Gutenberg 16.8 Makes Cover Block Smarter, Adds Experimental Pages List in Site Editor

Gutenberg 16.8 was released this week with improvements to existing blocks and some experiments that lay the foundation for Phase 3 focused on collaboration.

The Cover block now automatically sets an overlay color when a user applies the initial background image. If the user doesn’t manually set an overlay color prior to uploading the image, the code extracts the overlay color by computing the average color of the image. Automattic-sponsored core contributor Vicente Canales included a video, which demonstrates how expertly the block selects the most complimentary overlay color:

video credit: Gutenberg 16.8 release post

Work on the Font Library continues, even though the feature was punted to WordPress 6.5. Gutenberg 16.8 moves font uploads to a new Upload tab, improves error messaging, and removes the use of snackbar. This feature can be seen under Global Style > Typography in the Site Editor.

image credit: Gutenberg PR #54655

There is still a wide chasm between the post and site editors, but version 16.8 introduces a new option toggling templates when editing pages. This allows users to switch back and forth from focusing on the content to seeing the page within the context of the template.

video credit: Gutenberg PR #52674

Gutenberg 16.8 adds some experiments on the roadmap for Phase 3, including an initial implementation of the pages list in the site editor. Users can test it by enabling the “New admin views” experiment under Gutenberg > Experiments. The experiment can be found in the site editor by navigating to Pages->Manage all pages. The list is paginated and there are options to sort and filter it. This is one small part of the DataViews roadmap to improve table and list views in the site editor and other interfaces.

video credit: Gutenberg PR #54966

Other improvements in this release include the following:

Add template replace flow to template inspector (54609).

Adds ‘nofollow’ setting to Button block. (54110)

Footnotes: Use core’s meta revisioning if available. (52988)

Show confirmation dialog when moving a post to the trash. (50219)

Add template replace flow to template inspector. (54609)

Check out the Gutenberg 16.8 release post for the full changelog with links to all the fixes, enhancements, tooling, performance, and accessibility improvements.