What’s new in Gutenberg 21.5? (27 August)

“What’s new in Gutenberg…” posts (labeled with the #gutenberg-new tag) are posted following every Gutenberg release on a biweekly basis, showcasing new features included in each release. As a reminder, here’s an overview of different ways to keep up with Gutenberg and the Editor.

What’s New In
Gutenberg 21.5?

Gutenberg 21.5 has been released and is available for download!

This release contains many enhancements in addition to the new blocks. Below is a curated summary of the most notable changes in this release.

Introducing Accordion block

This release introduces the new experimental Accordion block. Accordion content is composed of the trigger and panel, allowing users to style them separately, while maintaining the accessibility and semantics requirements of the accordion.

Command Palette in admin dashboard

We aim to bring the Command Palette into all parts of the WordPress experience. As a first step, the Command Palette is now available in the Admin Dashboard.

More commands and extensibility are planned for the future; see the overview issue for more details.

Support border radius presets

Like spacing, color, aspect ratios etc. Border radius are something that should be applied consistently throughout a design. Defining “border radius presets” in theme.json allows picking border radius value from these presets instead of manually entering radius values.

Changelog

Features

Block Library

• Add Accordions Block. (64119)
• Query Title: Add “Post Type Label” variation. (71167)

Enhancements

• DataForm: Panel layout can open as dropdown or modal. (71212)
• Move Style above Navigation in Command Pallete. (71265)
• Update @tannin/sprintf for full precision typing support in @wordpress/i18n‘s sprintf. (71185)

DataViews

• Add enableMoving option to the table layout to allow or disallow column moving left and right. (71120)
• Add smaller preview size to dataviews grid layout. (71077)
• Allow hiding configuration. (71173)
• DataForm: Add array control. (71136)
• DataForm: Add new card layout. (71100)
• DataViews story: Rename “Non-interactive” to “Minimal UI”. (71178)
• Try adding optional infinite scroll to dataviews. (70955)

Block Library

• Add View button to navigation link blocks. (70986)
• Cover Block: Fix placeholder interaction in contentOnly mode. (70157)
• Rename Accordions block to Accordion. (71222)
• Video: Enable autoplay for video on iOS devices. (69380)

Components

• Calendar component: Adjusts the justification for the first and last days of the week. (71005)
• Form components: Support async validation. (71184)
• Primary button: Update disabled state to be less prominent. (70674)
• Update gradient-parser from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1. (71186)

Write mode

• Hide Cut/Copy commands in Write Mode (contentOnly). (71063)
• Restrict formatting controls in write mode (contentOnly). (71058)

Themes

• Support providing border radius presets. (67544)

Bug Fixes

• Block Comments: Remove period in comment UI text. (71234)
• Elements: Support unitless value in CSS custom properties. (70704)
• Fix horizontal overflow caused by long parent page names in Post Panel. (71117)

DataViews

• Fix DataViews primary actions horizontal layout consistency. (71274)
• Preview size picker falls back to the smallest available size. (71218)

Components

• DateCalendar, DateRangeCalendar: Use px instead of rem units, better theming support. (71248)
• MenuItem: Make accessible when disabled. (71251)

Block Library

• Media & Text: Retain ‘useFeaturedImage’ value during transformations. (71093)
• Post Excerpts Block: Fix “read more” theme override. (71179)

Write mode

• Fix: Hide crop and dimensions controls in site-logo block when in Write Mode. (71061)
• Fix: Hide heading level and alignment controls in site-title block when in contentOnly mode. (71057)

Block Editor

• Editor: Fix drag and drop to the top of the page. (71241)

CSS & Styling

• Fields Components: Add missing style resets for fieldset elements. (71217)

Post Editor

• DocumentBar: Only show template icon when back button is not present. (71183)

Icons

• Fix viewbox for table and formatting related icons. (71155)

Design Tools

• Fix duotone cleanEmptyObject attributes. (71151)

Paste

• Classic block: Prevent event bubbubbling on paste. (71148)

Experiments

• al: Enable Command Palette in admin dashboard. (71030)

Block Library

• Accordion Blocks: Make block icons internal. (71229)

Documentation

• DataForm: Update stories. (71268)
• FormTokenField: Improve use case stories. (71121)
• Social: Include developer blog tutorial in README. (71266)
• Storybook: Move validated form components into main grouping. (71181)
• Storybook: Remove experimental category in favor of a badge. (70540)
• block.json schema: Make the apiVersion field required and only allow 3. (71107)

Code Quality

Block Library

• Accordion: Refactor settings panel to use ToolsPanel. (71225)
• File Block: Follow HTML API best practices. (71034)

Widgets Editor

• Widget Area Block: Apply API version 3. (71110)

Icons

• Deprecate moreHorizontalMobile. (71172)

Tools

Testing

• Automated Testing: Re-enable storybook smoke test. (71126)
• Fix flaky ‘navigable-toolbar’ end-to-end test. (71158)
• Site editor e2e: Ensure dismissal notice waits for the first occurrence of an updated/published notice. (71197)
• Upgrade Playwright to v1.54.2. (70503)

Build Tooling

• Dynamically set node-version-file input. (71090)

First-time contributors

The following PRs were merged by first-time contributors:

• @elazzabi: DataForm: Add array control. (71136)

Contributors

The following contributors merged PRs in this release:

@andrewserong @BogdanUngureanu @BugReportOnWeb @ciampo @desrosj @elazzabi @getdave @gigitux @im3dabasia @jasmussen @jffng @karthikeya-io @Mamaduka @mikachan @mikejolley @mirka @mrleemon @oandregal @p-jackson @priethor @R1shabh-Gupta @ramonjd @shimotmk @Sukhendu2002 @t-hamano @tellthemachines @USERSATOSHI @yogeshbhutkar @youknowriad

Props to @mosescursor and @cbravobernal for peer review.

#block-editor, #core-editor, #gutenberg