This release centers on improving how administrators and editors configure, style, and present content across the web part portfolio. The most visible changes focus on giving users more control over layout and visual presentation while reducing complexity in configuration experiences. New capabilities such as adjustable Title web part widths, enhanced category styling with independent text color control, and improved support for multicolor theme palettes make it easier to create experiences that align with organizational branding. At the same time, social engagement components have been refined to behave more consistently across supported layouts, and configuration panels now surface more relevant options by filtering out system-generated and non-usable fields.

For administrators and editors, this means fewer workarounds and more predictable behavior. Common configuration tasks such as selecting categorization fields, mapping data sources, or applying brand colors now require less effort and produce more consistent results. The release also removes several limitations that previously affected page design and content presentation, helping teams spend less time troubleshooting configuration details and more time focusing on the information and experiences they want to deliver.

Title width can now be adjusted with a slider

The Title web part now includes a width slider, giving you the same layout control already available in the Divider web part. Whether you need a full-width title or something more contained, you can now dial it in directly — no workarounds, no custom CSS. It's a small addition that makes the Title web part feel at home alongside the rest of your layout settings.

HEX color input now supports transparency values

Entering an 8-digit HEX value with an alpha channel - the standard format used by most design tools - was being silently ignored. The transparency was stripped on apply, leaving the color fully opaque and inconsistent with what was intended. The color picker has been rebuilt from the ground up to handle this correctly: HEX values with transparency are now interpreted and applied as entered, so what you define in your design tool is what you get in the web part.

Multicolor theme from Brand Center now appear correctly in the color picker

All web parts now fully support multicolor themes created in the Brand Center, ensuring a modern and consistent visual experience. The color picker has been upgraded to correctly load theme primary and secondary colors.

Depending on your configuration, the color picker behaves as follows:

This fix ensures full palette availability across both custom and native themes, eliminating the need for manual hex code entry and maintaining absolute visual consistency across your pages.

Social engagement layout consistency and UI improvements

Social Engagement features are now consistently available across all supported Web Part layouts and display scenarios, dynamically adapting to item sizes and responsive breakpoints.

Simplified Ratings Layout

The main ratings UI has been streamlined to display only two components alongside each other: a single-star indicator that dynamically fills based on the rating score, followed by the average rating value and total number of ratings (e.g., ⭐ 3.5 - 300).

Interactive Rating Callout

Users can still rate items or view/edit their personal score through the interactive 5-star callout pop-up.

Redesigned Views Display
In some of the other web parts with social engagement, “views” have been repositioned to ensure visibility remains in smaller layouts, sections or screens. As of this release, Carousel continues to display views inline with the other Social Engagement components but a similar repositioning of “views” is planned for some Carousel layouts in an upcoming release.

Category color customization shows only relevant fields

The dropdown for category color customization now displays only fields that are relevant and meaningful for the selected data source. The filtering criteria exclude fields that are not suitable for categorization, such as descriptive or non-classification fields (e.g., Description, Title, Last Modified Date), as well as internal system fields that are not intended for user selection (e.g., ID, URL, Path, ImageAltText).

Fields are also visually grouped following the same logic used in the Search, Filter & Sort component, organizing available options into Layout Fields, Other Fields, and Data Source-specific Fields. This provides a more consistent experience, making it easier to identify suitable categorization fields while avoiding options that would not produce meaningful results.

Custom Text Color per Category, with Automatic Contrast Fallback

Category color customization now extends to text. Alongside the background color, you can define a specific text color for each category using the same color picker — giving you direct control over readability, accessibility, and alignment with your branding. If you prefer not to choose manually, automatic contrast selection picks black or white based on the background, ensuring text stays legible by default. Existing categories are migrated automatically to this automatic behavior, so nothing breaks and visibility is preserved across all your current configurations.

Social engagement layout consistency and UI improvements

Social Engagement features are now consistently available across all supported Web Part layouts and display scenarios, dynamically adapting to item sizes and responsive breakpoints.

Redesigned Views Display:

To ensure view counts remain visible without obstructing content or being affected by layout constraints, the Views component has been updated to adapt according to each Document’s structure.

The new floating Views experience now appears as a floating element in the top-right corner above the document preview/file icon area, ensuring visibility without interfering with the item selection checkbox. This only occurs in the Tiles layout, since it's the only layout that supports the social engagement functionality.

Simplified Ratings Layout:
The main ratings UI has been streamlined to display only two components alongside each other: a single-star indicator that dynamically fills based on the rating score, followed by the average rating value and total number of ratings (e.g., ⭐ 3.5 - 300).

Interactive Rating Callout:
Users can still rate items or view/edit their personal score through the interactive 5-star callout pop-up.

This update ensures a seamless and responsive user experience across all supported devices, keeping essential engagement metrics visible without compromising content readability.

Social engagement layout consistency and UI improvements

Social Engagement features are now consistently available across all supported Web Part layouts and display scenarios, dynamically adapting to item sizes and responsive breakpoints.

Redesigned Views Display:
To ensure view counts remain visible without obstructing content or being affected by layout constraints, the Views component has been updated to adapt according to each Lists’s structure.

Lists: The new floating Views experience is applied only to the Strip and Compact Strip layouts. Views appear in the top-right corner for Strip and the top-left corner for Compact Strip, only when an image or preview section is available. Otherwise, Views remain displayed inline with the other Social Engagement actions.

Simplified Ratings Layout:
The main ratings UI has been streamlined to display only two components alongside each other: a single-star indicator that dynamically fills based on the rating score, followed by the average rating value and total number of ratings (e.g., ⭐ 3.5 - 300).

Interactive Rating Callout:
Users can still rate items or view/edit their personal score through the interactive 5-star callout pop-up.

This update ensures a seamless and responsive user experience across all supported devices, keeping essential engagement metrics visible without compromising content readability.

Social engagement layout consistency and UI improvements

Social Engagement features are now consistently available across all supported Web Part layouts and display scenarios, dynamically adapting to item sizes and responsive breakpoints.

Simplified Ratings Layout:
The main ratings UI has been streamlined to display only two components alongside each other: a single-star indicator that dynamically fills based on the rating score, followed by the average rating value and total number of ratings (e.g., ⭐ 3.5 - 300).

Interactive Rating Callout:
Users can still rate items or view/edit their personal score through the interactive 5-star callout pop-up.

This update ensures a seamless and responsive user experience across all supported devices, keeping essential engagement metrics visible without compromising content readability.

Category color customization shows only relevant fields

The dropdown for category color customization now displays only fields that are relevant and meaningful for the selected data source. The filtering criteria exclude fields that are not suitable for categorization, such as descriptive or non-classification fields (e.g., Description, Title, Last Modified Date), as well as internal system fields that are not intended for user selection (e.g., ID, URL, Path, ImageAltText).

Fields are also visually grouped following the same logic used in the Search, Filter & Sort component, organizing available options into Layout Fields, Other Fields, and Data Source-specific Fields. This provides a more consistent experience, making it easier to identify suitable categorization fields while avoiding options that would not produce meaningful results.

Custom Text Color per Category, with Automatic Contrast Fallback

Category color customization now extends to text. Alongside the background color, you can define a specific text color for each category using the same color picker — giving you direct control over readability, accessibility, and alignment with your branding. If you prefer not to choose manually, automatic contrast selection picks black or white based on the background, ensuring text stays legible by default. Existing categories are migrated automatically to this automatic behavior, so nothing breaks and visibility is preserved across all your current configurations.

Social engagement layout consistency and UI improvements

Social Engagement features are now consistently available across all supported Web Part layouts and display scenarios, dynamically adapting to item sizes and responsive breakpoints.

Redesigned Views Display:
To ensure view counts remain visible without obstructing content or being affected by layout constraints, the Views component has been updated to adapt according to each News’s structure.

In the Horizontal Card layout, views appear in the top-left corner above the image/thumbnail preview when available. In the other layouts, the Views remain inline with the other Social Engagement actions.

Simplified Ratings Layout:
The main ratings UI has been streamlined to display only two components alongside each other: a single-star indicator that dynamically fills based on the rating score, followed by the average rating value and total number of ratings (e.g., ⭐ 3.5 - 300).

Interactive Rating Callout:
Users can still rate items or view/edit their personal score through the interactive 5-star callout pop-up.

This update ensures a seamless and responsive user experience across all supported devices, keeping essential engagement metrics visible without compromising content readability.

Category color customization shows only relevant fields

The dropdown for category color customization now displays only fields that are relevant and meaningful for the selected data source. The filtering criteria exclude fields that are not suitable for categorization, such as descriptive or non-classification fields (e.g., Description, Title, Last Modified Date), as well as internal system fields that are not intended for user selection (e.g., ID, URL, Path, ImageAltText).

Fields are also visually grouped following the same logic used in the Search, Filter & Sort component, organizing available options into Layout Fields, Other Fields, and Data Source-specific Fields. This provides a more consistent experience, making it easier to identify suitable categorization fields while avoiding options that would not produce meaningful results.

Custom Text Color per Category, with Automatic Contrast Fallback

Category color customization now extends to text. Alongside the background color, you can define a specific text color for each category using the same color picker — giving you direct control over readability, accessibility, and alignment with your branding. If you prefer not to choose manually, automatic contrast selection picks black or white based on the background, ensuring text stays legible by default. Existing categories are migrated automatically to this automatic behavior, so nothing breaks and visibility is preserved across all your current configurations.

Field mapping dropdowns no longer include system and internal fields

When configuring field mappings against a native SharePoint list, the field selection dropdowns were surfacing a long tail of internal system columns alongside the fields you'd actually want to use - including virus scan and ransomware metadata properties such as VirusStatus and VirusVendorID. Beyond making the list unnecessarily long, seeing security-related field names in a configuration panel is the kind of thing that makes a business user pause and wonder if something is wrong. Duplicate and irrelevant fields have been removed across all affected web parts, leaving only the fields that are meaningful and usable for configuration.

Field mapping dropdowns no longer include system and internal fields

When configuring field mappings against a native SharePoint list, the field selection dropdowns were surfacing a long tail of internal system columns alongside the fields you'd actually want to use - including virus scan and ransomware metadata properties such as VirusStatus and VirusVendorID. Beyond making the list unnecessarily long, seeing security-related field names in a configuration panel is the kind of thing that makes a business user pause and wonder if something is wrong. Duplicate and irrelevant fields have been removed across all affected web parts, leaving only the fields that are meaningful and usable for configuration.

Field mapping dropdowns no longer include system and internal fields

When configuring field mappings against a native SharePoint list, the field selection dropdowns were surfacing a long tail of internal system columns alongside the fields you'd actually want to use - including virus scan and ransomware metadata properties such as VirusStatus and VirusVendorID. Beyond making the list unnecessarily long, seeing security-related field names in a configuration panel is the kind of thing that makes a business user pause and wonder if something is wrong. Duplicate and irrelevant fields have been removed across all affected web parts, leaving only the fields that are meaningful and usable for configuration.

Field mapping dropdowns no longer include system and internal fields

When configuring field mappings against a native SharePoint list, the field selection dropdowns were surfacing a long tail of internal system columns alongside the fields you'd actually want to use - including virus scan and ransomware metadata properties such as VirusStatus and VirusVendorID. Beyond making the list unnecessarily long, seeing security-related field names in a configuration panel is the kind of thing that makes a business user pause and wonder if something is wrong. Duplicate and irrelevant fields have been removed across all affected web parts, leaving only the fields that are meaningful and usable for configuration.

Color picker replaced with a cleaner, correctly formatted control

In the My Work web part, the color picker for header background color was rendering with broken layout - RGB and Alpha labels were stacking vertically and misaligning from their input fields, making it genuinely difficult to read or use the control with any confidence. The broken control has been replaced with a modern color picker that renders correctly and feels consistent with the rest of the product.

Field mapping dropdowns no longer include system and internal fields

When configuring field mappings against a native SharePoint list, the field selection dropdowns were surfacing a long tail of internal system columns alongside the fields you'd actually want to use - including virus scan and ransomware metadata properties such as VirusStatus and VirusVendorID. Beyond making the list unnecessarily long, seeing security-related field names in a configuration panel is the kind of thing that makes a business user pause and wonder if something is wrong. Duplicate and irrelevant fields have been removed across all affected web parts, leaving only the fields that are meaningful and usable for configuration.

News cards without images now show a placeholder instead of collapsing

When a news item had no image assigned, the card layout was collapsing - text shifted up to fill the empty image area, breaking alignment across the grid and leaving cards at uneven heights whenever image and no-image items appeared in the same row. News items without an image now display a placeholder, keeping all cards visually consistent regardless of whether an image is defined.

Apply, Back, and Clear buttons now stay visible while scrolling through Highlighted Items

When selecting items to highlight in the News web part, the Apply, Back, and Clear buttons were positioned at the very bottom of a scrollable list - meaning the longer your content library, the less likely you were to notice they were there. It was easy to make selections, close the panel, and lose everything without realizing a scroll and a click were still required. These buttons are now fixed to the bottom of the panel and remain visible at all times, regardless of how many items are in the list.

Field mapping dropdowns no longer include system and internal fields

When configuring field mappings against a native SharePoint list, the field selection dropdowns were surfacing a long tail of internal system columns alongside the fields you'd actually want to use - including virus scan and ransomware metadata properties such as VirusStatus and VirusVendorID. Beyond making the list unnecessarily long, seeing security-related field names in a configuration panel is the kind of thing that makes a business user pause and wonder if something is wrong. Duplicate and irrelevant fields have been removed across all affected web parts, leaving only the fields that are meaningful and usable for configuration.

Field mapping dropdowns no longer include system and internal fields

When configuring field mappings against a native SharePoint list, the field selection dropdowns were surfacing a long tail of internal system columns alongside the fields you'd actually want to use - including virus scan and ransomware metadata properties such as VirusStatus and VirusVendorID. Beyond making the list unnecessarily long, seeing security-related field names in a configuration panel is the kind of thing that makes a business user pause and wonder if something is wrong. Duplicate and irrelevant fields have been removed across all affected web parts, leaving only the fields that are meaningful and usable for configuration.

File picker now loads folders correctly when selecting a background image

When adding a background image to a Tile, opening a folder inside the file picker would leave the panel stuck on a blank loading state - eventually timing out with an error, with no way to browse or select files. The file picker now navigates folders correctly, making it possible to select images from document library subfolders without hitting a dead end.

Overall, this release delivers more flexible visual customization, cleaner configuration experiences, and greater consistency across web parts. By improving branding controls, simplifying field selection, refining social engagement displays, and addressing usability issues in key authoring experiences, the platform becomes easier to configure and more predictable to manage. These changes continue our focus on reducing unnecessary complexity while giving organizations the flexibility and control needed to build well-governed, engaging Microsoft 365 experiences.