WordPress 7.1, codenamed “Mary Lou,” is now available, bringing built-in responsive styling, a redesigned media editing workflow, improved collaboration tools, new blocks, and a major overhaul of image processing to the world’s most popular CMS.
A key new feature is built-in responsive styling. Users can now adjust how each block looks on different screen sizes using Global Styles or block settings, without needing custom CSS.
The editor now lets users preview layouts at different screen sizes, so it’s easier to see how designs will look on phones, tablets, and desktops. Block themes can also set their own mobile and tablet breakpoints in theme.json, replacing the default settings.
Navigation is now more consistent across the editing experience. The WordPress admin bar stays visible in all editors, including when editing posts and site designs, so users always have access to the same tools.
Media handling has also seen big changes. WordPress 7.1 adds a dedicated media editor window that replaces the old inline cropping. The Crop option is still there, but now cropping, flipping, rotation, and metadata editing are all in one place.
Moreover, much of the image processing now happens right in the browser. Tasks like compression, resizing, and thumbnail creation use a WebAssembly version of libvips, so the server does less work. Plus, the media system now supports AVIF and HEIC images, as well as HDR gain maps.
Uploads are now more reliable as well, as progress bars help track long uploads, and automatic retries can fix interrupted connections. There’s also an optional feature to convert GIFs to videos, which can make files much smaller.
Importantly, the Media Library now uses infinite scrolling by default, but users can switch back to pagination if they prefer.
Collaboration features have improved too. Notes can now be attached to specific text, not just whole blocks. They support rich-text formatting like bold, italic, code, and links.
WordPress 7.1 also adds two new blocks. The Playlist block lets you group several audio tracks into one playlist and can show a waveform as tracks play. The Tabs block helps organize related content into tabs, so you don’t have to show everything at once.
Behind the scenes, the Post Editor now uses an iframe for all themes, just like the Site Editor. This keeps the editing area separate from the WordPress admin interface, so admin styles won’t affect your content.
For developers, WordPress 7.1 adds more features to the Abilities API from version 6.9. The API now has a filterable execution lifecycle, custom validation, and shared discovery tools to make building integrations and automation, including AI tools, easier.
For more details, visit the release announcement or watch this video for all the new features. WordPress 7.1 “Mary Lou” is available now on the official website and through the standard update process for current users.
If you’re eager to dive into the new features, check out our “How to Install WordPress with Docker” guide. It’ll help you set up your WordPress instance in no time so that you can get started quickly. Happy blogging!
