Editor Weekly Updates: Feb 17–21

Last week, there were some exciting developments in the 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/ Editor. Below, you’ll find an overview of the key changes and improvements.

A special thanks goes to @krupaly2k for his excellent compilation of all the topics from the Gutenberg development team.

Need Design Feedback 🎨

• [List View] Always open List View: disable sidebar animation when preference is enabled – When the ”Always open List View:’ preferences are enabled, 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. animation on first page load is a very distracting and unexpected experience.
• PR – [Background Image Control] – Added placeholder for background images – This PR ensures that when a Group has no background image, the placeholder (grey crossed-out circle) is displayed alongside the “Add background image” text.

Need Testing 🧪

• Native WordPress custom fields are added twice – Custom Fields are sometimes being duplicated. Sometimes this results in two or even three copies of the same custom fieldCustom Field Custom Field, also referred to as post meta, is a feature in WordPress. It allows users to add additional information when writing a post, eg contributors’ names, auth. WordPress stores this information as metadata. Users can display this meta data by using template tags in their WordPress themes. and value.
• getBlockTypes() do not return custom (PHP ?) blocks outside of the editor.

Need discussion 🤔

• Spacer: Add background color support – Add the background-color design tool to the Spacer 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.

Enhancementenhancement Enhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature. ✨

• Add lightbox functionality to Post Featured Image block – The Image block in Gutenberg includes a native lightbox functionality that allows users to expand images in a modal view. However, this functionality is not available in the Post Featured ImageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts. block, even though it would be equally useful in this context.
• Title / Search Result Title / Archive Title: Add Transformation – Make it possible to transform between the block.
• [Interactivity 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.] Clarify Interactivity API evaluate function and directives to not allow action usage for what should be state – Need to discuss the strategy to achieve the end goal
• [Media] Remove @shopify/web-worker Dependency in @wordpress/upload-media – If you go to the NPM page for @shopify/web-worker, you’ll see that it’s no longer being supported. Removing this package would be a good measure for future proof.
• [Post Terms] Categories block > block settings > add nolink toggle
  • PR has been raised here #69273
• [Design Tools] Background Image: Add placeholder – When a Group has no background image, it only displays the text “Add background image”.
• However, on the left of the text the placeholder (grey crossed out circle) is missing.
• [Fonts Library] Font Library: Add option for (minimal) font stack – at least assignment to the 5 generic font families – to be always W3C compliant
• Global Styles: It is difficult to find where to add custom color palettes
• Improvement: A user should be able to exclude headings from the ToC block in the editor
• PR #67052  for Make BlockManager component reusable – The current BlockManager component is tightly coupled to the showBlockTypes and hideBlockTypes actions and cannot be used for other purposes.
• PR #69259 for Style book: Change displayed colors per row to six
• [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)] PR #69248 for Audit the new Inserter accessibility – The new Inserter introduced in WordPress 5.5 has been identified by the accessibility team as a 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. in the accessibility level compared to WordPress 5.4.
• PR #69239 for Gradient: Add a border – When the gradient is white the field in the color palette panel is hard to see.

Thanks to @krupaly2k for helping to create this post.

#6-8, #core, #editor-update, #gutenberg