WordPress 6.3 Lionel: a Major update with over 500 new features and enhancements for expressive site editing experience

WordPress 6.3 "Lionel," the second major release of 2023, named after the famous jazz artist Lionel Hampton, is now available. The update is packed with enhancements, notably in the full site editing experience, with over 500 new features and improvements, and 400 bug fixes. The Site Editor, for the first time, consolidates your content, templates, and patterns, facilitating the addition of pages, style variation exploration, synced pattern creation, and precise navigation menu control. This reduces the need for users to switch between site areas.

The new release also introduces the ability to preview Block themes before committing to a theme, and the option to arrange and save blocks to the 'My Patterns' section for site-wide use. The standout feature of WordPress 6.3 is the Command Palette, similar to MacOS's Spotlight Search, which allows quick navigation within the Site Editor. More design controls have been added for improved customization, and performance has been boosted with over 170 updates. Accessibility has also been improved with more than 50 enhancements across the platform. Lastly, WordPress 6.3 discontinues support for PHP 5, with PHP 7.0 being the minimum supported version.