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