Core Editor Improvement: Ensuring Excellence in the Writing Experience

These “CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Editor Improvement…” posts (labeled with the #core-editor-improvement tagtag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.)) are a series dedicated to highlighting various new features, improvements, and more from Core Editor related projects. 

Writing in WordPress, whether your latest post or a new page, needs to be seamless and enjoyable–the tooling should always aim to aid creativity rather than get in the way. Blocks with all of their variations, design tools, and transforms should leave you feeling empowered. To make sure of that, some extra effort was put into the 6.4 release cycle to make the simple act of writing better with new keyboard shortcuts, smoother list merging, some key fixes, and more. Below is a video demonstrating some of these enhancements in one cohesive flow starting with the captured toolbars in a Quote 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. and ending with easily merging two List blocks:

Cohesive Toolbar experience with Navigation, List, & Quote blocks

There’s a new toolbar experience for the Navigation, List, and Quote blocks. Each of these blocks have built-in child blocks and rather than having the toolbars for each child block visible, they are now seamlessly attached to the overall parent blocks. This both helps prevent toolbars from blocking other pieces of content, like a different list item than the one selected and provides a more organized editing experience where you always know where your tooling options are. 

Strengthening the experience

Several 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 and improvements contribute to a more seamless and predictable writing experience.

• List Block: merge consecutive lists rather than keeping them as separate blocks.
• Fix broken flows on Safari, including ArrowUp functionality in an empty paragraph (53341) and multi-selection upon shift plus click (53440).
• Avoid merging paragraphs into a Columns block when trying to delete a paragraph that’s preceded by a Columns block.
• Verse: enable the ability to exit the block upon hitting enter three times.
• Link Control: Add “Open in new tab” control into the link preview, making it easier to turn on and off that option after some recent iterations in WordPress 6.3.

Updating List View 

List View has some neat, new options to get the most out of this robust tool: 

• Allow Escape key to deselect blocks if blocks are selected to make it easier to purely preview your content without any block selection. 
• Add keyboard shortcut for duplicating blocks quickly: CMD+Shift+D for Mac or Control + Shift + D for Windows. 
• See previews of your images in Image and Gallery blocks with plans for future releases to add additional previews to other image related blocks.

What’s next?

This work is never over and current efforts can be followed in this tracking issue. Consider this encouragement to continue sharing directly any issues you’re running into, whether a bug to fix or an experience to polish. 

#core-editor-improvement