Gutenberg 2.2 Released with New Features and Improvements

The Gutenberg Editor is here with its latest version, Gutenberg 2.2. The newest version was released over the weekend with some exciting enhancements.

This time, the changelog had a full list of more than 90 improvements included in Gutenberg 2.2. This release brought support for nested blocks into Gutenberg, introduced new ‘Columns’ block, block shortcuts on empty paragraph blocks, changes in text synchronization, ability to dismiss the publish sidebar automatically and more.

Now, let’s have a quick look at the improvements in Gutenberg 2.2.

The new version has brought Block Nesting. The feature comes with an experimental ‘Columns’ block that leverages nested blocks to operate. (Note: Converting a nested block into a reusable block has been disabled on this first version.) This is not a specific implementation or columns alone. That means any block author can take advantage of defining nested areas.

However, according to the Gutenberg developers, it needs further work and has some browser hiccups.

Gutenberg 2.2 has introduced refined block insertion experience for better user experience. It has included block shortcuts on every empty paragraph block. This temporarily disables the sibling inserter as the Gutenberg developers work on refining this interaction. Also, the new version has added trailing text area at the bottom of a post to continue writing.

You can now preview the saved blocks while hovering on the inserter. This allows users to quickly have a look at what they are about to insert before inserting it into a post.

The list of changes in Gutenberg 2.2 is rather big, therefore, below are some of the exciting changes introduced in the new version divided into sections.

User Experience:

Collapse the publish sidebar when making edits to a published post automatically
Hide hover effects when typing
Display reusable blocks in the “recent blocks” tab
Add a confirmation message before reverting a published post to draft
Deselect individual gallery images when clicking outside the block or selecting another image

New Features:

Add support for setting a page template
Add support for individual image captions in galleries
Add raw handling (pasting mechanism) for iframes (e.g. Google Maps)
Allow WP to make images responsive via class

Block API and Extensibility:

Drop focus/setFocus props in favor of isSelected prop
New PlainText component for raw content that is styled as editable text. Renamed Editable to RichText for extra clarity and separation
Check for duplication in addGeneratedClassName
Move selected block focus to BlockListBlock
Expose registered selectors as functions
Added slug selector to data modules collection