WordPress 7.0 marks the start of a new era, laying the foundation for AI across the WordPress experience. Greeting you with a modern, more intuitive dashboard, 7.0 introduces enhanced customization and development tools that inspire creativity and tap into endless potential.

Here are some of the highlights:

AI-Integrated WordPress

With AI integrated throughout WordPress the potential is endless. A new AI Client in Core lets WordPress communicate with generative AI models, while connections are easily managed from a single hub in the dashboard. The AI Client combined with the Abilities API makes a fiery duo that introduces new functionality, workflow automation, and creation tools to your website. Install the new AI plugin to expand your options even more: generate and edit images, create titles or excerpts, or even suggest alt text.

Modernized Dashboard

7.0 introduces a fully revitalized dashboard with a chic, modern new color scheme, and clean finishes throughout.

Polished with smooth transitions that seamlessly shift as you move between screens, you’ll feel like you’re effortlessly gliding through the dashboard.

Just one click of the new Command Palette shortcut, a ⌘K or Ctrl+K icon in the upper admin bar, lets you access your favorite tools from anywhere in the dashboard.

Design, Create, Customize

Let WordPress be your muse with new blocks, block supports, and design tools that add visual agility, granular control, and keep every element of your website on brand, with fresh new touches.

Showcase your ideas in a lightbox slideshow with the new gallery block, and finesse your markup with the new Heading block. Deliver clear site navigation with the new Breadcrumbs block, and add more detail to your designs with the new Icons block.

Design your navigation overlay

Build the menu overlay you want visitors to see. Go beyond a simple list of links: add columns, increase the font size, and align everything to your liking. Start from a pre-built template, or design your own from scratch.

A simpler way to build with patterns

More updates

Drop a pattern onto your page and it behaves like one block, so you don’t have to hunt through nested blocks for the element you want to change. Swap the text and images, adjust styles from the inspector, and keep moving. For any advanced edits, a single click to “edit pattern” gives you access to all available tools.

Performance

WordPress 7.0 improves the accuracy of image loading prioritization, preventing hidden images in navigation overlays or interactive blocks from degrading the loading of critical resources. On-demand block stylesheet loading in classic themes is more reliable, and the ability is added for scripts to depend on script modules to reduce render-blocking.

Accessibility

WordPress continues to polish accessibility across WordPress Core and Gutenberg, advancing the goals to meet accessibility standards. WordPress 7.0 includes fixes across the platform, improving media management, usability for voice control, and improvements to color contrast with the new admin color scheme. The editor ships with new blocks and improvements to editor navigation and interaction.

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I Heart Blank is teaming up with Social Media Escape Club for a 90 minute seminar to help you get a web host and build a web/splash page in 90 minutes.  As you know, Seth Werkheiser and I have been working together for years and have the same mentality with many things concerning the web (as well as music).

It’s all going down on March 25, 2026! Seth W (with a little help from me) will be showing you the ins-and-outs of getting more business through your website.  Learn more about the event and sign up today!

Here’s a description from Social Media Escape Club:

You’ve got a Linktree. Or a Squarespace page that never quite looks right. Or nothing at all because it felt too complicated to start. I get it!

​In this 90-minute hands-on session (and cohort?!), we’ll be building a real web page together.

​You’ll write some HTML (by hand!), add some style, and publish it to the internet before we say goodbye.

​That means you’ll leave with a link-in-bio page that’s actually yours. Actual files on your computer, a live URL you can share, and MOST IMPORTANT the foundational skills and understanding of making websites.

​Use your newfound knowledge again next week to build a webpage for your resume, a newsletter sign-up page, a sales page for your next offering – so many possibilities!

​What we’ll do together:

​Start from scratch with a blank text file that becomes a real web page

​Add your name, your links, your style

​Publish it live using a free hosting tool, right there on the call

​Talk about what this skill unlocks: landing pages, sales pages, anything

​This isn’t a lecture or a demo, it’s group building. Everyone publishes, and you leave with something that didn’t exist 90 minutes ago.

​Even if you end up back on Squarespace or Carrd, you’ll understand what you’re working with, and that’s powerful.

​This is for you if you’ve been meaning to “figure out websites” forever, you’re tired of paying Squarespace a monthly fee for something that never felt quite right, and you’re just curious what’s actually happening under the hood.

​No coding experience required. Just bring a laptop and a few links you’d want to share with the world (this won’t work well from a smart phone or tablet).

The post Social Media Escape Club (+ I Heart Blank): Build & Host A Webpage In 90 Minutes appeared first on I Heart Blank, LLC.

Copyrights

In the upcoming week, I will update all I Heart Blank, LLC hosted websites with the “© 2026”.  To double check, just go to your website and scroll to the bottom.  If you’re not seeing it right away, make sure you clear your cache.  If you’re still not seeing it, shoot me an email and I’ll double check!

Price Increases

Just as a heads up, small business business rates have gone up…thankfully, not a lot.  ; ).  This has been the first price increase in over 3 years.  Premier Client rates will remain the same.  These price increases will become effective as of January 2026.

Conclusion

I think that’s it for now.  I wish all of us a successful 2026, both personally and professionally.  I look forward to working with each and every one of you.

The post Welcome To 2026 – Updates at I Heart Blank, LLC appeared first on I Heart Blank, LLC.

WordPress 6.9 brings major upgrades to how teams collaborate and create. The new Notes feature introduces block-level commenting when writing posts and pages that streamlines reviews, while the expanded Command Palette makes it faster for power users to navigate and operate across the entire dashboard. The new Abilities API provides a standardized, machine-readable permissions system that opens the door for next generation AI-powered and automated workflows. This release also delivers notable performance improvements for faster page loads and adds several practical new blocks alongside a more visual drag and drop to help creators build richer, more dynamic content.

Here’s some more highlights:

Introducing Notes: Seamless, Block-Level Collaboration

With notes attached directly to blocks in the post editor, your team can stay aligned, track changes, and turn feedback into action all in one place. Whether you’re working on copy or refining design in your posts or pages, collaboration happens seamlessly on the canvas itself.

Command Palette Throughout the Dashboard

Access the Command Palette from any part of the dashboard, whether you’re writing your latest post, deep in design in the Site Editor, or browsing your plugins. Everything you need, just a few keystrokes away.

Fit text to container

There’s a new typography option for text-based blocks that’s been added to the Paragraph and Heading blocks. This new option automatically adjusts font size to fill its container perfectly, making it ideal for banners, callouts, and standout moments in your design.

The Abilities API

WordPress 6.9 lays the groundwork for the future of automation with the unified Abilities API. By creating a standardized registry for site functionality, developers can now register, validate, and execute actions consistently across any context—from PHP and REST endpoints to AI agents—paving the way for smarter, more connected WordPress experiences.

Accessibility Improvements

More than 30 accessibility fixes sharpen the core WordPress experience. These updates improve screen reader announcements, hide unnecessary CSS-generated content from assistive tech, fix cursor placement issues, and make sure typing focus stays put even when users click an autocomplete suggestion.

Performance enhancements

WordPress 6.9 delivers significant frontend performance enhancements, optimizing the site loading experience for visitors. 6.9 boasts an improved LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) through on-demand block styles for classic themes, minifying block theme styles, and increasing the limit for inline styles – removing blockages to page rendering and clearing the rendering path by deprioritizing non-critical scripts. This release comes with many more performance boosts, including optimized database queries, refined caching, improved spawning of WP Cron, and a new template enhancement output buffer that opens the door for more future optimizations.

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