WordPress 6.1 Beta 1 is ready for testing

• The WordPress team announced the launch of WordPress 6.1 Beta 1, allowing users to test new features and find bugs.
• WordPress 6.1 Beta 1 contains more than 350 enhancements and 350 bug fixes for the editor, including more than 250 tickets for the WordPress 6.1 core.
• The final release of WordPress 6.1 is expected to be released on the 1st of November, approximately 1.5 months later.

The WordPress team announced the launch of WordPress 6.1 Beta 1 for testing purposes. Since it is a beta release, the team warned users not to install, run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test Beta 1 on a test server and site.

Enhancements and bug fixes

This release contains more than 350 enhancements and 350 bug fixes for the editor, including more than 250 tickets for the WordPress 6.1 core. Some of the highlights of WordPress version 6.1 are:

• Default theme powered by 10 unique style variations
• More design tools in more blocks
• Expanded and refined template experience and template options
• More intuitive document settings experience
• Header and footer patterns for all themes
• Improved quote and list blocks with inner block support
• More robust placeholders for various blocks
• New modal interfaces and preferences improvements
• Automatic navigation block selection with fallbacks and easier menu management
• Apply locking settings to all inner blocks in one click
• Improvements to the block theme discovery experience
• Accessibility updates, with more than 60 resolved tickets
• Performance updates, with more than 25 resolved tickets

Users who want to test the beta release can install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin or download the Beta 1 version (zip) directly. Users can also use the following WP-CLI command:

wp core update --version=6.1-beta1

The final version is expected to be released on November 1.