WordPress Gutenberg 21.9.0 Released: New Features, New Blocks & Performance Overhaul

WordPress Official Editor Gutenberg has been updated to version 21.9.0!! This release brings several exciting new features, including new block types, improved visual controls, and massive performance and compatibility optimizations. In this article, we'll walk you through the core changes in this update to help developers and webmasters get up to speed on the highlights of this important release.

I. New block: more powerful editor functions

Gutenberg 21.9.0 features a significant expansion of Blocks, with several new, highly useful blocks that give creators more flexibility in structuring their content.

1. New Math Block and Rich Text Format support.

This is an update for professional content creators, especially users of education, research and technology blogs. With Math Blocks, users can directly in the Gutenberg editorInsert math formula, without relying on third-party plug-ins.

2. Term Count and Term Name blocks

These two new blocks make it easier for webmasters to display the number or name of category items, suitable for use in content categories, article archive pages, and even e-commerce catalogs.

3. Breadcrumbs block

Breadcrumbs has finally been added to the core editor. It automatically generates navigation paths based on article hierarchy and category structure, greatly enhancing page usability and SEO-friendliness.

4. Time to Read blocks

This piece has been officially stabilized to automatically calculate the estimated reading time of an article, helping creators optimize their reading experience and giving blog pages a more professional feel.

II. Editing experience and visualization control enhancement

Gutenberg 21.9.0 has made improvements to the editing experience for several core blocks, making the editor more intuitive to operate and more logical to design.

• Gallery Block has a new Aspect Ratio control, which allows users to freely adjust the ratio of images.

• The JavaScript logic of the Categories block has been optimized to be more stable in drop-down menu mode.
• Accordion block has been stabilized to support anchor attributes and fix edit conflicts.
• Terms Query block has a new "Include specific categories" option and a simplified control panel layout for more efficient data querying.
• Add "Custom CSS Class Name" input item in Link UI panel, which is convenient for developers to extend the style.

These updates reflect the Gutenberg The team's continued polishing of the detailed experience makes content creation smoother.

III. Improvements to DataViews and Site Editor

1. Full upgrade of DataViews

In this release, DataViews component has been significantly enhanced. Officials added form validation, date field validation, asynchronous loading support, and unified DataForm font style and grid view layout.
What's more, DataViews can now persist user view modifications with the new views package, ensuring that personalized settings for back-end data presentations are preserved and reused.

2. Site Editor

Updates on the site editor side focus on the persistence of templates and page data views.

• Data views for pages and templates now support state saving and restoration
• Template activation logic has been optimized to address duplicate pop-ups and draft templates
• Fixed the bug that static templates automatically jumped when clicked, and improved the overall editing experience.

Block API and Interactivity Enhancement

Gutenberg 21.9.0 introduces several API and interaction layer improvements:

• New Block Visibility control to hide or show specific blocks directly in the command center.
• Supports Synced Pattern and Template Part block visibility synchronization.
• The Fit Text feature is now available, which automatically scales text according to the width of the container.
• New keyboard shortcut to quickly toggle block visibility

In addition, the Interactivity API adds unique ID support and optimizes the module preloading mechanism for smoother page interaction.

V. Performance and stability optimization

This release also has significant performance and compatibility improvements, especially on PHP 8.5 and newer builds.

• Fixed several PHP 8.5 compatibility warnings and deprecation hints
• Introducing the new Build V2 build system, fully migrating to esbuild, and abandoning the old webpack to improve build speed and simplify dependency management.
• Optimized SCSS listening, SVG icon compilation, and script module dependency handling to significantly reduce the size of the front-end package.
• Improve CI processes to reduce redundant tasks and increase efficiency of continuous integration

This series of updates marks the Gutenberg The development environment is evolving to a more modern and efficient front-end system.

VI. Accessibility and collaborative editing optimization

Gutenberg The team continues to focus on collaborative experiences and accessible design. In this update:

• Block Comments is more stable, with new focus management, keyboard interaction and sorting synchronization.

• Notes (note-taking system) fully graduated from the experimental stage, with support for floating comments, privacy notes and translation optimization
• In terms of accessibility, improvements have been made to navigational links that were losing focus, and ARIA property support has been added to several controls

These improvements mean that Gutenberg is becoming a full-fledged editorial platform that supports multi-person collaboration, accessible design, and content annotation.

VII. Summarizing: from editor to complete authoring system

Gutenberg 21.9.0 is not just a regular feature upgrade, but a comprehensive enhancement of the overall architecture, performance and usability. New block types extend the boundaries of creators' expression; performance optimizations and the Build V2 system make the development experience lighter and more efficient; and enhancements to DataViews and collaboration features make site management and team creation smarter and easier.

Upgrade it! If your site is running WordPress 6.7 or later, theGutenberg 21.9.0 It will bring faster loading, a smoother editing experience, and surprising new features!!!!

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