Gutenberg 0.8.0 Released with New Blocks

Gutenberg 0.8.0 release with new blocks

The Gutenberg Editor is here with its new version, Gutenberg 0.8.0. The newest version was released over the weekend. The changelog has a full list of more than 40 improvements along with some addition of new blocks. This time, the Gutenberg editor has brought some major improvements to existing blocks and support for more publishing features that have been missing from the new editor’s sidebar. The release has also removed the opt-in usage tracking code that was added to Gutenberg 0.7.0.

Gutenberg 0.8.0 has introduced 5 new blocks—Categories, Text Columns, Shortcode, Audio, and Video. Let’s look at these newly added blocks in detail.

The new Categories block has been added in Gutenberg 0.8.0. It can be found under the Widgets section, as its output is based on the existing categories widget. The default display is an alphabetized list of categories, but the block settings include options to display as a dropdown, show post counts, and show hierarchy.

categories-block

The newly added Text Columns block allows users to split text content into multiple columns. The settings also include a sliding scale for selecting 2 to 4 columns.

text-columns-block

However, the contributors are calling the Text Block “an initial exploration” of multiple columns for text-only content. Depending on the testing, it might not land up in the plugin permanently, according to Joen Asmussen.

Other new blocks that have been added to Gutenberg 0.8.0 is the new Video and Audio blocks. The blocks are geared towards inserting files that have already been uploaded to the media library. However, the new WordPress users might face confusion in pasting the URL inside the video block.

video-block

The new Audio and Video blocks mirror the same kind of functionality that users have experienced when adding images to their sites. The contributors might introduce more features in future to the Audio block, such as additional playback types and looping, but the first iteration includes just the basics.

This release has introduced a new Shortcode block. With this Shortcode block, you can do nifty things with very little effort. To add a shortcode, just navigate to Gutenberg > New Post, insert a Shortcode block, add a shortcode, switch to Text view, confirm the shortcode, and press the Preview button.

shortcode

Gutenberg 0.8.0 has also added resizing handlers to the existing Image Block, making it easy for users to insert and quickly resize an image. As seen on the GitHub ticket, Image resizing feature has gone through several changes and may have more down the road, especially as it pertains to the behavior of the caption. Ultimately, the caption field should not be wider than the image so that the two are placed together.

Gutenberg contributors have also updated the design document for the project, offering more clarity on their goals and concepts they are using to build the editor.

The main concept of the Gutenberg plugin is to simplify content creation for users so that they only have to learn one interface—the block interface. The design document has also added several new sections that elaborate on the concept of “everything is a block” and includes best practices that developers can reference when designing their own blocks.

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Reference: WP Tavern

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