WordPress 6.4 RC1 Released

WordPress 6.4 is one step closer to prime time with RC1 available today. The dev notes are rolling out with details on technical improvements in the upcoming release –block hooks for dynamic blocks, improvements to template loading, changes to attachment pages, and many more.

RC1 is ready for another round of testing. There are 40 additional closed Trac tickets since 6.4 Beta 4, dozens of GitHub commits, and commits for Twenty Twenty-Four.

Although the flagship font library feature had to be punted to 6.5 due to gaps in the Font APIs that couldn’t be resolved in time, the upcoming release is still packed with new features and improvements. A few highlights include a new lightbox functionality, redesigned command palette, block hooks, expanded design tools, and a new default theme.

The release candidate phase marks the hard string freeze where no new strings can be added so that the Polyglots team can ensure WordPress 6.4 gets translated. At this point, only regressions introduced during this development cycle and expansions to the test suite can be addressed in the 6.4 milestone.

Theme and plugin developers are encouraged to test their extensions against the release candidate. Plugin authors are also advised to update the“Tested up to” version in their readme files to 6.4.

A second RC is expected next week. WordPress 6.4 is on track to be released on November 7, 2023.