WordPress 6.7 Beta 1

WordPress 6.7 Beta 1 is ready for download and testing!

This beta version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, set up a test environment or a local site to explore the new features.

How to Test WordPress 6.7 Beta 1

You can test Beta 1 in any of the following ways: 

WordPress Beta Tester Plugin	Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.
Direct Download	Download the Beta 1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command Line (WP-CLI)	Use this WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.7-beta1
WordPress Playground	Use a 6.7 Beta 1 WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser. No setup required–-just click and go!

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 6.7 is November 12, 2024. Your help testing Beta and RC versions over the next six weeks is vital to ensuring the final release is everything it should be: stable, powerful, and intuitive.

How important is your testing?

Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether or not you have experience.

If you encounter an issue, please share it in the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums. If you are comfortable submitting a reproducible bug report, you can do so via WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general and how to get started? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

WordPress 6.7 will include many new features that were previously only available in the Gutenberg plugin. Learn more about Gutenberg updates since WordPress 6.7 in the What’s New in Gutenberg posts for versions 18.5, 18.6, 18.7, 18.8, 18.9, 19.0, 19.1, 19.2, and 19.3.

What’s New in WordPress 6.7 Beta 1

WordPress 6.7 Beta 1 contains over 500 enhancements and over 500 bug fixes for the editor, including more than 200 tickets for WordPress 6.7 Core. Here’s a glimpse of what’s coming:

Meet the Twenty Twenty-Five theme

Launching with WordPress 6.7, the new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Five, embodies ultimate flexibility and adaptability, showcasing how WordPress empowers you to tell your story with a rich selection of patterns and styles. Inspired by glimpses of natural beauty and ancestry heritage, it evokes ideas of impermanence, the passage of time, and continuous evolution–mirroring life’s journey. Experience effortless site creation with Twenty Twenty-Five and follow its progress or report issues on this GitHub repo.

Zoom Out to Compose with Patterns

The Zoom Out view simplifies your editing experience by allowing you to create and edit at the pattern level rather than focusing on individual blocks. Easily toggle this view from the toolbar to streamline your site-building process, making it faster and more intuitive to design pages using patterns.

Media improvements 

Now supporting HEIC image uploads–automatically converted to JPEG for maximum compatibility–you can add high-quality images without worrying about browser support. Plus, enjoy auto-sizing for lazy-loaded images and expanded background image options at both individual and global levels, giving you greater control over your site’s visuals and performance. 

Expanding Block Supports

Several blocks now come with expanded support options, enabling even more design possibilities. Notably, the long-requested shadow support for Group blocks has been added, a big win for designers and theme developers!

Preview Options API 

The latest WordPress release enhances the Preview Options in the block editor, empowering developers to customize content previews. A new API allows plugins and themes to add custom items to the preview dropdown menu, enabling users to see content in different formats or environments. This flexibility enriches the editing experience while maintaining the existing fami* Preview dropdown structure.

Refined Data Views

The Data Views introduced in 6.5 continue to be improved. This release is focused on refining the experience with a few new features aimed at making these views more flexible for customization and more functional to use. 

Manage Block Bindings Directly

The Block Bindings API now features an interface that lets you connect attributes with dynamic data to be bound to block attributes, solving many use cases for custom blocks and powering other features, like overrides in synced patterns. Updates to this API in 6.7 polish the underlying APIs, improving the overall user experience, and add a user interface (UI) that allows you to connect attributes with their binding sources. This new UI makes it possible to create bindings directly in a block instead of needing to use the Code Editor.

Simplified and Smarter Query Loop Block

The Query Loop block is improved, as it now automatically inherits the query from the template by default, eliminating the need for manual configuration. This means your posts display immediately in both the editor and on the front end, streamlining the process so users can focus on content without extra configuration needed.

Edit and Control Font Size Presets

An enhanced Styles interface allows for greater flexibility when creating, editing, removing, and applying font size presets. You can now easily modify the presets provided by a theme or create your own custom options. A key feature is the ability to toggle fluid typography, which enables responsive font scaling with additional options for finer control over responsiveness.

View Meta Boxes in the iframed Post Editor

A new split view option has been introduced that allows you to access both the editor canvas and metaboxes while editing. This change will provide a consistent WYSIWYG experience between the editor and front end views.

Template Registration API

With this release, developers can now more easily register custom block templates without complex filters. Streamline your development process and create custom templates with ease. 

The features included in this first beta may change before the final release of WordPress 6.7, based on what testers like you find.

Get an overview of the 6.7 release cycle and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.7-related posts in the next few weeks for further details.

Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta & Release Candidate

The WordPress community sponsors a monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities. This reward doubles during the period between Beta 1 on October 1, 2024 and the final Release Candidate (RC) scheduled for November 5, 2024. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper.

Just for you: a Beta 1 haiku

Lines of code arise, 
Testing shapes the future path,  
WordPress grows once more.

Props to @annezazu, @cbringmann, @courane01, @desrosj, @marybaum, and @preithor for reviewing and collaborating on this post!