v1.18.0

Highlights

• Tag output is now user- and status-aware: fields from drafts and private posts only show for users who have access to those items; fields from trashed posts no longer appear for anyone. If a spot on your site goes blank after this update, check whether the tag reads from an unpublished or trashed post. (Changed)

• Content, Permalink and Image tags that read through categories or tags now show the first term only. A value stored on a later term no longer appears, so if one of these tags goes blank, check whether the post has multiple terms with varying fields populated. (Changed)

• The Migration Tool stops listing image tags it cannot convert, so a list that would never clear now clears. (Fixed)

Changed

• Unpublished content no longer feeds tag output for readers who cannot see it. Draft and private posts stop resolving for visitors, on every tag; an author previewing their own draft still sees it. Trashed content resolves for nobody, including administrators, since WordPress shows a trashed page to no one. A source chain that passes through an unreadable post stops there, even when the chain's final target is public.

  This particularly affects tags using reference/relational field source path steps. An ACF Relationship or Post Object field set to return Post IDs passes every stored ID straight through, so drafts, private posts, trashed posts and references to deleted posts had all been treated as usable sources. An ACF field set to return Post Objects already hid trashed and deleted targets, but not drafts or private posts. After this update the tag output is the same for either return format; the check applies to the post a tag has resolved, regardless of how it was stored or returned.

  However, visibility awareness applies to whatever post a tag resolves, including the post the block is rendering in a loop or template, and to each step of a multi-step source. Tags that read a term or a repeater row are unaffected, since neither has a published state of its own.

• Content, Permalink and Image tags pointed at a post's terms now read only the first term from the selected taxonomy. What it buys: a title and an image tag pointed at the same post's terms in a given taxonomy will come from the same term, rather than potentially showing the title from the first term and an image from another term (because the selected image field was empty on the first term).

  The try_ versions inherit this per attempt: an attempt reading through a taxonomy stops at the first term instead of searching the rest, so it hands off to the next attempt sooner. The overall attempt and fallback usage logic is unchanged.

  ("First term" here is the first term which WordPress returns for that post in that taxonomy, which is alphabetical by name unless a plugin changes it, not based on the order they were assigned to the post.)

• The limit control is no longer offered on the Content, Permalink and Image tags, including their try_ variants. These tags show one result, so there is nothing for the control to bound, and every limit saved in such a tag is ignored at render. A previously saved limit stays in the tag untouched. On the three tags themselves, a note now appears under the source controls when the source configuration can match more than one item, stating that only the first item is read. The try_ variants do not show that note yet.

• The limit controls now say what the number counts. A limit selects how many items are read from that source step, and an item whose field is empty keeps its place rather than being replaced by the next one; the help text now states that. Each step's limit is labelled for what that step returns: Limit Posts Read on a relationship step, Limit Terms Read on a taxonomy step, Limit Repeater Rows Read on a repeater step.

• The field configuration note no longer predicts several results on the Content, Permalink and Image tags, including their try_ variants. It still says the field holds multiple values; it stops claiming they will all render where only one can.

• Image tags saved before 1.16.0 now get their image size written into the Return As setting. Such a tag says only as:url, while the editor shows Full Size as selected. Affected tags will be listed by the Migration Tool on scanning, allowing you to bulk-rewrite them to as:url,full. Nothing renders differently: a tag with no size in it already rendered at full size.

Fixed

• A source step limit no longer counts deleted items. A stale reference left behind in a field, or a removed post still named by stored data, is skipped without counting against the limit, instead of bumping usable items.
• A limit inside a try_ attempt now applies to the step it is written on. A number written on one step no longer bounds a later step's output after another step is added behind it.
• try_datetime_ tags now accept a site source per slot, which 1.15.0 said every Try tag did. {{try_datetime_single}} and {{try_datetime_range}} were left out when the other five Try tag families got their site slots, so Site never appeared in their slot source lists. A date can now read the current post first and an options page second. The field key is set once on the tag rather than per slot, so a site slot reads that same key from the site store.
• try_email and try_phone slots set to Site now read the site value in every case. A slot whose Site source carried anything extra, such as a limit written onto the source step, was not recognized: the slot read the current post's field instead. That wrong value was plausible enough to count as a successful attempt, so the remaining attempts in the chain never ran. The slot now dispatches on what the source resolves to, and an attempt whose source cannot resolve is skipped rather than answered from the wrong place.
• The Migration Tool no longer lists image tags that have nothing to convert. Every {{image}}, {{term_image}} and {{try_image}} tag was reported as needing the image size conversion, whether or not it still carried the old separate size setting that conversion exists to fold in. Running the tool left those tags untouched, so the next scan listed the same posts again and the list could never be cleared. Only a tag that still holds an old size setting is listed now. Present since 1.16.0.