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 block 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 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 regression 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 metabox area.
• Adjust inside padding of meta 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 API functionality with comments.
• Rewrite data document as a walkthrough of wordpress/data.
• Revert the eslint --fix Git 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.