What’s New in the Editor: More Design Tools, Enhanced Lists, Easier Block Switching

More design tools for dozens of blocks. More control over lists with our improved List Block. Easier block-switching.

September 29, 2022

Jeremy Anderberg

Ever since the block editor was introduced in 2018, we’ve been pushing it to do more — and our latest crop of improvements will help you build posts and pages on your site with confidence, no matter what you publish:

  • More design tools for dozens of blocks
  • More control over lists with our improved List Block
  • Easier block-switching

Let’s take a closer look at each.

More Design Tools for Dozens of Blocks

We’ve added a variety of design tools to dozens of blocks. Depending on the block, you’ll now see typography, color, border, spacing, and layout options. 

To play around with these new design tools, select the block you want to work with and use the right-hand sidebar to access these sections. 

You’ll see a few controls right away, but with just a couple clicks you can go even deeper. Select the three dots on the upper right of each section to find even more options, or hit the red chain link button to allow control over borders and/or padding for each side or corner individually. 


Without a doubt, one of the most fun additions is having more border options on Image Blocks:

More Control Over Lists 

Our improved List Block means that lists are easier to manage from the toolbar. Every item and hierarchy in your list can now be manipulated as its own block. Rearranging, grouping, and nesting items has never been easier: 

Easier Block-Switching

The block transforms menu offers a quick shortcut to switch to a different block, depending on your content. As the number of blocks has grown and you’ve started using this menu more and more, it’s been made more useful by changing the organization of what’s displayed at the top. For blocks that support paragraph, heading, list, and quote transformations — which are, by far, the most used changes — we’ve now emphasized those blocks: 

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

The block editor is always growing and improving as a result of your feedback, so thank you — we can’t wait to show you what we’re building next. In the meantime, we’ll continue working hard behind the scenes, with more updates to come! Have ideas for how to improve the editor? Let us know in the comments. 

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33 Comments

Comments are closed.

  1. JanBeek Sep 29th at 9:17 pm

    Thank you for continuing to improve our WP experience!

    Liked by 13 people

  2. ashok shenolikar Sep 29th at 9:26 pm

    All this sounds good but also intimidating. I have to play around with it to grasp everything. Good job though.

    Liked by 9 people

  3. Molly Martin Sep 29th at 9:53 pm

    Before the intro of block editor I liked using WordPress but since then I hate it. Never have been able to figure it out. I am a writer not a designer. I want designing a page to be easy and fun. I used to edit a magazine and I know it can be fun. I really don’t want to spend my time watching tutorials about how to learn it. Just my two cents.

    >

    Liked by 13 people

  4. Shahbaz Ashraf Sep 30th at 3:18 am

    Good additions in the Editor, and will definitely help improve the layout of each blog post. Keep up the good work.

    Liked by 6 people

  5. labarancfg Sep 30th at 8:26 am

    Beautiful

    Liked by 5 people

  6. isharyanto Sep 30th at 12:36 pm

    I like it

    Liked by 5 people

  7. Hugh W. Roberts Sep 30th at 1:46 pm

    Great to see you making more improvements to the Block Editor. It’s certainly helped me to become a better blogger. My blog posts look a million times better than when I used to use the Classic editor.
    I’m looking forward to seeing what else you have planned.

    One suggestion – when clicking on the add a block symbol on the drafts page, is it possible to see the blocks I use the most first, instead of having to search for them?

    Liked by 9 people

    • JenT Oct 2nd at 1:26 pm

      Yes, you can! When you’re in the Editor, click the ellipsis at the top right and then click on Preferences at the bottom of that sidebar, then Blocks. At the top of that window you’ll see a toggle button to show most-used blocks. That will float those blocks to the top of the Blocks sidebar and the pop-up window that appears when you click the Plus sign in the Editor workspace. 🙂

      Liked by 8 people

      • Hugh W. Roberts Oct 3rd at 8:31 am

        Thanks so much, Jen. That is so helpful. I’m going to write and publish a post about it as I think many of my readers would like to know this. I’ll credit you with the information.

        Liked by 4 people

  8. Eugenia Sep 30th at 1:59 pm

    Nice editions to the editor.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. orthodoxmom3 Sep 30th at 9:45 pm

    I need to explore more. I stopped blogging about the time this block system came out and now I’m back and it’s all new to me. A bit confusing. I need to find some good basic tutorials.

    Liked by 3 people

  10. jaimehaneyartist Oct 1st at 1:06 am

    I have my website set up on a staging site while I try to figure out how to switch from Divi to the Block Editor. I know enough to be dangerous. I have a few questions. Do I need Gutenberg to use the block editor? Do I even need a theme? Is Gutenberg a theme? I look forward to being able to use these new features and get away from Divi. Thanks for any advice.

    Liked by 3 people

  11. Manoj Mehra Oct 1st at 8:30 am

    Add a poll/survey block also in WordPress.

    Liked by 3 people

  12. Zube Writes Oct 2nd at 7:25 am

    Please make WordPress easy to use in other languages ​​too. Like Urdu language

    Liked by 3 people

  13. CSNA Media Oct 2nd at 8:10 am

    Thanks for the update

    Liked by 3 people

  14. Phil Oct 2nd at 1:00 pm

    Wonderful work, thanks WordPress!

    As for suggestions, I’d LOVE to see such granular controls added for Single post display of Featured Images. Rather than force images to abide by wide column widths (which, on desktops and laptops, scales the display of vertical Featured Images in Single post views way too much), it seems reasonable to assume that the Single post display could be adjusted downward, to a size less than the column width parameter. That would be a welcome improvement, IMO. Thanks again!

    Liked by 3 people

  15. hercial17 Oct 3rd at 10:26 pm

    What was added was simple and enjoyable

    Liked by 3 people

  16. eduyoung86081 Oct 4th at 10:08 am

    Very good I love it

    Liked by 4 people

  17. ismaelmoussa Oct 5th at 12:31 pm

    Great work

    Liked by 3 people

  18. CONFIDENCE + FAITH Oct 5th at 3:03 pm

    Awesome!

    Liked by 4 people

  19. Awwii Media web Oct 6th at 10:45 am

    Awesome 👍

    Liked by 3 people

  20. Tony Oct 7th at 4:49 pm

    A nice feature would be to be able to place an image anywhere within a text/paragraph block and have the text wrap around it. eg place the image in the centre, left-hand side of the block and have the text at the top, the right-hand side and beneath the image. Currently, the image is placed at the top of the block and it doesn’t always look appropriate.

    Liked by 3 people

  21. ghanamoneyonline Oct 8th at 5:22 pm

    This new experience will change the way we use WordPress

    Liked by 3 people

  22. Jonathan Morris Oct 15th at 5:01 am

    I can’t get the border options on Image Blocks to show? I am on Version 6.02,

    Liked by 3 people

  23. torri12345 Oct 19th at 3:31 pm

    This site is great

    Liked by 2 people

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