What’s New in the Block Editor: Edit Your Images, Drag and Drop Blocks and Patterns, and More

Here’s a peek at the latest changes in the block editor, including image editing, draggable blocks and patterns, a new Page List block, and a streamlined panel for managing preferences.

March 15, 2021

Caroline Moore

From time-saving features to enhancements in your favorite blocks, these block editor improvements will help you build posts and pages on your site, no matter what you publish:

  • Crop and rotate your images with built-in editing tools
  • Drag and drop blocks and patterns for more control
  • Display a list of your pages with the new Page List block
  • Match your brand palette with an improved Social Icons block
  • Strategically place your CTAs with a better Buttons block
  • Manage your preferences in a refreshed panel

Let’s take a closer look.

Crop and rotate your images with built-in editing tools

Tired of switching between WordPress.com and an editing tool like Photoshop or Canva to make quick fixes to your images? There’s no need to leave the block editor to crop or rotate your photographs — you can now make changes with a few clicks in the toolbar that appears above the image.

Your original image is always saved in your Media Library, so you can crop and re-crop until you get it just right.

Drag and drop blocks and patterns for more control

Here’s a usability win: you can now drag and drop blocks and block patterns from the Block Inserter on the left directly into your editor canvas on the right. This gives you finer control over where you place new content on a post or page.

Display a list of your pages with the new Page List block

Say hello to the new block on the block: the Page List block! Let’s say you want to show a list of all of your recipe blog’s pages on a single page so readers can see an overview of your culinary content. You can use the new Page List block to automatically compile and display a hierarchical list of all your site’s published pages.

Match your brand palette with an improved Social Icons block

Does your current site background make certain social icons invisible or difficult to see? Do you want to customize the colors? With updates to the Social Icons block, you can now set custom colors for the icons and the icon background by using the color picker or specifying a HEX color code. Match your business or brand palette if you wish!

Strategically place your CTAs with a better Buttons block

A strong and visual call to action, or CTA, encourages interaction on your site, whether you’re a tax consultant seeking new leads with a Contact Me page or an online meditation teacher presenting your membership tiers on a Services page. Using the Buttons block, you can align your CTA buttons on a page, either horizontally (in a row) or vertically (stacked in a column). You’ll see this new vertical option in the block’s settings, so you can switch between layouts with ease.

Manage your block editor preferences in a refreshed panel

We’ve repackaged various options and settings for your block editor into a separate panel, sorted into four sections: General, Appearance, Blocks, and Panels. We hope this more streamlined panel helps you set up your block editor exactly as you want it.

Keep building with the block editor. We’ll keep improving it.

The block editor is continuously growing and improving as a result of your feedback — thank you. We can’t wait to see what you build next with it. In the meantime, we’re working hard behind the scenes, with more updates to come!

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38 Comments

Comments are closed.

  1. David Boles Mar 15th at 6:13 pm

    Thank you for sharing this important update! I’ve been with WP.com since the start, and I always look forward to the next technological push into forward momentum!

    Liked by 17 people

  2. Gail Mar 15th at 6:37 pm

    Can I delete everything I have done including my only two blogs and start fresh including the front page which was deleted? I took a blogging class from a woman who gave me misleading information and had me blog some very very personal embarrassing information and I do not believe that was the correct direction to go by.

    Liked by 14 people

  3. Will Burley Mar 15th at 7:52 pm

    Unfortunately, as lovely as all of this sounds this block editor is inaccessible with screen readers for the blind and visually impaired. I’m now having two do things on the computer, email it to myself so I can copy and paste through the app, etc. it causes a lot of clunky and unnecessary hardship and work just for me to do my blog. I have yet to find keyboard shortcuts readily available to learn. This has become very daunting and a little depressing

    Liked by 7 people

  4. Rrichard Whiteford Mar 15th at 8:22 pm

    I want to know how to cut an article I wrote in Word and paste it into a WordPress article?

    Liked by 4 people

  5. suestvlas Mar 15th at 9:01 pm

    Thanks looking forward to using and learning the new features🌻🌻

    Liked by 8 people

  6. Trevor Mar 15th at 9:36 pm

    Desperately holding on by the fingernails hoping you’ll keep the ‘proper’ classic editor going as an option indefinitely!

    Liked by 14 people

  7. Andrea R Huelsenbeck Mar 15th at 10:40 pm

    I wish you guys would stop fixing stuff that isn’t broken.
    I really miss the old way, especially that when I was scheduling a post, I used to be able to see what was scheduled or posted on each day just by hovering the cursor over the calendar. Good times. Sigh.

    Liked by 8 people

    • Caroline Moore Mar 17th at 3:06 pm

      Thanks for your feedback! I will pass it along. I know seeing scheduled posts in the calendar is on development’s radar. 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Calmgrove Mar 17th at 6:57 pm

      I second Andrea’s comment here, hoping you’ll continue to retain the Classic Editor for those who spent years working out how to use it and find it perfectly acceptable for their needs. I don’t require an all-singing, all-dancing editor for book reviewing as it’s all about the written word (and the occasional image, of course).

      Also, I need to put a word in for those bloggers who, like me, are on the autism spectrum and whose autism takes the form of appreciating relatively little (or very slow) change in tried and tested operatuons. If WordPress decide to dispense with the Classic format forever I’m afraid that it will be a very painful experience for me and others I know in the same position.

      Liked by 11 people

  8. John Haywood Mar 15th at 11:44 pm

    Love the block editor and look forward to trying out some of these new features!

    Liked by 7 people

  9. Girl in Niagara Mar 16th at 2:42 am

    A lot of great improvements. How exciting! 🥂

    Liked by 8 people

  10. Paul Chijioke Mar 16th at 3:11 am

    Thanks for sharing this awesome update

    Liked by 6 people

  11. Joni Mar 16th at 4:20 am

    I do not see any such toolbar for editing photos in my WordPress blocks? Just the old regular toolbar?

    Liked by 7 people

  12. JenT Mar 16th at 10:51 am

    Loving all these improvements! I do have a quick question: When you use the onsite image editing tool, are both the original image and the edited version counted in one’s storage limit? Thanks.

    Liked by 7 people

  13. Emmanuel Enifu, Snr Mar 16th at 12:16 pm

    Amazing..thank you so much for sharing! Guess a newbee like myself have such a selfless blog to like as yours. I’ll stick around for more updates.
    Much love from this side.

    Liked by 8 people

  14. -Eugenia Mar 16th at 1:30 pm

    This is an awesome step forward!

    Liked by 8 people

  15. shadowdragon9 Mar 16th at 1:50 pm

    Wow I will make sure I check it out!

    Liked by 7 people

  16. Hugh W. Roberts Mar 16th at 2:58 pm

    It’s great to see these improvements. I especially like the new Pages block.

    Liked by 8 people

  17. CVPhased Mar 17th at 5:15 am

    Is it possible to port the improvements in the Social Icons block to the Sharing Settings in wpadmin (i.e. the sharing buttons that automatically appear at the bottom of every post)?

    Liked by 5 people

  18. Arnab Roy Chowdhury Mar 17th at 6:04 am

    I found WordPress editor doesn’t have good support for Markdown. When everyone is giving good Markdown support (like Stackoverflow and Bithub) then not having this in WordPress editor is a negative point.

    Liked by 5 people

  19. Bren Ryan (Brashley Photography) Mar 17th at 9:30 am

    The feature I’d love is to be able to use reuseable blocks using the WordPress app.

    Liked by 6 people

  20. Adrian Lewis Mar 17th at 11:23 am

    I agree with Trevor, the Classic Editor is so simple and works so well, please just keep it! Several bloggers I’m in contact with are very ambivalent about the Block Editor.

    Liked by 14 people

  21. 9jalahot Mar 17th at 12:14 pm

    Somebody should help me please, am having a serious issues logging in to my wp-admin because my security certificate expired, and I have been trying to login so that I can get to the issue but to no avail. I even tried resetting my password but email is not sending.

    Liked by 7 people

  22. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System Mar 17th at 5:01 pm

    Seems like a lot of functions are not working, like the tool bar with Tags, Categories; when posting that whole block does not show up. Bring back the Classic Editor which is 10 times quicker than the new Block Editor when it works!!

    Liked by 10 people

  23. Patrice Mar 17th at 6:59 pm

    So, I used to be able to insert an image into a post, click on the pencil icon and go to the page where I could change the Alt copy, change the size, add type to be read when hovered over, plus a link to the image or anywhere I wished.
    No more.
    Now all I can do is crop and link. If these still exist, please tell me where!!!!

    Liked by 7 people

  24. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System Mar 19th at 6:16 pm

    Thanks! I’ve worked it out. Was confusing because I have over 6,000 categories & it took time to load.

    Liked by 9 people

  25. HolyTamari Mar 20th at 1:36 am

    I still love my classic editor. Don’t get rid off that yet.

    Liked by 16 people

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