress 5.2 will show you a warning and help you upgrade your version of PHP, if necessary.
This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.
You can read more details about everything on the official WordPress blog.