And finally today on 21 July 2021, WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” was officially released, and is available for download. This is the eight major release since the launch of the WordPress block editor (AKA Gutenberg) in WordPress 5.0. This version of WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” includes WebP format support, Block-Based Widgets Editor, expands usability of PHP security tool, an ‘Update URI’ header for plugin developers, various REST API changes, developer updates, and more.
Note: Minimum PHP Version Required to Run WordPress 5.8 Is Now 5.6.20. That means If you’re using an older version, you’ll need to update PHP before upgrading to WordPress 5.8.
WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”
The Name “Tatum,” in honor of Art Tatum, the legendary Jazz pianist.
Table of Contents
Download WordPress 5.8
Before update WordPress to 5.8 we recommend to check and make sure all installed plugins are up to date.
- When you open the WordPress Dashboard, you get notified WordPress 5.8 is available.
- You only need to click “please update now” link to get WordPress 5.8 installed.
- Also, you can click on the Updates icon in your WordPress admin dashboard.
- And click on the “Update Now” button to get WP 5.8 update
- While your site is being updated, it will be in maintenance mode.
- As soon as your updates are complete, your site will return to normal.
- As long as everything goes well with the update you should then see the “Welcome to WordPress 5.8” screen. And that’s it! Quick and easy.
If you are looking to download WordPress 5.8 files visit the release archive. For step-by-step instructions on installing and updating WordPress Updating WordPress
WordPress 5.8 features
WordPress 5.8 focuses on “speed, security & search” it also includes WebP format support, Block-Based Widgets Editor, expands usability of PHP security tool, 1500+ changes to the block editor interface, 300+ bug fixes and more. Whether you are a developer helping clients or you manage your site solo, here is all you need to know new things in this version of WordPress 5.8
WordPress now support WebP images
Starting with WordPress 5.8 the most popular CMS platform includes support for WebP images and lets you upload them and use them natively within any theme.
WebP is a new(ish) image file format invented by Google. it has both lossless and lossy compression that is between 25% and 34% smaller than comparable PNGs or JPEGs.
New Template editor
Latest WordPress 5.8 include new template editor or we can say One of the first Full Site Editing tools available in the post editor that allows you to create, assign, and edit block templates to specific posts and pages.
The advantage of full-site editing is that the WordPress site owners can customize the design of their website without needing to write any code.
The new template editor is disabled by default but you can enable it by adding a line of code in the functions.php file.
add_theme_support( 'block-templates' );
Another part of Full Site Editing is the availability of Gutenberg blocks as widgets. This means you can use any Gutenberg block in the customizer as a widget.
New Blocks for Gutenberg Editor
There are lots of new blocks and patterns has been added to the block library (Gutenberg editor) One of highlighting is the Query Loop block.
This block allows you to “loop”, or display continuous lists of posts according to different query parameters and visual configurations.
End support for IE 11
And finally the latest version of WordPress will no longer support Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11). WordPress Official announced that it will not test the CMS on Internet Explorer 11 and will not fix problems discovered in the soon-to-be-defunct web browser.
There is new List View panel, enable clearly see the organization and hierarchy of blocks, making it easier to organize everything.
- More color options to choose text, background, and link colors.
- New option to adjust padding among columns.
- New gradient background option for table blocks.
The release of WordPress 5.8 was led by Matt Mullenweg, Francesca Marano, and David Baumwald and was supported by a release squad that made the new version with all its enhancements possible for the general users.
- Editor Tech – Jorge Filipe Costa
- Editor Design – Mark Uraine
- Core Tech – Sergey Biryukov
- Design – Tammie Lister
- Docs Coordinator – JB Audras
- Docs and Comms Wrangler – Mary Baum
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