New in Wagtail 5.1

Here are highlights from Wagtail 5.1. For more details, view the full v5.1 release notes.

Read-only panels

Field panels can now be marked as read-only, so that they are displayed in the admin but cannot be edited.

AVIF image support

Wagtail now supports AVIF, a modern image format. We encourage all Wagtail users to consider using it to improve the performance of the sites and reduce their carbon footprint.

Accessibility improvements

Wagtail now uses its modern tooltip and dropdown components across more of the interface, which addresses long-standing accessibility issues for keyboard, screen reader, and speech recognition users across:

• Page listings actions under the “More” dropdown.
• Bulk actions under the “More” dropdown.
• Chooser buttons in forms

Dark mode improvements

Following our last release, we’ve made tweaks to our new dark theme across the CMS.

• Update link/document rich text tooltips for consistency with the inline toolbar
• Increase the contrast between the rich text / StreamField block picker and the page in dark mode
• Add support for presenting the userbar (Wagtail button) in dark mode
• Ensure taggit field type-ahead options show correctly in the dark mode theme

General UI improvements

• Auto-select the StreamField block when only one block type is declared
• Adopt optimised Wagtail logo in the admin interface
• Move comment notifications toggle to the comments side panel