WordPress 7.1 “Mary Lou” brings responsive styling, new media editor, and sticky admin bar

Automattic has released WordPress 7.1, code-named as “Mary Lou” in honor of jazz musician Mary Lou Williams, marking a major update for the widely-used content management system. This version introduces an admin bar that stays accessible across the entire administrative interface, so users can easily reach tools whether editing posts or adjusting a site's design.

Following enhancements to usability, built-in responsive styling now works alongside show and hide options for blocks. This feature lets site creators control how their site appears across different screen sizes without creating custom CSS.

Building on content management improvements, a new media editor merges freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, horizontal and vertical flipping, rotation options, and metadata editing into a streamlined workflow. For enhanced collaboration, users are no longer confined to block-level comments. Notes can be left anywhere in content, and rich text support with @mentions further improves the collaborative writing process.

These functional changes are complemented by the addition of Playlist and Tabs blocks, and a new API to register custom icon sets for the icon block. This update provides developers and site builders with more options without requiring extra plugins.