UW Theme Release v2.7.0

Accessibility updates

• UW Theme: Update the footer contact link text to “Email us” after user feedback indicated the former “Email” label didn’t look clickable.
• UW Blocks Plugin: Added underline on hover to the Back to Top block so links show an underline on hover for clearer link affordance.
• UW Blocks Plugin: Updated UW Featured Post block to render in an <article> HTML tags on the published page, rather than a <ul> HTML tag.
• UW People Plugin: Fixed the LinkedIn link to include descriptive alt text.
• UW People Plugin: Removed redundant “Photo of” alt text from profile images to reduce screen reader noise.

New patterns added

Two new patterns were added to the theme.

New Gallery pattern

The “4‑image grid with left content” pattern displays a block of text alongside a four‑image grid arranged on the right. It’s ideal for storytelling—pairing narrative content with visuals that highlight your unit’s people, spaces, or work.

This pattern is located in the Gallery category of the pattern inserter.

New Post Listing pattern

The “Events and posts list with image” pattern combines an image, a list of upcoming events using the today.wisc.edu block, and a column of recent news posts. It’s designed to help audiences stay informed by presenting time‑sensitive content in a layout that is easy to browse and update.

This pattern is located in the Post Listing category of the pattern inserter.

Link directly to an Accordion panel or Tab item

You now have the ability to link to a specific Accordion panel or Tab items from another page, also referred to as deep linking. Learn how to create deep links along with best practices.

Fix image alignment inside accordions

Fixed a bug that would not allow users to align images inside accordion panels.

UW Events Plugin now available

This release includes the initial launch of the UW Events Plugin. It can now be downloaded with UW Theme 2.0 and enabled in the WiscWeb WordPress Service if your site is hosted there.

• This plugin was originally created by the WiscWeb WordPress Service.
• This plugin is separate from today.wisc.edu; events that use this plugin do not display on the official campus calendar.
• If your events would benefit from campus-wide visibility, use today.wisc.edu and the today.wisc.edu block to display your events instead.

Menu and Theme Settings updates

• Fixed hover underlines on sub‑menu items to align with text width rather than the container.
• Updated the order and text labels for choosing the Site Title color and Main Menu background color in Theme Settings after user feedback.

Removal of Airtable and Campus Map embeds

• Removed the Airtable embed using the WordPress Core Embed block due to accessibility barriers and to limit confusion with support.
• Removed the UW Campus Map embed option due to minimal usage and to reduce long‑term maintenance.
• We recommend users link to these tools for your site instead.

Technical updates

• NPM packages were updated for the UW Theme, UW Blocks Plugin, UW People Plugin, and the UW Embed Plugin.
• UW Theme: Updated post pagination CSS to use actual UTF‑8 characters instead of Unicode escape sequences for improved reliability during builds.
• UW Theme: Updated webpack dev config to preserve uw-icons.svg during npm start.
• UW Embed Plugin: Updated minimum PHP and WordPress versions.