What’s New for Developers? (December 2024)

Welcome to the last edition of What’s New for Developers for 2024! This post provides a summary of developer-related changes in the last month, including updates to the Gutenberg project, WordPress Core, and other areas.

Before diving into changes, WordPress 6.7 was released on November 12, so be sure to update your sites if you haven’t already!

Table of Contents

Highlights

Style book updates

The style book in the Site Editor has received significant updates, integrating global styles controls and the style book preview directly into the Styles panel. By default, the preview displays the Site view, but users can easily switch to the Style book for a comprehensive block overview. Additionally, a new landing page has been added to the style book tabs, showcasing common theme blocks for a more streamlined and intuitive editing experience.

Filter the block editor rendering mode

As of WordPress 6.7, there was no way to programmatically set the default rendering mode of the Editor. With Gutenberg 19.8, it is now possible to control the rendering mode either via one of the new filters or during post type registration with the new default_rendering_mode property.

WordPress Playground

The Playground app now offers the Pull Request (PR) testers for WordPress Core and Gutenberg in the interface. It’s a more streamlined way to test contributor work before it’s merged into the next release, and should make contributing to the project by testing, providing feedback and filing bug reports much easier.

Plugins and tools

Stabilizing experimental supports keys

Plugin authors and theme builders might appreciate the stabilization of the __experimentalBorder support and a few other common experimental block support flags.

DataViews and DataForm updates

The DataViews and DataForm components continue to be iterated on to include a new API, better extensibility support for retrieving information, and some documentation updates.

getValueFromId now supports nested objects for default values.
Developers working with DataViews can now make use of a new API to programmatically register and unregister fields for the various display methods.
Documentation for the DataViews and DataForm components has been updated to add some missing properties.
A new section about the Fields API has been added to the documentation.
An individual field can now declare a layout different from the one defined by the DataForm.

Updates to core blocks

Several core blocks have been updated to enhance functionality and add support for existing features.

The Social Link block now has support for contentOnly editing.
The Page List and Post Content blocks now have border and spacing support.
The Details Block now has anchor support.
Border controls are hidden by default in the Heading block.
The Query Loop block has been updated to receive templateSlug and postType, providing the block with additional context.

Notable bugs fixes

While many bugs have been addressed in the last month, there are a few that bear mentioning for extenders.

wp-scripts start is now more resilient against developer errors.
The PluginPostStatusInfo slot was unintentionally removed and has now been restored.

Themes

Set a featured image directly from an Image block

Gutenberg 19.7 introduces a convenient workflow improvement: you can now set an image as the post’s featured image directly from an Image block. In the Image block’s Options dropdown, you’ll find a Set featured image option. Selecting it updates the post’s featured image with the image from the block. This feature is available in both the Post Editor and Site Editor.

A new category for starter patterns

An update in Gutenberg 19.7 makes starter patterns more accessible by adding a dedicated Starter Content category in the pattern inserter. Previously, these patterns were only available through a modal when creating a new page, disappearing once the modal was closed. The long-term goal is to replace the modal entirely, opening the inserter directly to the Starter Content category for a more seamless and intuitive workflow.

Resources

WordPress News

The WordPress News blog features posts covering the latest WordPress releases, and Make WordPress Core has started the planning for WordPress 6.8 and the remainder of 2025.

Developer Hours and WordPress YouTube

It’s been a busy few weeks for Developer Hours and live streams. Check out the recordings below:

Recordings of all past Developer Hours sessions are available on WordPress.tv, and there is a wide range of content on the official WordPres.org YouTube channel.

Hallway Hangouts

Two Hallway Hangouts, which are community discussions about WordPress features, occurred over the past month:

Developer Blog

Be sure to check out the latest tutorials on the Developer Blog if you haven’t done so yet. Stay tuned for more content showcasing the exciting new features released in WordPress 6.7.

You can subscribe to the Developer Blog and get every new post delivered straight to your inbox.

Props to @ndiego and @bph for co-wrangling the resources in this post, writing portions of it, and reviewing the final draft.