What’s New in WordPress 7.0

See the new features and improvements in the WP 7.0 release.

Dashboard Refresh

The first thing you’ll notice after you update is that your admin dashboard looks different.

The fonts have been updated and are easier to read.

The color palette has been refreshed and the contrast between background and fonts is more pronounced.

There’s also an updated color picking and more choices in the Customizer styling.

Smoother Transitions

You’ll also notice a better transition between admin pages as you click around the backside of your site.

I noticed it most in the way the left admin sidebar drops down.

New Command Control Placement

In your top admin bar, you’ll notice a Ctrl+K or similar symbol.

This is the new placement for the Command Control.

Clicking it brings up a search box where you can look for commands and settings.

Responsive Editing

From the Editor, you can now decide if some blocks should be hidden on certain devices. This may help with mobile layout choices.

And there is a new breakpoint control to customize layout for different screen sizes.

Honestly, I don’t know that I would goof with these things too much as there are SO many different screen sizes now among mobile devices. And don’t forget that “mobile” only includes cell phones, not tablets.

Block Editor Features

WP 7.0 comes with several Gutenberg Block improvements including new:

• Heading
• Icons
• Breadcrumbs blocks
• Embedded background videos for the Cover block
• Lightbox support for Gallery blocks
• Dynamic URL support for Navigation Link blocks, if you use FSE (Full Site Editing)

The image block has new features too, like a way to control size and aspect ratio. But I hope you never use them. You need to resize and optimize your images prior to upload.

New Typography Features

WordPress 7.0 now supports

• text indentation
• text columns
• width and height controls
• dimension presets
• aspect ratios for wide and full images

Again, these new features get tricky when trying to do layout for different screen sizes.

So, what you see on the desktop may look awful on a cell phone or tablet. Be sure to check.

Native AI Integration

This is the centerpiece of the WP 7.0 release.

Instead of each AI-related plugin having to create its own secure connection between WordPress and the AI platform, WP 7.0 now has a native API connector.

You’ll find the new Connectors tab under Settings.

The default list includes easy ways to connect popular platforms like Anthropic (Claude), Google, and OpenAI (ChatGPT). 

None of them are installed by default, which I really appreciate!!!!

You’ll also see a new invitation at the top to Install the AI Plugin.

It can use your AI connectors to generate images, alt text, titles, excerpts and more. 

I suggest not installing it.