WordPress 7.0 Release Candidate Introduces Visual Revisions and Block Visibility Controls
WordPress 7.0 RC1 is now available for testing with visual revision tracking that uses color-coded overlays to show block-level changes, viewport-based block visibility controls, and navigation block overlays for mobile menus. The final release is targeted for April 9.
WordPress 7.0 Release Candidate 1 is now available for testing, bringing the most significant update to the block editor since the Gutenberg project launched. The release introduces visual revision tracking, viewport-based block visibility, and navigation block overlays — features that address long-standing requests from both content creators and theme developers.
Visual Revisions
The headline feature is a visual diff system for block editor revisions. Instead of the text-based revision comparison that WordPress has used for over a decade, version 7.0 shows changes as color-coded overlays directly in the editor canvas. Added blocks appear with green outlines, removed blocks with red outlines, and blocks with modified settings show yellow outlines. Within text blocks, added content is green with underline decoration while removed content appears in red with strikethrough.
The visual revision system makes it significantly easier to review changes in layout-heavy posts where the relationship between blocks matters as much as the text content. For editorial teams that rely on revision history for approval workflows, this is a substantial usability improvement.
Block Visibility Controls
Block visibility, building on the hide/show feature introduced in WordPress 6.9, now supports viewport-based conditions. Content creators can configure blocks to appear only on mobile, only on desktop, or any combination of viewport sizes. This eliminates a common pattern of duplicating blocks and applying CSS display rules manually — a technique that bloated page weight and complicated maintenance.
Navigation Block Overlays
The navigation block overlay feature, previously available as an experimental option, reaches stable status in 7.0. It provides a standardized way to create mobile menu overlays that slide in from the side or top of the screen, replacing the variety of custom JavaScript solutions that theme developers have historically implemented independently.
Developer Changes
WordPress 7.0 drops support for PHP 7.2 and 7.3, requiring PHP 7.4 or later. WP-CLI 3.0 is targeting an end-of-March release with new wp block commands for managing block types from the command line. A new Connector feature provides a standardized interface for integrating AI providers, with official packages for OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
The final WordPress 7.0 release is scheduled for April 9, 2026.
Related Articles
Redis 8.4 Brings Hybrid Search, Atomic Multi-Key Operations, and Auto-Repair AOF
Redis 8.4 is now generally available, delivering hybrid search that combines full-text and vector queries using Reciprocal Rank Fusion, new atomic string commands like MSETEX and DELEX, and automatic repair for corrupted append-only files. Lookahead prefetching and JSON memory optimizations round out a performance-focused release.
Deno 2.7 Stabilizes Temporal API and Ships Native Windows ARM Builds
Deno 2.7 has stabilized the TC39 Temporal API, bringing immutable, timezone-aware date and time objects to replace the legacy JavaScript Date API. The release also delivers official Windows ARM builds for Surface and Snapdragon devices, npm overrides support, and global install compilation for standalone executables.
Laravel 13 Ships with PHP Attributes, Passkeys, and Zero Breaking Changes
Taylor Otwell unveiled Laravel 13 at Laracon EU, delivering PHP 8 Attributes as an alternative to class properties, built-in passkey authentication in starter kits, and a new Reverb database driver for horizontal WebSocket scaling. The release requires PHP 8.3+ and promises the smoothest upgrade path in Laravel history.