What’s new in Gutenberg? (14th March)

2.4 π

Inserter

Continues the work done in previous releases around balancing writing flow with the ability to easily insert non-text blocks.

• Show the full blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. inserter (+ button) to the left of empty paragraphs and the default appender. Quick block options (based on compound frequency and recency) remain on the right.
• Insert default block as provisional — this reduces the proliferation of empty blocks as the editor removes these provisional blocks when unfocusing.
• When pressing enter from post title, insert initial block as provisional.
• Fade out the side inserter when typing on the newly created block.
• Group common block definition on inserters. Use 'frecency' to sort items on top of it.
• Improve the visual focus style for inbetween inserter.

Writing Flow

Strengthened, tweaked, and polished underlying mechanisms for handling the writing flow in order to provide more stability and consolidation.

• Move isTyping behaviour to a separate component.
  
• Inserting a block should only shift focus to a text field, otherwise focusing the block's "focus stop".
  • Example: Inserting an image should focus the top-level placeholder.
• Pressing backspace or enter from the block's focus stop should respectively delete or insert a subsequent paragraph block.
  • Example: Pressing enter or delete on an image placeholder.
• Pressing down arrow from a non-text-field should proceed with a tab transition as expected.
  
• Multi-selection at the last text field in a block now accounts for non-contenteditable text fields.
• Better internal identification of text fields for writing flow transitions. Previously, if a block contained a checkbox, radio, or other non-text input tags, they would be erroneously included in the writing flow sequence.
• Inserting paragraph block (quote, etc; those with text fields) via autocomplete should move focus to the cursor.
• Shift-arrow from a text field engages multi-selection, but not if there are other text fields in the intended direction in the same block.
• Cancel isTyping state when focusing non text field.
• Improve reliability of the block click-to-clear behavior.
• When clicking below the editor move focus to last text field — this includes creating a new provisional block if last block is not text. This is equivalent to the default block appender spanning the entire viewport height of the editable canvas.
• Introduce same undo buffering for general text to the post title (and other post properties).
• Allow breaking out of List block upon Enter on last empty line.
• Address conflicts between WritingFlow's selection transitioning and nested blocks by moving selection to the block's focus handler.

Other Changes

• Improve reusable block creation flow by focusing the title field and allowing the user to name their block immediately.
  
• Avoid calling callbacks on DropZone component if a file is dropped on another dropzone.
• Improve settings UI on mobile devices.
• Allow text to wrap within Button block.
• Restrict Popover focusOnMount to keyboard interaction. This seeks to improve the experience of interacting with popovers and popover menus based on usability and accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) concerns.
• Optimize the behavior of subscribe to avoid calling a listener except in the case that state has in-fact changed.
  
• Move the behaviors to transition focus to a newly selected block from the WritingFlow component to the BlockListBlock component.
  
• Extract scroll preservation from BlockList as non-visual component
• Add Upload button to audio and video blocks.
• Refactor image uploads and added auto-filled captions using the image metadata.
• Limit CSS rules for lists to the visual editor area.
• Add aria-label to the post title.
• Add new distinctive icon for Cover Image block.
• Refactor PostTitle for easier select, deselect.
• Use ifViewportMatches HoC to render BlockMobileToolbar as appropriate.
• Introduce a new reusable Disabled component which intends to manage all field disabling automatically.
• Expand editor canvas as flex region improving deselect behaviour.
• Bump minimum font-size to 13px.
• Allow emojis to be displayed in permalink visual component.
• Respect HTML when readding paragraph-tags.
• Allow undefined return from withSelect mapSelectToProps.
• Update datepicker styling to inherit font-family/colour scheme.
• Move QueryControls and expose them for general use under components module.
• Address design issues with block dialog warnings on blocks that are too tall.
• Preserve "More" order during block conversion.
• Add capabilities handling for reusable blocks mapping to default roles.
• Add a "Write your story" filter.
• Return focus from Toolbar to selection when escape is pressed.
• Improve keyboard interaction on inserter tab panels.
• Simplify state management for the sidebar to make it easier to maintain.
• Update cover image markup and CSS.
• Fix sent parameter in onChange function of CheckboxControl.
• Fix errors in some localized strings.
• Fix problem with arrow navigation within Block Menu buttons.
  
• Fix issue with demo page being marked immediately as unsaved (and the subsequent autosave).
• Fix issue with a Reusable Blocks being keyboard navigable even when it is not supposed to be edited.
• Fix focusable matching elements with "contenteditable=false".
• Fix issue with empty paragraphs appearing after images when the images are inside an anchor.
• Fix issue when a block cannot be removed after being transformed into another block type.
• Fix issue with updating the author on published posts.
• Fix edgecases in Windows high contrast mode.
• Fix regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. with inserter tabs colors.
• Fix handling of HTML captions on gallery and image.
• Fix heading subscript regression.
• Resolve a performance regression caused by a bailout condition in our chosen shallow-equality library.
• Handle calculateFrequency edge case on upgrading.
• Use lodash includes in NavigableMenu to address IE11 issue.
• Refer to reusable blocks as 'Shared Blocks'.
• Add domain argument to localization functions. Allow setting locale data by domain.
• Update localization functions to absorb errors from Jed.
• Make UrlInput a controlled component.
• Decode HTML entities in placeholders.
• Only allow whitespace around URL when attempting to transform pasted Embeds.
• Make preferences reducer deterministic.
• Remove max-width for meta boxes area inputs.
  
• Default to content-box box-sizing for the metaboxMetabox A post metabox is a draggable box shown on the post editing screen. Its purpose is to allow the user to select or enter information in addition to the main post content. This information should be related to the post in some way. area.
• Adjust inside padding of metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. boxes to better accommodate plugins.
• Remove !important clauses from button styles.
• Keep update button enabled when there are metaboxes present.
• Clarify some inner workings of Block APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. functionality with comments.
• Rewrite data document as a walkthrough of wordpress/data.
• Revert the eslint --fix GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/. precommit hook.
• Extract shared eslint config.
• Add tests for the BlockSwitcher component.
• Add test cases for REQUEST_POST_UPDATE_FAILURE effect.
• Fail the build via ESLint error when deprecations marked for removal in a given version change are not removed.
• Update redux-optmist to 1.0.0.
• Update package-lock.json.
• Remove Deprecated Features planned for this release and start documenting them in a deprecated document.

#core-editor, #editor, #gutenberg, #gutenberg-new