WordPress 5.4: Release overview and new features

WordPress 5.4 was released in March 2020 under the version name “Adderley” and is no longer the current WordPress version. Many changes from this release are still relevant because they have shaped the development of the block editor and editorial work in WordPress.

WordPress 5.4 brought a number of significant updates that were intended to make website design faster, easier and more secure. The most important changes and innovations of WordPress “Adderley” at a glance:

The new welcome guide

Especially for newcomers to the world of WordPress, the new welcome guide is an extremely valuable aid when taking your first steps with the largest CMS in the world. Anyone who opens the block editor for the first time will now be greeted with a “Welcome Guide” popup. The new Welcome Guide replaces the previous introduction. The guide is designed as a short slideshow that provides WordPress newbies with the most important information in a nutshell. Users who want to delve deeper into the possibilities of the block editor will find a link to the detailed block editor tutorial from WordPress at the end of the guide, where all the information about the editor can be accessed in detail.

At the time of release, the Welcome Guide was only available in English. Users who want to go through the guide again can access it again via the “More tools & options” menu.

WordPress 5.4

The new social icons block

The integration of social icons has previously been one of the weaknesses of WordPress, which is why many users resorted to special social icons plugins. This will change with version 5.4. For the first time, WordPress now has a well-integrated tool for quickly and easily adding links to social networks on posts and pages. The new Social Icons Block provides icons in three predefined styles and contains over forty icons for all major social media sites. In addition to the heavyweights Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, the icons from LinkedIn, Pinterest, Spotify, Vimeo, Skype and Etsy are also included. The order of the icons can of course be individually adjusted by the user.

The new buttons block

Buttons play a crucial role on websites as calls to action and for navigation. Accordingly, the developers of WordPress have dedicated themselves to improving the buttons integration in the current version. The previous “Button” block will be replaced in WordPress 5.4 by a new block called “Buttons”. As the new name of the block already suggests, from now on not just one, but several buttons can be integrated into a block. This innovation has great practical added value for users. Until now, when arranging several buttons next to each other, you had to take the detour of inserting separate columns. Multiple buttons can now be arranged in a single column block.

With the new function, buttons can be designed in two predefined styles, either filled with color or just with a colored frame. Of course, users are free to design their buttons completely individually with different text and background colors. If you want to bring more color into the game, you can create very individual buttons using the color gradients feature.

Update of the block design

An innovation with a very high practical benefit for WordPress users is the improvement of the block design in version 5.4. The feature that allows you to upload the featured image directly into a post using drag & drop has proven to be extremely practical. The days when users had to laboriously upload and select the image via the media library are now a thing of the past.

In addition, the “Latest Posts” block in the new WordPress version has been spiced up with a few new features. In version 5.4 the featured image can also be displayed. In addition, the content can be displayed either completely or in the form of a text excerpt.

Perhaps the most important practical improvement to block design concerns text color. In previous WordPress versions, users could only set the color uniformly for an entire text block. For fans of colorful websites or users who would like to mark individual words or sentences in color, this represented a massive limitation. In version 5.4, WordPress users can now enjoy complete color freedom. You can display individual words and sentences as well as entire paragraphs within a text block in different colors.

Expansion of the Gutenberg editor

The future of WordPress undoubtedly belongs to the Gutenberg editor. In the coming updates it will gradually replace the previous Classic Editor. In the latest version, the developers of WordPress already pursued the ambitious goal of making it possible to edit all website components with the Gutenberg Editor. Until now, the scope of the Gutenberg Editor was limited to editing content. Menus and widget areas still had to be edited using the Classic Editor. In WordPress 5.4, the annoying switching back and forth between Gutenberg and the Classic Editor should be a thing of the past.

The SiteHealth widget

The SiteHealth widget

A significant new feature when it comes to improving the performance of websites is the so-called “SiteHealth Project”. As the name suggests, this is a project to improve the “health” of a website. In the new version 5.4, WordPress users will find the new “Site Health Status Widget” in their dashboard, which provides information about the performance, security and health of their website. The widget also warns of any problems that could negatively affect the performance of a website. There are also suggestions for improving security.

Improving privacy options

Last but not least, the options relating to data protection have been fundamentally revised and improved in the new WordPress version. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), website operators are obliged to release or delete the data stored about them upon request by a user. To make this possible, the personal data export functions have been improved in version 5.4. The export data now also includes session information and location data from users who have specified their location in the community events widget. In addition, in the new version the data protection tools are easier to understand via a clearer user interface.

Conclusion

The current version of WordPress includes a number of new features that primarily make the practical work of designing websites easier. Above all, the new functions relating to block and button design will make work easier for many users in practice. The update to the Gutenberg Editor will also encourage some WordPress users to switch from the Classic Editor to the Gutenberg Editor in the future. And last, but not least, the introduction of the new Site Health widget also helps make WordPress even faster, more secure and more stable than in the past.