Gutenberg Updates: Gutenberg 4.9 Released

The newest version of Gutenberg editor, Gutenberg 4.9 was released yesterday on January 23, 2019. The update is considered to be a big milestone in terms of performance improvements for Gutenberg editor. It was released with a bunch of new features, refinements, and bug fixes in it.

Gutenberg 4.9 has introduced a new asynchronous mode for blocks rendering in order to improve the editor’s responsiveness. You can find three new tutorials leveraging the Format API, the Sidebar Plugins API and Post Meta Blocks. Also, a number of improved README files for the UI components has been included in the new version.

This release also includes an array of improvements for developers as well which includes support for aXe Accessibility testing.

Below are the changes that Gutenberg 4.9 included:

Performance

• Implement an async rendering mode for the data module updates.
• Avoid rerendering the block components when selecting a block.
• Improve the performance of isEditorEmptyPost selector (13% typing performance improvement).
• Data Module: Avoid persisting unchanged values.
• Update withSelect to use type-optimized isShallowEqual.
• Move data selection to event handlers (called only when necessary).
• Improve the initial rendering time by optimizing the withFilters Higher-order component.

Bug Fixes

• Fix RichText toolbar when using multiline=” li”.
• Correct the margin of the block icons in the inserter.
• Fix ampersand in post tags causing editor crash.
• Remove alignundefined class from gallery block edit markup.
• Disable the button to open the publish sidebar if locked.
• Correct the default margin for buttons with icons.
• Keep the date floating when for posts with “pending” status.
• Fix using the EXIF title when uploading images.
• Fix font size picker on mobile.
• Fix z-index of the Reusable Block Inserter button.
• Fixed autop behavior when a text is followed by a div.
• Fix warning when returning null from a data module generator.
• Announce the screen reader messages in the correct order in Safari.
• Check Post Type support in the options modal.

Enhancements

• Support customizing the table background colors.
• Support underlining text using the keyboard shortcut ctrl+U.
• Apply the editor styles to the HTML Block Preview.
• Improve the color swatch selection indicator.
• Improve scrolling behavior in Fullscreen Mode in Edge.
• Remove deprecated embed providers.

• Refactor the alignments support in the Cover Block and the Categories Block.
• Code quality improvement to getBlockContentSchema
• Internationalize the excerpt documentation link.
• Improve pasting of quotes with citations.
• A11y
  • Add a tooltip to the block list appender.
  • Improve the color contrast of the inserter shortcuts.
  • Remove the label from the Warning component’s menu.
• Add an option to overwrite the block in the Warning component.

Extensibility

• Support custom fetch handlers for wp.apiFetch.
• Support additional data passed to the mediaUpload utility.
• Add filter for the preview interstitial markup.
• Avoid appending empty query string in wp.url.addQueryArgs.
• Dispatch heartbeat events as hook actions to avoid the jQuery dependency.
• Support adding classnames to the plugins sidebar panels.
• Add a className to the parent page selector.

Documentation

• Add tutorials for
  • Creating sidebar plugins.
  • Using the Format API.
  • Creating meta-blocks.
• Reorganize the tutorials page.
• Improve the UI component documentation:
  • The ButtonGroup component.
  • The IconButton component.
  • The SelectControl component.
  • The TextareaControl component.
  • The TabPanel component.
  • The Toolbar component.
  • The FormToggle component.
• Update the Gutenberg Release and the Repository Management docs.
• Add new section on scoping JS code.
• Use Block Editor instead of Gutenberg in the docs.
• Mention the Advanced Controls Panel in the design guidelines.
• Clarify the unregisterBlockStyle documentation.
• Clarify the difference between the button block and the button component.
• Scope JavaScript ES5 code example.
• Fix incorrect code example.
• Clarify the deprecated APIs.
• Fix typos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

Chore

• Improve CI build times.
• Extract error messages from console logging in E2E tests.
• Reorganization of the E2E tests setup and expose it as npm packages.
• Add aXe accessibility E2E tests support.
• Add E2E tests for the excerpt meta box plugin.

Mobile

• Fix the Image Size implementation.
• Fix scrolling long text content.

 

Know more about the update here.

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