Things are going well on the road towards completing the first phase of the editor project. Most of the work is centered around polish, getting things ready for merge, and tightening existing APIs.

This release has many refinements and improves the capabilities of the Block and Plugin APIs. It also adds a new “spacer” block for generating visual space. The color palette component has been improved to be based on classes instead of inline styles (for registered colors) and includes some important accessibility improvements (like naming the color). Thank you to everyone involved!

2.8 🌌

• Add a pasting schema in raw content handling. It simplifies whitelisting and reduces the amount of filters run. Should improve reliability, clarity, markdown conversion, and usage in blocks.
• Add “Spacer” block to create empty areas.
• Add Server Side Render component.
• Expand public InnerBlocks API with support for template configuration and allowedBlocks logic.
• ColorPalette improvements:
  • Implement mechanism to use classes for configured colors instead of inline styles. Use it in Button block as well.
  • Use color name in ColorPalette aria-label for making color selection more accessible.
  • Improve accessibility of PanelColor by announcing currently set color by name.
  • Hide color pickers in paragraph and button if no colors are available.

Other changes

• Add a format prop to allow HTML string values to be used in RichText component. This should be a useful API addition for plugin developers.
• Improve the make gallery modal and allow it to use the correct mode when editing.
• Improve performance by avoiding creating a new uids prop on each block rerender.
• Make sure createInnerBlockList never updates when passed using context.
• Introduce initial “entities” data model abstraction to automatically build state selectors.
  
• Hide the movers and the block menu when typing.
• Optimize the shouldComponentUpdate path of withSelect.
• Use support: align API in Columns block, fixes issue with alignment.
• Filter the PostFormat list to those supported by the theme.
• Used fallback styles to compute font size slider initial position.
• Indent serialized block output with tabs as part of Block API.
• Add a RichText.Content component to be used in conjunction with RichText.
• Determine emptiness by value in RichText.
• Call resolver isFulfilled once per argument set in data modules.
• Extend BlockEdit context with name and use it for autocompleters.
• Improve order of block shortcuts within inline inserter.
• Improve terms token feedback and accessibility.
• Introduce theme_supports with formats to REST API index.
• Switch post-author component to use /wp/v2/users/?who=authors. Related #42202.
• Further harden who=authors check by author support for post type.
• Disable link suggestions when value is URL.
• Make CodeEditor component more extensible.
• Allow the new “block remove” button appear on focus.
• Add new “pure” higher order component to wp/element.
• Add Embed Preview support for classic embed providers. This handled legacy embeds.
• Add missing label and focus style to the code editor textarea.
• Introduce editorMediaUpload wrapper and fix issue with images not being attached to a post.
  
• Used editorMediaUpload in Gallery files transform (images drag&drop).
• Make URL creation mechanism smarter around relative links.
• Add a type attribute to input elements.
• Add missing custom class in latest posts & categories block.
• Add visible label to shared block name input.
• Add ref="noreferrer noopener" for target="_blank" links.
• Add drop cap help text in paragraph block.
• Remove the text alignment from the block inspector in Cover Image.
• Make sure aria-disabled buttons (movers) stay disabled on focus.
  
• Simplify the BlockBreadcrumb component and its semantics.
• Only display featured image UI when theme supports it.
• Improve display of URL input.
• Improve consistency in how + icon is shown on the inserters.
• Extract block library to separate module.
  
• Improve handling of admin theme colors.
• Avoid calculating the closest positioned parent by binding the RichText wrapper div.
• Use IconButton on breadcrumbs to increase consistency and accessibility.
• Reset change detection on post update, resolving an issue where changes made while a post is saving are not accurately reflected in change detection.
• Hide inspector controls if no image is selected in Cover Image.
• Minor improvements for the permalink “Copy to clipboard” button.
• Fix scrolling issues with very long and multi-line captions.
• Fix problem with front-end output of LatestsPosts block.
• Fix issue with using zero min value in RangeControl.
• Fix Markdown paste containing HTML.
• Fix permalink linking to preview URL instead of live.
• Fix issue with update button becoming invisible on mobile on already published posts.
• Fix showing/hiding the right block side UI on RTL languages.
• Fix Classic block regression after extraction of the blocks into a separate script.
• Fix issue where when creating a new post would default to the block sidebar if it was opened before.
• Fix issue when pasting content with inline shortcodes would produce a separate block.
• Fix BlockEdit hooks not working properly with context.
• Fix regression with select box.
• Fix translation strings in embed block.
• Fix regression with formatting button hover/focus style.
• Fix arrow navigation in the shared block more options menu.
• Fix orderby typo in latest posts block.
• Fix the clipboard button as IconButton usage.
• Restore hiding drop cap on focus to prevent bugs with contenteditable.
• Restore priority on embed block for raw transforming.
• Remove no longer mandatory use of isSelected in block edit.
• Remove permalink_structure from REST API index as per #42465.
• Remove old solution for focus after deprecation period.
• Refactor withColors HOC to allow configuring the mapping when instantiating the component.
• Refactor PanelColor to avoid the need for the colorName prop.
• Use a “users” reducer combined with a “queries” sub state to map authors to users.
• Make sure block assets are always registered before wp-edit-post script.
• Expose Gutenberg Data Format version in the REST API response.
• Split loading of API actions and filters to its own file.
• Switch to rest_get_server() for compatibility with trunk.
• Pre-load REST API index data to avoid flash of missing data.
• Deprecate event proxying in RichText.
• Avoid duplicate save request in shared block which could cause race conditions.
• Update docs folder structure and make all internal handbook links relative.
• Update theme extensibility documentation to include editor widths.
• Add section about translating the plugin to the contributing doc.
• Improve documentation and clarity of the Toolbar component.
• Add documentation for undefined attribute source.
• Add isDebounced prop in autocompleter doc.
• Add arrow-spacing rule to eslint config.
• Add arrow-parens rule to eslint config.
• Enforce array as Lodash path argument.
• Upgrade react-datepicker to 1.4.1.
• Upgrade showdown to 1.8.6.
• Drop deprecations slated for 2.8 removal.
• Use the @wordpress/word-count package.
  
• Use @wordpress/is-shallow-equal for shallow equality.
• Build Tools: Fix the package plugin script.
• Improve the G in Gutenberg ASCII 🔷

#core-editor, #editor, #gutenberg

This release introduces drag and drop capabilities for sorting blocks, various refinements to the block visual interface (including a label with block type identifier) and extensibility APIs, plus a lot of bug fixes. Thanks to everyone who contributed for all the ongoing efforts!

2.6 🐉 💧

• Add drag and drop functionality to reorder blocks (in addition to arrow movers).
• Improve side UI around nested groups and introduce a block name label on hover.
• Focus the block inspector automatically when a block is selected.
  
• Allow extending auto-completers via filters — this also exposes the "user" auto-complete to all RichText component instances, making it much easier to leverage for external blocks.
• Use debounced search request in user auto-complete mechanism improving the experience of mentioning in sites with more than 100 users.

Other changes

• Use custom serializer for texturize compatibility. This removes dependency on react-dom/server and integrates better with wptexturize expectations.
  
• Group advanced block settings (class name and anchor) in a panel.
• Move Post Types Data Fetching to the core-data module.
• Refactor DocumentOutline to use the data module.
• Improve performance of drag and drop by avoiding excessive re-rendering.
• Various UI improvements to controls and components in Block Inspector.
• Remove react-redux usage from the edit-post module, replacing it with the data module. Also improves performance on some block operations.
• Add role=menuitem to the More Options menu items.
• Renamed "Frequent" to "Suggested" in block inserter tab.
• Invert speak messages in block inspector button.
• Include only known terms in rendered Terms selector, fixing issue with occasional empty tags.
• Apply centering style to the theme style output.
• Avoid term request if term set is empty array.
• Provide createHigherOrderComponent helper to Element abstraction.
• Reset block selection when replacing with empty set.
• Prevent unnecessary state updates to edit-post preferences.
• Update Sidebar and Menu Item implementations to use React 16.3 context API.
• Generalise and comment on DOMRect calculation and storage.
• Reopen sidebar when going to viewport sizes larger than medium.
• Widen dropzone indicator to match block width.
• Reset margin and padding values for gallery.
• More defensive checks when accessing capabilities and terms.
• Fix autosave condition while editing a post using the Text Mode editor.
• Fix block movers aria-label info on multi-select groups.
• Fix centered multiline labels in the block settings menu.
• Fix issue with Publish button caused by moment timezone configuration.
• Fix arrow movement inside search input in Inserter.
• Fix broken translation in FormTokenField placeholder.
  
• Fix issue with invalid string value passed to caption in Image block.
• Fix findDOMNode lint warning.
• Fix error when DOCKER is not defined.
• Fix Safari flashing a white screen just before the editor is loaded.
• Fix problem with meta-boxes toggling.
• Fix WordCounter error when loading meta boxes.
• Fix clone function to allow cloning nested blocks.
• Fix issue with meta-boxes and file inputs.
• Fix issue with block more button when multi selected.
• Handle post ID and WP_Post objects passed to gutenberg_can_edit_post().
• Clear attribute and reset text back to default when cleared in the "More" block.
• Remove an invalid test case from isCurrentPostScheduled.
• Remove code transform for uppercase text in Tooltip component.
• Remove unused PrismJS dependency.
• Remove redundant z-index in block mover.
• Remove background color from paragraph and fixed contrast checker on transparent colors.
• Make block preview title translatable.
• Make the click-redirector responsive (handles clicking on the bottom area of the editor to focus on last field).
• Replace cases of bold font weight with weight 600.
• Various Sass code improvements.
• Add E2E test for splitting/merging paragraph blocks with Enter/Backspace.
• Add test to check CPT templates initialization in E2E tests.
• Add helpers to install/activate/deactivate and remove plugins in E2E tests.
• Re-incorporate Webpack devtool into development build for improved debugging.
• Add $HOME/.npm to Travis cache after addition of Puppeteer library.
• Improve MediaUpload docs.
• Rework all the extensibility related docs to add structure and clarity.
• Remove deprecations slated for 2.6.
• Upgrade React to version 16.3.0.
• Migrate to Webpack 4.

#core-editor, #editor, #gutenberg

This release iterates further on some design and writing flow details — lighter up/down movers, engaging the UI-less focus mode more often, etc. It also brings many extensibility API improvements, exposing internal editor state through selectors, enhancements to the meta-box handling, and implements the "Copy All" button as if it was a plugin as an example of how to leverage native hooks.

2.1 🦔

• Iterate on the design of up/down arrows and how focus is managed. This seeks to further reduce the visual and cognitive weight of the up/down movers.
• Show immediate visual feedback when dragging and dropping images into the editor. (Expands on the previous release work.)
• Expose state through data module using selectors. This is an important piece of the extensibility puzzle.
• New button outline and focus styles.
• Show original block icon after converting to reusable block. Also hides the generic reusable block from inserters. This moves data logic out of the inserter.
• Introduce a migration function for block versioning.
• Add HTML handler to dropzone. Allows drag and dropping images from other web pages directly.
• Trigger typing mode when ENTER or BACKSPACE are pressed. This improves the writing flow but engaging the UI-less mode more frequently.
  

Other changes:

• Added ability to align the text content of a cover image to the right, left, or center of the image.
• Refactor CopyContentButton as a core extension to illustrate how to add functionality to the editor outside of blocks.
• Allow collapsing/sorting meta-boxes panels.
  
• Remove dirty-checking from meta-boxes state, fixes issues with default values and updating certain text fields.
• Defer registration of all core blocks until editor loads. Improves ability to hook into registerBlockType.
• Only trigger select block action when block is unselected.
• Try new markup for Galleries using lists.
• New: trying a Subheading block.
• Reduce sibling inserter initial height.
• Force an update when a new filter is added or removed while using withFilters higher-order component. This improves the rendering flow of filters.
  
• Refactor the MediaUploadButton to be agnostic to its rendered UI.
• Change "size" label to "level" in Heading block settings.
• Remove breaking spaces logic on List block.
• Update progress button color state based on theme used.
• Update Video block description.
• Refactor the multi-selection behavior to dispatch the multi-selection start action only after the cursor begins to move after a mousedown event.
• Avoid persisting mobile and publish sidebars.
• Move drag handling to instance-bound handler.
• Remove "Open in new window" link option.
• Use username slug instead of name and remove ephemeral link from it.
  
• Ensure isLoading set to false after request error.
• Allow copying individual text from a block that is not purely text without copying the whole block.
• Match consistency of tooltip text with Classic Editor.
• Fix issue with Lists having additional lines when used in a reusable block.
• Fix errors when adding duplicate tags.
• Fix inconsistency with applyOrUnset().
• Fix incorrect display when loading a saved block with no content.
• Fix issue where black rectangle would briefly blink on new paragraphs.
• Fix cursor jumps in link-editing dialog.
• Fix post content validation.
• Fix scrolling issues around nav menus.
• Remove Vine embed support as it's no longer supported.
• Ensure editor still exists after timeout.
• Add regression check for block edit interface using snapshots.
• Add missing alt attributes to image (and gallery) blocks when alt returns an empty value.
• Better build tools with Docker.
• Register Gutenberg scripts & styles before enqueuing.
• Force wp-api.js to use HTTP/1.0 for better compatibility.
• Avoid the deprecated (from 5.0 to 5.2) is_a() function.
• Remove unused dependency.
• Update contributing instructions with steps.
• Consistency cleanup in doc return statements.
• Include how to assign a template to a default Post Type in the documentation. Also add more context to the code.
• Improve incremental development build performance by only minimizing -rtl files for production builds.
  
• More JSDoc fixes.
• Remove warning from plugin header.
• Add new page explaining how to create a block using WP-CLI.
• Add security reporting instructions.
• Improve useOnce documentation.
• Bump copyright year to 2018 in license.md.
• Disable Travis branch builds except for master.

What's next?

As we approach the final stages of features, we are looking at finalizing the nested blocks interface (with its own Columns component), some remaining important extensibility hooks for plugins, and adding drag-drop functionality for moving and inserting blocks. ⛰

#core-editor, #editor, #gutenberg

Hope everyone has had some good time! We are resuming the releases of Gutenberg for this new year. The first one — 2.0 — is rather big, with updates across the board. The highlights cover several pasting improvements, a more polished publish flow, block API tweaks and extensibility additions, various accessibility improvements, block library updates (like new querying by category in latest posts), etc.

2.0 

• Replace publish dropdown menu with a sidebar panel.
• Expand latest post blocks with more querying options — order by and category.
• Allow dragging multiple images to create a gallery.
•  Copy and Pasting:
  • Improve markdown pasting (allows lists to be interpreted).
  • Allow pasting copied images directly.
  • Pasting within lists and headings.
  • Improve handling of inline spans.
  • Allow copying a single block.
  • Make sure inline pasting mechanism does not take place if pasting shortcodes.
  • Preserve alignment classes during raw transformations (like pasting an old WordPress post).
  • Support shortcode synonyms.
• Allow continued writing when pressing down arrow at the end of a post.
• Mobile design: move block controls to the bottom of a block.
• Allow deleting reusable blocks globally.
• Display description and type on the sidebar. (Also replace BlockDescription component with a property.)
• New table of contents and document counts design.
• Add button to copy the full document quickly.

Design and editing experience

• Expand inserter to three columns and a wider container.
• Allow using down-arrow keys directly to navigate when searching a block in the inserter.
• Deselect images in Gallery block when losing focus.
• Include post title in document outline feature.
• Rework display of notices and address various issues with overlaps.
• Added keyboard shortcut to toggle editor mode. Also displays the relevant keyboard combination next to the menu item.
• Improve deleting empty paragraphs when backspacing into a block that has no merge function (example, deleting a paragraph after an image).
• Improve the way scroll-position is updated when moving a block.
• Show block transformations in ellipsis menu.
• Add drag and drop support for cover image.
• Allow transforming operations between Heading and Cover Image blocks.
• Add focus outline for blocks that don't have focusable fields.
• Allow both navigation orientations in NavigableContainer.
• Improve the behavior of focusing embed blocks.
• Unify UI of audio and video blocks.
• Show message on the inserter when no blocks are found.
• Show message when no saved blocks are available.
• Do not show the publish panel when updating / scheduling / submitting a post.
• Update quote style in front-end.
• Convert text columns to a div using grid layout.
• Update button block CSS and add class to link.
• Allow text in Button block to wrap.
• Prevent useOnce blocks from being inserted using the convenient blocks shortcut menu.
• Show correct symbol (⌘ or Ctrl) depending on system context.
• Rename "insert" to "add" in the UI.
• Clear block selection when opening sibling or bottom inserter.
• Always show the insertion point when the inserter is opened.
• Increase padding on "more options" block toggle.
• Rename "Classic Text" to "Classic".
• Improve display of dotted outline around reusable blocks.
• Updated messages around reusable blocks interactions.
  
• Align both the quote and the citation in the visual editor.
• Exit edit mode when unfocusing a reusable block.
• Set floated image width (when unresized) in % value. 

Components

• Add withState higher-order component.
• Initial introduction of wp.data module.
  • Restrict the state access to the module registering the reducer only.
• Refactor PostSchedule to make Calendar and Clock available as reusable components.
• Allow overwriting colors (defaults and theme provided) when consuming ColorPalette component.
• Switch orientation of popover component only if there is more space for the new position.
• New ImagePlaceholder reusable component that handles upload buttons and draggable areas for the block author.

Accessibility

• Add speak message when a category is added.
• Announce notices to assertive technologies with speak.
• Add aria-labels to Code and HTML blocks.
• Warn if multiple h1 headings are being used.
• Add speak message and make "block settings" button label dynamic.
• Make excerpt functionality more accessible.
• Add various headings around editor areas for screen-readers.
• Improve accessibility of menu items in the main ellipsis menu.
• Add missing tooltips to icon buttons.

Mobile

• Render toolbar always by the block on mobile.
• Improve performance of responsive calculations using matchMedia.
• Avoid shifts around toolbar and scrolling issues on mobile.
• Improve how the fixed-to-block toolbar looks on mobile. Change how the fixed position toolbars behave, making them sticky.
• Prevent Mobile Safari from zooming the entire page when you open the inserter.

Block API and Misc.

• Initial explorations to migrate to server-registered blocks as part of raising awareness of available blocks.
• Move supportHTML property into the general "support" object.
• Replace getLatestPosts usage with withAPIData HOC.
• Convert all filters for components to behave like HOCs (withFilters).
• Replace flowRight usage with compose for HOCs.
• Apply filters without function wrappers.
• Improve Tags/Categories response size by limiting the requested fields.
• Limit requested fields in category feature of "latest posts".
• Request only required post fields in latest posts.
• Replace getCategories usage with withAPIData component.
• Don't show fields that are not used in media modal when adding a featured image.
• Polish inserter tabs so the focus style isn't clipped.
• Make inspector controls available when categories are loading.
• Improve overlay over meta-boxes during save operations.
• Hide excerpts panel if not supported by the CPT.
• Hide Taxonomies panel if no taxonomy is available for the current CPT.
• Hide several other panels when the CPT doesn't support them.
• Use _.includes to find available taxonomies. Mitigates non-schema-conforming taxonomy registrations.
• Defer applying filters for component until it is about to be mounted.
• Prevent "Add New" dropdown from overriding other plugin functionality.
• Improve paragraph block description.
• Refactor to simplify block toolbar rendering.
• Add missing aligment classes to cover image.
• Add parent page dropdown to page attributes panel.
• Allow pressing ENTER to change Reusable Block name.
• Disable HTML mode for reusable blocks.
• Add support for the "advanced" meta-box location.
• Make sure super admins can publish in any site of the network.
• Rename theme support for wide images to align-wide.
• Move selectors and actions files to the store folder.
• Center arrows of popovers relative to their parent.
• Use fainter disabled state.
• Add breakpoint grid to latest posts block and update color of date.
• Move logic for auto-generating the block class name to BlockEdit.
• Respect the "enter_title_here" hook.
• Prevent meta-box hooks from running multiple times.
• Don't set font-family on pullquotes.
• Remove superfluous parentheses from include statements.
• Remove redundant CSS property updates.
• Use "columns-x" class only for grid layout in latest posts.
• Use flatMap for mapping toolbar controls for a small performance gain.
• Introduce jest matchers for console object.
• Updated various npm packages; update Jest. Update node-sass. Update WordPress packages.
• Switch TinyMCE to unpkg.
• Reorganize handbook docs navigation.
• Added FAQ section for meta-boxes compatibility.
• Added initial "templates" document.
• Add documentation about dynamic blocks.
• Updated "outreach" docs.
• Improve block-controls document.
• Display a hint that files need to be built.
• Add WordPress JSDoc ESLint configuration.
• Update licenses in package.json & composer.json to adhere to SPDX v3.0 specification.
• Add tests to cover REQUEST_POST_UPDATE_SUCCESS effect.
• Add tests for color palette component.
• Add tests for Editable.getSettings and adaptFormatter. 
• Use newly published jest-console package in test setup.
• Update info about test fixtures generation.
• Also style footer in quote blocks to ensure backwards compatibility.
• Add a PHPUnit Docker Container.

Bug Fixes

• Fix wrong "return to editor" link when comparing revisions
• Fix meta-box state detection in Safari.
• Fix error when pressing enter from a heading block.
• Fix error with merging lists into paragraphs.
• Fix revisions button target area.
• Remove duplicated styles.
• Fix z-index rebase issues.
• Fix tag name warning ordering in validation.
• Fix text encoding of titles in url-input.
• Fix endless loop in reusable blocks code.
• Fix edit button in Audio block using invalid buttonProps attribute.
• Fix block creation with falsey default attribute.
• Fix radio control checked property.
• Fix styling issues of blocks when they are used as part of a reusable block.
• Fix list wrapping issues.
• Fix problem when converting shortcodes due to sorting.
• Fix issue with time-picker not working.
• Fix hide advanced settings interaction in block menu.
• Fix issue with url input on images.
• Fix style regression in textual placeholder on cover image.
• Fix return type hint in gutenberg_get_rest_link().
• Fix bug when changing number of Latests Posts rapidly was leading to some numbers being defunct.
• Fix isInputField check and add tests.
• Fix unsetting block alignment flagging block as invalid.
• Fix CSS bleed from admin-specific gallery styles.
• Fix image handlers at the top from being unclickable.
• Fix unexpected keyboard navigations behaviour on some nodes.
• Fix inserter position for floated blocks.
• Fix bug on empty cover image placeholder used on a saved block.
• Fix errors when adding duplicate categories.
• Fix broken custom color bubble in ColorPalette.
• Remove visible commas from page order settings panel.

#core-editor, #editor, #gutenberg