What’s new in Gutenberg 10.4? (14 April)

Two weeks have passed since the last GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ release, which means a new version is already available! Gutenberg 10.4 introduces cool features like 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. widgets in the CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings., enhancements to the Site Editor, improvements to rich text placeholders, and, as always, many bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. fixes as well.

Block widgets in the Customizer

As part of the Block-based WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. Editor project, one goal is to enable block widgets in the Customizer, with Gutenberg 10.4 introducing the first iteration of this feature.

List View design updates

This release brings us a set of design updates to the Site Editor List View, including updates to icon sizes and spaces and new colors for hover, focus, and select states.

More descriptive publishing UIUI User interface

The publishing content UI found in block editors now includes the site icon and name so that it’s clearer in certain cases, such as full-screen or mobile, where you are publishing to.

Revert template to theme defaults within the Site Editor

Until now, to revert a template to the default provided by a theme, it had to be done outside the Site Editor. Thanks to this new feature, it is now possible to revert template customizations directly in the editor.

Rich text placeholder enhancements

To improve the editing experience, rich text block placeholders have seen a few tweaks in this release. Starting in Gutenberg 10.4, blocks containing rich text will display a shorter placeholder text that will remain shown even when being focused.

Improvements to Navigation Block

The Navigation Block has good momentum and has received many improvements in this release, including a new “Post Format Link” variation, a clearer placeholder state, and more style polishing. 

Editor and frontend parity refinement

Providing a consistent markup between the editor and the frontend is key to deliver a smooth editing experience. Gutenberg 10.4 iterates towards this goal by ensuring a frontend-editor parity in blocks such as Quote, Separator, and Archives, among others.

10.4

Enhancements

  • Ensure Frontend/Editor block styles parity:
  • Block Library:
    • Latest Comments: Remove list padding and margin. (29402)
    • Post Date: Add option to make it a link. (30499)
    • Post ExcerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox.: Fix toolbar for post excerpt warning. (30280)
    • Post Title: Fix “‘length’ of undefined” error. (30208)
    • Preformatted: Add color controls. (28396)
    • Query: Use a WordPress loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. for the query block. (30405)
    • Search: Add border radius support. (30227)
    • Site Logo: Style polishing. (30526)
    • Template Part: Add padding support to template parts. (29779)
    • Update placeholder text across blocks. (30404)
  • RichText:
    • Add min width to show caret for empty inline container. (30224)
    • Always show placholder on focus. (30393)
  • General Interaface:
    • Add site icon and name to the publish flow. (30231)
    • Use a darker canvas color. (30282)
    • Update the save button label in the site editor. (30439)
  • Icons:
    • Polish media & text icons. (30239)
    • Update “close small” icon so that its shape matches the “add” icon dimensionally. (30014)
    • Update site-logo block icon. (30211)
  • Inserter: Clarify that when the Inserter is open clicking the + button in the top bar will close it again. (29759)
  • Writing Flow: Use a shorter writing prompt. (29611)
  • List View: Improve the spacing, colors and icons (30455) (30303)
  • Block Themes: Clarify the empty block templates message. (30145)
  • Site Editor:
    • Allow reverting custom templates to their original theme-provided files. (28141)
    • Use “Custom Styles” label to signal there are global styles changes in the saving panel. (30521)

Bug Fixes

  • Inserter: Show only the patterns that use allowed blocks. (30300)
  • Block Library:
    • Buttons: Prevent overlapping button blocks in the frontend. (30253)
    • Columns: Prevent having a width > 100%. (30229)
    • Cover: Add ‘object-position’ to allowed inline style attributes list. (30243)
    • Gallery: Avoid adding all media items in galleries using external URLs. (30122)
    • Image: Do not preserve custom sizes when replacing images. (29919)
    • Query:
      • Fix undo trap during creation. (30203)
      • Pagination Numbers: Print nothing if content is empty. (30554)
    • RichText: Fix arrow navigation around emoji. (30206)
    • Search block: Fix alignment issues. (30444)
    • Site Logo: Delete sitelogo option when custom logo does not exist or was removed. (30427)
  • Block List: Fix mover position in the docked toolbar. (30242)
  • Code Editor: Revert save editors value on change (#27717). (30524)
  • Post Editor:
    • Avoid focus attempt on a non-existent post title in code editor. (29922)
    • Fix the post author selector for contributor roles. (30218)
  • Gutenberg PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party: Ensure that plugin does not error with older versions of WordPress. (30230)
  • Inner blocks: Memoize allowedBlocks to prevent needlessly updating settings. (30311)
  • Server side renderer: Fix errors in template part editor context. (29246)
  • Writing Flow:
    • Fix copy pasting non textual blocks. (30225)
    • Fix horizontal caret placing for empty editable with placeholder. (30463)
    • Fix multi-selection copying in Safari. (30202)
  • Site Editor:
    • Fix nested template parts. (30416)
    • Fix media upload behaviour and error state. (30436)
    • Select the block inspector top upon selection. (30387)
  • Components: Stop matching autocompleter upon mismatch. (30649)

APIs:

  • Add padding server-side block support. (30332)
  • Remove small APIs deprecated in WordPress 5.2. (30283)
  • Block Patterns: Remove scope from Query patterns and introduce blockTypes. (30471)

Experiments

  • Customizer
    • Add customize widgets inserter. (29549)
    • Add Legacy Widget block. (30321)
    • Fix adding blocks in the widgets customizer. (30221)
  • Navigation Editor and Block
    • Apply mover tweaks to navigation and widgets. (30284)
    • Add src/navigation-link/index to side effect whitelist. (30200)
    • Add post format variation to navigation link block. (30403)
    • Avoid creating a new array/object on every render. (30374)
    • De-emphasize “Link” block. (30172)
    • Fix arrow inheritance, polish. (30287)
    • Fix hardcoded color in navigation submenu icon. (30385)
    • Fix Navigation Link block constantly updating its inner block list settings. (30274)
    • Fix navigation link block dragging error. (30219)
    • Fix snackbar list component blocking clicks to UI it overlaps. (30381)
    • Flip orientation of submenus that are towards the right of the viewport. (30342)
    • Indicate when a menu is deleted and show the menu switcher afterwards. (29201)
    • Make the navigation placeholder clearer. (30281)
    • Polish navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. submenus. (30335)
    • Replace arrow with chevron. (30180)
    • Save theme location on button click. (30340)
    • Use same default implementation of __experimentalFetchLinkSuggestions in post, site, navigation, widget editor. (29993)
  • Widgets Editor
    • Add manage with live preview link. (29839)
    • Handle when $instance is empty and use str_replace instead of sprintf in the Widget block. (30217)
    • Iterate on Legacy Widget block. (29960)

Documentation

  • Handbook:
    • Add description for templateParts in theme jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML.. (30118)
    • Add instructions for finding attributes for use in templates. (30258)
    • Added a practical example of adding a component to the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme.. (30379)
    • Clarify what is meant by “block wrapper”. (30315)
    • Fix broken links to typescript documentation. (30188)
    • Fix code snippet for disabling the block directory. (30365)
    • Fix formatting. (30309)
    • Fix typos in block-controls-toolbar-and-sidebar.md. (30513)
    • Rename, changed URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org Link. (30483)
    • Rich Text: Add section for disabling specific format types. (29383)
    • Updated documentation to reflect the output created currently by npx wordpress/create-block gutenpride. (30353)
    • Update feature deprecation guide. (30220)
  • Packages:
    • Api-fetch: Fix example code for apiFetch middlewares. (30534)
    • Block supports: Fix typos in layout supports comment. (30537)
    • Block Editor: Fix block-editor typo. (30401)
    • Components:
      • Remove references to __experimental* in the DateTimePicker component documentation. (29322)
      • Update CustomSelectControl component README.md. (29854)
  • docgen:
    • Components: Add types to Draggable. (29792)
    • Add types to clean-node-list. (30412)
    • Add types progressively to dom modules. (30103)
    • Add types to phrasing-content. (30102)
    • Export all types from api-fetch. (30539)
    • Fix arrow functions and TS index module support. (30028)
    • deprecated: Export DeprecatedOptions to align with DefinitelyTyped. (30677)
    • api-fetch: Align exported type names with DefinitelyTyped types. (30570)

Code Quality

  • Block Editor: Use proper insertion point for drop. (29933)
  • Block Library: Fix Post Excerpt warnings for RichText in inline containers. (30498)
  • Components: Simplify ScrollLock, adding types. (29634)
  • Gutenberg Plugin:
    • Prettify YAML scripts. (30409)
    • Remove deprecations planned for 10.3 release. (30417)
    • Update the objectFitPolyfill vendor library. (30507)
  • PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher Coding Standards fixes. (30346)

Tools

  • Add /packages/stylelint-config to CODEOWNERS. (30264)
  • Build: Ensure non-JSJS JavaScript, a web scripting language typically executed in the browser. Often used for advanced user interfaces and behaviors. changes are processed in the watch mode. (30343)
  • Testing:
    • Added end-to-end tests for navigation menu name editor. (29774)
    • GHA workflow improvements when setting up NodeJS. (29078)
    • Include NodeJS version in the cache key. (30512)
    • Remove button from forbidden elements. (30223)
    • Remove cache restore-keys. (30510)
    • Skip flaky end-to-end tests. (30344)

Performance Benchmark

The following benchmark compares performance for a particularly sizeable post (~36,000 words, ~1,000 blocks) over the last releases. Such a large post isn’t representative of the average editing experience but is adequate for spotting variations in performance.

VersionLoading TimeKeyPress Event (typing)
Gutenberg 10.45.94s35.14ms
Gutenberg 10.35.98s32.58ms
WordPress 5.75.05s31.34ms

Kudos to all the contributors that helped with the release! 👏

Thanks @youknowriad for managing the release and @critterverse for helping with the release post assets.

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