WordPress Gutenberg 14.7 is Here with Quickly Identifiable Template parts, Reusable Blocks by color and more

Is this the last Gutenberg update of this year? It might be.

Keep guessing 🤔, while I quickly explain the features present in this version of Gutenberg.

WordPress Gutenberg 14.7 released on December 10, 2022. This version introduces a new experimental tabbed sidebar, colors to help identify some block types in list view, improvements to the Page list block, and a number of enhancements and bug fixes.

Quickly identify Template Parts and Reusable Blocks by color

Now, you can easily differentiate Template Parts and Reusable blocks from other blocks. With this update, these synced blocks will now be outlined in a different color in the List View, Block Toolbar, and canvas.

Improved organization of block settings with split control

This feature separates appearance and settings control in the block inspector sidebar with a tabbed interface. This allows easier management of blocks like the Group block and Navigation block which have a bunch of controls. You can enable this and other experimental features from Gutenberg > Experiments on the admin sidebar.

Add media to your content directly from the insert-er

This new media tab will allow you to add media from the library. A new button to open the Media library is also available, saving you so much time and more convenience while adding images, video, and other media to your content.

See all pages in List View for the Page List block

In the List View, the Page List block can now be expanded to see the hierarchy of pages. In the Block Inspector Sidebar, you can now choose the root page from which to build the Page List. This will allow a subset of the hierarchy’s pages to be displayed in the content.

Layout controls added to children of flex layout blocks

For children Row and Stack blocks, a new dimensions control (width for row, height for stack) will be available. There is now a choice between fit, fill, and fixed. If the user selects ‘fixed’ an input box for dimension will be shown, where a fixed size can be set.

Improved load times by caching the results of querying settings from theme.json

Adding WP_Object_Cache to gutenberg_get_global_settings to cache the results of querying settings from theme.json, resulted in a significant load time improvement.

This change reduced the total time of a request with the Twenty Twenty-Three theme from 521.59 milliseconds to 339.62 milliseconds, approximately 35% performance increase. Testing the same with the Twenty Twenty theme showed an improved load time of 329.60 milliseconds to 290.92 milliseconds, approximately a 12% performance improvement.

Enhancements and bug Fixes

The core team and the contributors never fail to surprise us with every Gutenberg update. And this time the team brought in 39 enhancements and 34 bug fixes. Thank you contributors 👏 for buffing the Gutenberg block editor with every single update. You can view the full change log here. 

Parting Notes 👋

Gutenberg 14.7 update provides users of WordPress with more flexibility and control over the content they create. And, this will continue to grow on the same path depending upon the requirements of the users.

If you want to know more about Gutenberg block editor and its history you can read – Journey of Gutenberg WordPress Editor So Far (2022)

Good Bye, Have a nice day!