Recent updates to WordPress and Advanced Custom Fields make block editing smoother and more flexible. WordPress 6.9 adds block notes, hidden blocks, new default blocks, better typography controls, and a global Command Palette for quicker navigation. ACF 6.7 also introduces inline editing for custom blocks, letting you edit content directly in the block preview instead of using side panels.

WordPress and Advanced Custom Fields have both added new features to the block editing experience in the last few weeks that feel like they’ve been missing ever since WordPress launched the Gutenberg editor back in 2018.

On December 2nd, WordPress released version 6.9 (codenamed “Gene”), which adds the ability to attach notes to individual blocks in the editor, hide blocks so they can be temporarily removed from the front end without deleting them entirely, and introduces an assortment of new default blocks.

The new blocks are:

Accordion Block — Makes collapsible content easy without extra plugins.

Terms Query Block — Great for showing category/tag lists with built-in display controls.

Math Block — Supports LaTeX-style equations natively in posts.

Time-to-Read Block — Show how long your content will take to read.

There’s also a new option in the Paragraph and Heading blocks that automatically adjusts font size to fill its container, making it ideal for banners, hero sections, and CTAs.

The Command Palette is now accessible from anywhere in WordPress admin, using the keyboard shortcut Cmd+k on Mac or Ctrl+k on Windows. This makes it much quicker to navigate between posts and pages, adjust styles, or tweak settings without leaving your current screen. As with most major releases,the update comes with the usual welcome improvements to performance and accessibility as well.

How to hide blocks

To use the new hide block option, just select a block in the editor and click the 3 dots button in the toolbar that appears above the block, then select Hide.

Once a block is hidden, it will then disappear from the editor, so to show it again, just open the List View by selecting the 3 stacked lines button in the top left of the editor (or press Shift+ALT+O on windows / Control + Option + H on mac). Here you can see all blocks on the page, including hidden blocks, where you can then use the 3 dots button to hide or show each block.

Find out more about the new additions here.

ACF adds Inline Editing

Meanwhile, Advanced Custom Fields has launched version 6.7 and with it comes a very handy new feature for custom ACF blocks. The new release introduces Inline Editing which allows you to edit block fields by clicking directly in the block preview without needing to either use the editing panel on the right, or switch the block from preview to edit mode.

The new feature is opt-in so any existing blocks will need to be manually updated to support this, but enabling inline editing is very simple, you just need to add the following code to your block.json file:

"acf": {
    "blockVersion": 3,
    "autoInlineEditing": true
}

Inline editing of text is currently supported for text and textarea fields. Most other field types can still be edited via a contextual toolbar that appears when the field is clicked. For a full list of supported field types click here.