WordPress 6.7 “Rollins,” named after jazz legend Sonny Rollins, was released yesterday. Known for his seven-decade career and over 60 albums, Rollins remains one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time.
Automattic-sponsored design contributor Rich Tabor created the official video for WordPress 6.7, offering a quick overview of key updates.
The Twenty Twenty-Five default theme is among the highlights, offering a flexible, design-driven look with over 60 patterns, full-theme style variations, customizable color palettes, and typography presets. Tabor says users can “mix and match together, however best fits your vibe.” Unveiled in August by Automattic-sponsored designer Beatriz Fialho, Twenty Twenty-Five aims to embody “ultimate flexibility and adaptability” for creative storytelling.
A new Zoomed Out mode makes site editing more intuitive by providing a bird’s-eye view, allowing users to rearrange and manage patterns instead of individual blocks.
WordPress 6.7 also includes a big update to the Styles interface for easier font-size presets, customizable fonts, and fluid typography for responsive designs.
The release brings significant advancements to the Block Bindings API, introducing a new UI that lets users link blocks to custom fields, streamlining dynamic content management without having to dig into code.
Other big updates in WordPress 6.7 include data view enhancements, HEIC image support, an updated Query Loop block, a Template Registration API, and improved design tools. The release also adds a split view for meta boxes, performance upgrades like faster pattern loading, optimized PHP 8+ support, and a more efficient HTML API.
Accessibility improvements were also a priority, with over 65 updates focused on enhancing user interface components, editor keyboard navigation, accessible login screens, and clearer labeling throughout the software.
This release saw contributions from more than 780 people worldwide, with over 230 first-time contributors delivering 340+ updates and fixes. First-time release squad member Juan Aldasoro, who co-led the development of Twenty Twenty-Five, thanked everyone who contributed to the release on X.
With nearly 40 locales fully translated, WordPress 6.7 is one of the most translated releases at launch. For developers, the WordPress 6.7 Field Guide details major features, breaking changes, and additional resources.
As Bud Kraus notes in his overview of WordPress 6.7 for InstaWP, this release focuses on improving what’s already in WordPress and continues opening the door for the admin redesign.
For an in-depth overview of what’s in this release, Kinsta’s Carlo Daniele has published his usual comprehensive take on what’s new in WordPress 6.7. For a bite-size breakdown, Jamie Marsland, WordPress.org’s Head of YouTube, looks at WordPress 6.7 in 250 seconds.
Last week, Tabor and Nick Diego, a fellow Automattic-sponsored contributor, joined Marsland for a livestreamed discussion of the highlights in WordPress 6.7 and a Q&A.
WordPress VIP has also published a WordPress 6.7 guide for enterprise, including updates to the Block Bindings API, enhanced preview capabilities and data views, and Heartbeat API improvements.
WordPress.org Experiences Outage
The release didn’t quite go off without a hitch. Around 1 am UTC on November 13, users in Making WordPress Slack reported seeing 502 “Bad Gateway” errors, which briefly appeared before pages reloaded successfully. Automattic-sponsored contributor Samuel “Otto” Wood acknowledged “minor load issues” in Making WordPress Slack.
Adam Wood, another Automattic-sponsored contributor, pointed to a similar issue following the WordPress 6.5 release in April. At the time, lead developer Dion Hulse attributed the 502 error to “a bazillion sites” with auto-updates enabled for major release creating a flood of API and download requests when their cron jobs were scheduled to run at 1 am UTC the day after the release.
Posting on the WordPress.org Status Blog, Automattic’s Chief Systems Wrangler Barry Abrahamson said WordPress.org had experienced intermittent elevated latency and increased error rates due to one of the site’s hosting providers experiencing network saturation.
“While we are still working with our provider to resolve the underlying issues within their network, the changes implemented during this incident should make future WordPress updates faster and more robust,” Abrahamson said.
Feature image credit: WordPress.org.
Update, November 16: Article updated to include WordPress.org Status Blog post.
