One of the changes planned for WordPress 7.2 is a rebuild of the Block Editor’s Settings sidebar – also known as the Editor Inspector – on top of DataForm, the element used in the Quick Edit modal since WordPress 7.0.
Any custom code or plugin that extends or affects the Editor Inspector will need to be reviewed for compatibility with this change.
Why is it changing?
By unifying the Editor Inspector across screens, the contributors working on WordPress 7.2 aim to provide a more cohesive editing experience across flows.
It will also mean that the same APIs used to customize the Block Editor settings panel will apply to different editing surfaces, powered by the Field API that is also aimed for 7.2.
Testing instructions
If you run plugins or custom code that alter the behavior of the Editor Inspector, here’s what you need to do:
- In a non-production or local development environment running WordPress 6.9 or above, install the Gutenberg plugin version 24.0 or above.
- In the WordPress Admin, navigate to Settings > Gutenberg and turn on the “Editor Inspector: Use DataForm” experiment.
- Visit the Block Editor and check if your customizations and plugins that affect the Editor Inspector are working as expected. The easiest way to do this is to open a post and compare the Post tab with the experiment on and off.
- Recommended testing flows:
- Test the Editor Inspector in every post type currently in use on your site. This means it’s worth testing posts, pages, and any custom post types separately.
- Test how the Editor Inspector shows up for different user roles, as settings in the Editor Inspector can change based on user permissions.
You can find more extensive testing instructions in the Make Core’s Call for Testing post.
How to provide feedback
Whether everything works as expected or you run into problems, the WordPress 7.2 release team would like to hear from you. Here are two options for sharing your testing results:
- Visit this Customer Hub post to share your feedback and discuss the results with other VIP customers and our staff. Our team will consolidate the feedback and share it with the Core Contributors working on this change.
- If you prefer, you can add your testing feedback to the GitHub issue in the Gutenberg repository, or in the Make Core’s Call for Testing post.
When sharing your feedback, please include information about your testing setup, including plugin name and version, custom code targeting the Inspector, etc.
WordPress 7.2 releases in December 2026, with the first beta expected in late October.