WordPress 7.0 - Everything New!  One of the biggest changes coming to WordPress, WordPress 7.0 is scheduled to release on April of 9, 2026. So, just a few weeks from the date of this recording. So, in this video, I'm going to show you sideby-side differences of WordPress 7.0 and the recent release of WordPress, which is 6.9.4. And I'll go through all the differences so you can see and follow along and discount what's new in WordPress 7.0. Let's begin. So, I have two websites set up so that I can show you differences side by side. This is the first website. This is WordPress 6.9.4 4 right now, which is the recent public release of WordPress. And this is the 7.0 release. You can even see it here. You're using a development version 7.0. I'm using the beta 5. And the first important difference you see is the visual difference. I'll switch back. So you can see the original WordPress colors, they look good, but the 7.0 version colors are more contrasty, little darker, and easier to read in my opinion. So if you see here, you can see the text styles and how the contrast is. And if I switch instantly, you'll see the text is more nuanced. The contrast is higher. And even the highlight color of the blue, the traditional blue is darker. I think this is a welcome change. It makes very easy to focus on. And the typography is quite clearer. If I go back, you can see the difference is quite big. So that's the first change. One small tweak I also saw between WordPress versions was if you go back here if you saw this which was uh number of notifications you had comments updates everything else that has been replaced with control K or command K if you're on a Mac to showcase that you can actually use the command pallet so if I press control K it opens in the command pallet but if you go back and use the command pallet here it'll work the same way but the notification now on screen does uh show the keyboard shortcut right there so that's the big change visually There's also one more big visual change when you're navigating between screens. So, let me show you that as well. Going back to 6.9. Let me go back to the dashboard. So, now in the dashboard, I'll go to a couple of pages right now in WordPress 6.9.4. The pages menu, the plugins menu. And you probably seen this all the time, right? How the transition happens. So, if I go to the pages section, you'll see that the page refreshes. Then we see the pages section or the plug-in section. And if I go this and do this to the plug-in section, you'll see that in WordPress 7.0, the transition is improved. It just feels like the entire page isn't reloading and this feels smoother. So, let me do it on now WordPress 7.0 so you can pay attention. I'll go to the dashboard. You saw the transition was a little more smoother, right? It's like a fade transition that you apply in video editing. Sometimes I do it on my videos as well. I'll demonstrate by going into the plug-in section and then going into the pages section as well. See how smooth the transition is. If I go to the post section, you'll see the transition feels a lot more smoother. [snorts] So, I think it's a welcome change. It makes uh overall appearance of WordPress a lot more smoother. It feels it's more responsive and it just gives it's it's less jarring than WordPress 6.9.4. And I say uh with the original WordPress version, I didn't feel it jarring, but now since I use this, that feels a little jarring that hey, how will we be living with this? So that's a welcome change in WordPress 7.2 as well. The next big change in WordPress is a web client AI API. So let me demonstrate or talk about it because it's not something I can demonstrate right now because it's still in the planning phase. And the you can think about it like this. The infrastructure for whatever I'm going to talk about is right now that's what's been placed in WordPress 7.0. When will it be publicly available and the impact of it? You'll see it later. I'll explain it this way that you have the app store and the play store on your phone, right? So the app store and play store don't make a huge impact on your life but the apps inside the play store and app app store make a huge difference. So it's similar to this. So the uh web client AI API is the infrastructure that will allow plugins and other services to use AI features. We all know that AI is making a huge impact on everyone's life. You can design websites, create content, do a lot of things in with AI. And the future or of how at least at least I'm understanding it is that you will have AI ingrained with every process. Now the challenge is for example many plugins do offer AI services. For example if you use all of an SEO it has its own AI features for content summarization FAQ generation images uh and lot of other things that it can do but it uses its own AI keys. So you have to purchase credits separately and that's the how it's built. Now this system uh can become chaotic if a lot of plugins want to add AI features. So everything is it's uh I say uh congested in the same place. So what WordPress has done is they're building the infrastructure so that you can add your own AI keys to WordPress and then plugins that build AI functionalities on top can use the same infrastructure, same AI keys. So if you let's say use chat GP or claude, you can add your own AI keys and then whenever a plug-in has an AI functionality, it'll use your own AI keys instead of having to have different billings and also problems. So that's the infrastructure. So a couple of important things to understand that yeah, this is just an infrastructure thing right now and it's in the planning phase. So this has been introduced. It's not something that will be available immediately. But I'm assuming when it will be public, more plug-in developers will start integrating AI into their workflows. And I'm assuming that in the future WordPress might introduce native features about uh content writing uh headline optimization all that things. But the plug-in infrastructure is what will make the huge difference and it's a standard way I think as a more clear way to interact with AI. Yeah. By using your own API keys. So again a welcome change the web client AI API in WordPress. Another you change coming to WordPress 7.0. The next big feature in WordPress 7.0 O is a very welcome change especially if you are writing content in WordPress and if you have multiple people writing you'll find this change welcome. You might remember the notes feature that was shipped a couple of versions ago. So on a WordPress website you could just leave a note so that other people can actually see the note make changes similar to how you can leave comments in Google Docs. Now the important thing is that uh the next big change coming to WordPress 7.0 is a complete collaborative writing experience. Now, it's not shipped in the beta version, but it's planned. So, the idea being that similar to how on Google Docs, if you share a document with multiple people, multiple people can leave comments, but multiple can also write content at the same time in the same doc. You can see a preview of what's what people are doing. So, the same functionality is supposed to be coming to WordPress very soon where multiple people will be able to collaborate on a single blog post or page or whatever you're creating. The benefit is obvious that you can leave comments, you can collaborate and have content written at it together. So that's a very big change coming to WordPress 7.0. And if you have a team of writers, if multiple write content, you write content, collaborate with writers, this is going to be a change. It's not shipped in the beta, so I can't demo it right now, but again, a huge change coming to WordPress 7.0 or maybe 7.x. The next big change in WordPress 7.0 is how the revisions work. If you are a writer and you write content, you know how revisions can be important. But till WordPress 7.0, uh the revisions feature was not great. Let me demonstrate. So this is a revision of a blog post that I have on WordPress 6.9.4. You can see that it gives you a code view. So actually making decisions about what was done, what wasn't done is not the easiest, right? So if you notice, you might see, oh, this was added, but it's an image, but you don't see the image. So it's not easy to make those decisions. So what was added, what was removed, not a great experience. But WordPress 7.0 has a much better experience. If I go to 7.0, this is how the revisions look like. I do have the slider on top. And this is the first version. So you see everything is in green. Gives you easy visual preview to see things that were added. If I scroll to the next revision, you can see that this section was added, which is actually an image. So you can actually see the image which was added. Makes the job a lot easier. And then if I go here to the last version, I can see two red segments. If I click here, it shows that there was headings here that I actually removed. So it's much easier to understand what's going on when it comes to revisions. Again, another welcome change to WordPress 7.0. The next big change in WordPress 7.0 is how the cover block works. Let me demonstrate. So this is WordPress 6.9.4. I added a cover block and it looks how it looks like, right? With our blog, you can add images, videos, and if I click here, you know, if you go to add media, you can just click it, open media library, upload, use featured image, or I could just use the buttons here. But WordPress 7.0 has a new trick up its sleeve. If I go to WordPress 7.0, this is the cover block. If I click on it, if I click add media, you see a fourth option, which is embed video URL. So, if you have public library of videos available, then you can use that and add that directly to the cover block. The rest of the functionality works the same way. You can use overlays, add text, everything else. But WordPress can now handle remote videos in the cover block and it handles the looping and everything automatically. Again, a useful feature. And I'm not sure if uh the video is actually downloaded to your site and then used or it directly plays via the remote server because that uh will make a huge difference on how resources are utilized. So if I get more information, I'll leave that in the comments. But again, useful change in WordPress 7.0. The next big change is with navigation menus in WordPress 7.0. There are few different changes and the implications even better. So let me show you directly. So this is WordPress 6.9.4 and if you add a navigation block whether you're using the block editor or just adding navigation menus to a page or post doesn't matter the differences will be the same. So I just added the navigation menu and if you add the go to the navigation block settings you see the settings. You can see the navigation menu here which is the list view and in the settings you have justifications orientation. You can change the hamburger icon and if you go to the preview section of that you can actually see that navigation actually I works if the I say the screen width is reduced. So it actually works but you had limited customization on how the actual menu look like. Let me give you a preview here. If I go here and click you can see this overlay comes on screen as the mobile menu which is great but there's no customization. WordPress 7.0 0 changes that if I go to WordPress 7.0 uh let me fix this menu first and I'll then resume the video. So I change the menu to the main menu here and you can see the menu. If I click on the block you can see the menu and inside the settings you have the similar settings right you have the visibility you have the icon selection but you also have one more extra option which is the overlay template. So you can see the overlay template is default you also have options and you can create a new overlay template. So if I click this button, you see we'll go back or we'll go to the uh see creation menu where you'll to create and change things around. So this is a different kind of menu. But the point here is that if you go here in the design section and you click this menu, now you have a completely new overlay created for your mobile menu. Of course you have the design tool. So you can change the size, you can change the actual menu inside the menu, but you have these design controls that you can actually use and without having to do lot of CSS trickery. Now you'll have a completely new overlay that you can use for your mobile menus. And great change again in WordPress 7.0. WordPress 7.0 also introduces two new blocks. The breadcrumbs block and the icons block. Let me demonstrate. This is WordPress 6.9.4. If I tap forward slash and type bread, I see bread comes coming from all in SEO, not native WordPress. And if I go and type in icons, I see social icons coming from different plugins, but not the actual icons. In WordPress 7.0, that changes. If I come here and type breadcrumbs, now you can see all NEO breadcrumbs, which you can use, of course, is a great product, but the regular breadcrumbs also can show up and they'll uh inherit the styles of your theme. So they're much easier to use. You can also customize the separator. You can change some settings and you can move things around and you can also style them. Padding, size, all the regular things that you have access to blocks customization in WordPress. Now the icons block is also useful. Let me also demonstrate that. So I'll click here and I type in icons and I can add icons. Now if you've used any kind of SVG icons, you know how icons work. But the idea is that you don't have to have any SVG icon library imported or downloaded or imported as a plug-in. Now you have some native uh I'd say SVG icons in WordPress and you can have customizations directly here. So I'll choose an icon and this will open up the actual library. So it's it's just starting out. So it's not as extensive as any icon library but it exists directly in WordPress. So if I click the mobile icon here, I can go here. I can make the size bigger if I want to and I can even add a let's say try and add a color here. So I'll try to add a overlay color and now we have a beautiful icon here SVG icon so it can scale well. So kind of works directly in WordPress 7.0. Pretty easy stuff. Another big change in WordPress 7.0 is with regards to CSS and how you can add CSS. Now you already know that you can add CSS classes on any block that you like. If I show you WordPress 6.9.4 4. Uh this is how it works. You select a block, you go to the block settings and on the bottom you have HTML anchor and additional CSS classes. So you can add any classes that you have created and those classes will be applied to the block. So this is how it works in 6.9.4. But now you have a big change for any small change you want to make. You don't have to write a class for that. In WordPress 7.0, not only do you get additional CSS classes, but you also get additional CSS. So if you just want to add tweak shadow a little bit or any other property without having to uh add a new class of CSS, you can just write that CSS code here. So this is great for small tweaks that you don't have to uh apply throughout the website and you can just make quick changes to your website. Again, a great change in WordPress 7.0. Another improvement in WordPress 7.0 is with regards to template paths and synced patterns. If you use FE, this might be useful. You already know that you can create template paths or sync patterns that can work throughout your website to keep your designs consistent and speed it up. Now there few different changes. I'm not going to demonstrate but u the idea being that it'll now be easier to actually make changes to uh those patterns and same blocks if you want to. And one of the differences will be how easy it will be to understand which patterns you're uh actually editing. Let me demonstrate with another example in WordPress uh regular WordPress. This is 7.0 but this has been around for a long time. If you're making changes to let's say this block, uh sometimes it can be distracting if everything is in its focus. So you have a distraction free mode or also spotlight mode. So if you go here and you can turn on spotlight mode. So then what happens is whatever block you're working on that is the only block that's highlighted and rest of the blocks kind of blur in the background. The same feature is coming to sync patterns and template paths. So that now it's easier for you to understand where you're making the changes and focus on the editing process. Another welcome change in WordPress 7.0. The next big change in WordPress 7.0 is a quality of life improvement on how headings not work but how you use headings. Let me demonstrate. So this is WordPress 6.9.4. If I wanted to apply a heading, I just type in heading and of course we can have a heading block here. And then the heading block, you see that default is H2. So I can type something. Don't figure out what I've written. And then I can change the heading to whatever heading I want. Now this is a three-step process instead of just being a onestep process. WordPress 7.0 window simplifies this. So if I go here, I type in heading instantly I can see I can select H4 if I want to and then do this. It's pretty easy, right? So that's how you do it. Another big change in WordPress 7.0 is how fonts will be handled. If you've used WordPress for a long time, then you know that unless you're using a block theme or yeah, only with block themes, you can have some sort of organization when it comes to fonts. But now that change is no longer true or that fact is no longer true. With WordPress 7.0, to you can now manage your fonts entirely uh even if you're using non-block based themes. So this is WordPress 6.9.4 and if you scroll the appearance you just see themes editor and starter sites uh depending on what plugins you install and of course uh only fonts can be or fonts can be managed only if inside the editing section or the full site editing section. But in WordPress 7.0 I'm not using a blockbased theme. If I go to appearance section I see all these things but I also see fonts which is a huge thing. So if I go to fonts, you'll see that now we can have multiple features with regards to fonts directly on a WordPress website. So again, this might be in beta, something might be broken, might not work as well, but you can still use it. So we have fonts library. So any font you install, you can have install fonts. If you connect to Google fonts, you can actually see all Google fonts here and install certain fonts. And you can even upload your fonts. Now, this is a huge change because I know I have had this pro problem and I had to figure out a plugin and install a plugin to install custom fonts and then all that good stuff. Uh, but now all that functionality is right now built into WordPress 7.0. Pretty [clears throat] awesome. Another huge change which I can't demonstrate is client side media processing. So, you know that whenever you upload images to your WordPress website, it's ideal if you optimize and resize them. And the solution has been that either we do all the things up front uh on your computer or use an external service or you use a plug-in on your site to process the images. Now most of the time what happens is that these services they do two things either they use your own servers resources to do whatever processing compression resolution even cropping the images or they use external services which they'll charge for which is fine but WordPress 7.0 is bringing a new kind of thing which is a client side media processing. So instead of using your servers resources or external services, it'll actually use your own web browser capability which are free to use to actually do the processing of the images automatically before the uh the actual images get uploaded to your server. So it might eliminate the need of having plugins actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting or even if you use plugins and plugins might extend this functionality directly that they will do this. So they might uh either be faster, they will use less of your server resources or if they use external services it'll cost you less money because most of the heavy lifting will be done by the browser. Again a huge welcome change. And if this is enabled by default a lot of people have this problem when they upload images they don't realize it. they have two big images and which slows down their website. So if uh this can be configured pre-upload so anybody uploading any kind of image can automatically be processed before this uh image is uploaded to the site and can be processed automatically without spending any server resources which is awesome right so this feature uh the technical details are not clear to me right now but if they are I might make a short about it so make sure you're subscribed but it is a welcome change in WordPress 7.0. Apart from this, there's a few developer related updates which I'm not uh I I don't understand 100% but I'm going to read them out so that you can uh understand what's going on. So you have the client signed abilities API uh which introduces a standardized client sign registry for WordPress capabilities uh including abilities and workflow API with filter and search functionality and improved command pallet. So this is something that developers can take advantage of. You also have an always iframed post editor. So the post editor is always I if framed regardless of the API version of the block use uh which ensures a consistent experience and separates UI styles from your theme. This is for developers again PHP only block registration developers can generate blocks and patterns entirely server side using using PHP. These autoregister with the block API and include autogenerated inspector controls. And then you also have UI primitives and components. The WordPress UI package receives a big update with new standardized components including drop downs, tool tips, field sets, and visually hidden elements. And code mirror update. The code mirror library will be updated to 5.6.65.40 allowing for more flexible extensibility of code editing interfaces. And PHP support version change. Uh WordPress 7.0 now officially has dropped support. This this part as I understand officially has dropped support for insecure versions of PHP. That means 7.2 and 7.3 are no longer supported by WordPress 7.2. So I think WordPress, if you're using WordPress, you should be at least on PHP8 that has the highest performance. So make sure to update. And if you don't know how, I think I've made a couple of videos about it or you can ask your hosting provider to update your servers uh PHP to the latest version which is supported so that you can get the best security, best performance out of your WordPress installation. So those are all the new features in WordPress 7.0. Which one has been your favorite? Let me know in the comments and make sure to subscribe and do all that good stuff and make sure to watch our shots as well. You can follow us on Instagram, Tik Tok and all the other channels where we post shots almost daily and uh you can just uh let let us know any feedback in the comments as well. You're watching Ivra from Winners YouTube channel and I'll catch you in the next video. Take care., WordPress 7.0 - Everything New!, YouTube, 01kmv7t173mq1grjpf13w4fqq9.