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WordPress 7.1 Iteration: Media Editor Modal task tracking #73771
Description
Add a Gutenberg-powered media editor that's intended to eventually replace cropping tools and the core media editor screen with a more modern and extensible interface.
The first stage (now in trunk) is to replace the inline cropping tool used by the Image block with a full media editor modal.
When complete, we'll be able to close out these issues:
Also, to keep in mind: ensuring that the media features are extensible, especially via the AI plugin:
Current state:
Scope
PRs (to help us keep track)
- Image Cropper: add package and basic stories #72414
- Implements the image-cropper package in the editor. #73277
- Media Library: Add DataViews/Forms fields specific to media/attachments #72612
- Media Editor Modal: Add a media editor modal experiment #77480
- Media Editor experiment: add experimental image editor and cropper #77479
- Media Editor Modal: render cropper in canvas for images #77537
- Media Editor: add cropper controls to the media editor modal #77540
- Experimental Image Cropper: Ensure focus is on canvas when dragging #77591
- Experimental Image Cropper: Tweak the keyboard interactions with drag handles and canvas #77639
- Site Logo Block: Enable the media editor modal experiment for the crop button #77548
- Image editor: hold Shift while resizing to lock current aspect ratio #77663
- Image editor: fix locked-ratio resize driver-axis on non-square images #77664
- Image Editor experiment: Pass theme aspect ratios to media editor #77665
- Media Editor Modal: save via Core's /edit modifiers #77641
- Media editor: avoid double-mount flicker on open #77732
- Media Editor Modal: surface save failures as scoped snackbar notices #77733
- Media Editor Modal: Try adding undo/redo for the image cropper #77782
- Media editor modal: expand keyboard shortcuts and add interaction helpers #77871
- Media editor modal: add Shift+R for counter-clockwise rotation #77898
- Media Editor Modal: In the image cropper, pan when dragging the crop instead of constraining to the visible area #77899
- Media editor: replace fine-rotation slider with RotationRuler #77906
- Media Editor Modal: Add focus border styles to the stencil rect when the canvas is keyboard focused #78078
- Image block: Try syncing updated metadata fields (alt and caption) from the media editor #78139
- Media Editor Modal: Fix empty author and attached to fields #78189
- Media Editor Modal: Add custom datetime view for the sidebar to ensure minimal display of dates #78265
- Media editor: show live crop dimensions during gesture #78221
- Media Editor: Scope keyboard shortcuts to the modal #78322
- Media Editor: Harden cropper math layer against non-finite inputs #78321
- Media Editor: Enforce a minimum crop size in the image editor #78268
- Media Editor: Make zoom floor coverage-aware instead of fixed at 1x #78222
- Media Editor: Anchor cursorless zoom (slider/keyboard) at crop center #78385
- Media: Add undo snackbar for media editor image edits #78425
- Media Editor Modal: Fix unexpected tab stop on date fields in the Details sidebar #78454
- Media Editor Experiments: Tidy up by removing old pathways to the media editor experiment #78489
- Refactor media editor crop state into composite reducer #78480
- Media Editor Modal: Tighten labels for crop handles toggle #78703
- Media Editor: make the modal the default crop experience #78653
- Media Editor Modal: Update the rotation ruler to use a vertical line marker #78704
- Image Editor: focus return after closing image crop modal #78711
- Media Editor Modal: Try placing the save and cancel buttons in the footer #78708
- Media Editor: remove inline cropper (follow-up to #78653) #78654
- Image cropper: round zoom control values and display as percentages #78757
- Media Editor: Remove resize handles toggle from crop panel #78758
- Media Editor: Magnify the crop to fill the canvas #79044
- Media editor: Snap crop handles to source pixels #79139
- Media Editor Modal: Reorder details fields so the editable regular layout fields appear at the top #78792
- Media editor: address accessibility review feedback #79966
Feedback to explore
- Should we hide the fine-grained rotation behind a toggle button?
- Try moving some (or all) of the transform controls above the image being edited (needs design)
- Where do we put the Keyboard modal toggle button?
Done
Tasks that have been completed (kept for posterity)
- Fix loading of the "Attached to" entity
- Polish "Details" fields:
- The "Date added" field can unexpectedly wrap on datetime strings like
May 12, 2026 6:44 am - If the post hasn't yet been saved, the Attached to field says "Auto Draft" (that's consistent with core behaviour)
- If the post doesn't have a title, the Attached to field displays the id number of the post (fixed to display
(no title)for consistency with core)
- The "Date added" field can unexpectedly wrap on datetime strings like
- Update the previous "Media Editor" experiment if/when this experiment feels solid
- This experiment feels solid, so re-purpose the existing experiment to the route based approach, and ensure they share common components and logic: Media Editor Experiment: Add a route, based on the media editor modal, refactor the modal components #77994
- Tidy up unused areas that reference the old experiment
- Try out a zoom area component that controls the zoom of the camera/world without adjusting the crop area. Similarly, to allow panning the camera/world separately from moving the crop area. Essentially allowing a way to browse the area a bit like we might in Figma/Photoshop/Affinity. (Explored, but scaled it back to adding auto-pan behaviour for now)
- Or, alternately, at least make it easier for folks to expand the current crop area beyond the current level of zoom (without this, it's easy to feel stuck and unable to expand a small crop area back to a larger size)
- Add undo/redo behaviour
- Add basic undo/redo for the cropper itself
- Wire up controls that live outside of the cropper and include them in undo/redo stacks (e.g. aspect ratio select, freeform crop toggle)
- Should save and cancel should be in the bottom right?
- Prevent undo/redo in the middle of a gesture. Attempt 1. Attempt 2.
- If a user updates Caption and Alt Text but has never entered those details manually in the image block, then updating them in the cropping tool should propagate it into the Image block
To-do
- Media Editor: Add bounded advanced crop controls #78187
- Media editor: Show image and crop info in Crop panel #78650
- Make image editor extensible - Media editor modal: state management for media editor extensions #79175
- Media editor: restore original image in modal #77781
- WIP - Add circle crop mask support #79393
- Properly support rich text editing of caption and description fields
- collaborative editing - should we add collab icons to header if 2++ users are editing the same image?
- Move the modal's tabs from the private Tabs in @wordpress/components to Tabs in @wordpress/ui (the recommended component per the use-recommended-components rule). Follow up to Media Editor: refactor modal layout #78896 This may be not a drop-in swap: the tablist renders in the ComplementaryArea header and the panels in its body, bridged by hand through the legacy Tabs.Context across a Slot/Fill boundary. The @wordpress/ui Tabs (built on Base UI) does not expose its context, so this needs the sidebar restructured under a single Tabs.Root, or cross-subtree state support added to @wordpress/ui.
Activity
andrewserong commentedon Jan 16, 2026
Update:
eric-michel commentedon Feb 1, 2026
I'm not sure if this is an appropriate place to request any new features for media editing, but adding a media-level focal point selector (similar to the cover block) that gives a media item a global level focal point (which could be overridden in an individual cover block) would be incredibly helpful. Having this focal point output in some way via
wp_get_attachment_imagewould also be critical.We currently use custom fields to select images on a regular basis (in ACF, for instance) and often will use
object-fit: coverin whatever custom implementation we're doing at the time. Having the ability to add a focal point natively would enhance what we can do a lot.We're currently using this excellent plugin, but this really feels like a core feature that should exist anytime an image is set to
object-fit: coveror set as a background image.[-]Media Editor in WordPress 7.0[/-][+]Media Editor in WordPress 7.1[/+]andrewserong commentedon Feb 2, 2026
Update: while work is progressing pretty well on the media editor (see tracking issue and latest WIP PR exploring cropping tools), there are still quite a few features left to implement and not much time before the 7.0 feature freeze (beta 1). Due to the complexity of tasks remaining, I'm going to punt this to WP 7.1 to allow more time to explore key features like extensibility, and to give more time for adequate rounds of testing and iteration before proposing introducing in core.
I intend to keep working on this, but it will be a little bit on the back-burner over the next couple of weeks as I help out with higher priority 7.0 tasks for this release. I've updated the issue description.
Thanks for raising it @eric-michel! If you're keen to see that feature as part of a new media editor / media library, a fresh issue would be a good place to suggest it, as that way folks can dig into implementation details a bit better than on tracking / iteration issues like this one.
At first glance that sounds like a really useful feature! For my part, my main focus on these kinds of media tasks (both the media editor and media library modal) is to attempt to build a DataViews/DataForms-powered representation of the media library that seeks to have parity with the existing media library in core. So the first goal will be to build out what currently works, and then we'd be able to explore adding additional features (including setting a media-level focal point, etc) once we've got feature parity in place.
eric-michel commentedon Feb 3, 2026
Got it! Thanks @andrewserong! I'll make a new issue.
[-]Media Editor in WordPress 7.1[/-][+]Media Editor task tracking[/+]andrewserong commentedon Apr 2, 2026
Update: with folks beginning to make plans for WordPress 7.1 I've removed
7.1from the title of this tracking issue. Speaking for myself, I'm intending to focus more on helping out with the client-side media processing work (primarily with reviews) alongside some of the work recently flagged in:As such, I think we should drop aiming to get this feature in for any particular WP release at this stage, and instead chip away at it on the side. (It's still a feature I'd love to see land, but personally I'll likely only have time to chip away at it on the side)
51 remaining items
ramonjd commentedon Jul 1, 2026
Let's hold off on this until we clarify extensibility points, which is a sizeable and important feature. Accessible/advanced controls mentioned above is another one.
7.2 or beyond is a reasonable target to build on a stable base.
We'll also get instructive feedback during Beta (coming very soon), which we can factor in.
joedolson commentedon Jul 7, 2026
Accessibility issues in the editor:
inert; it is currently marked asaria-hidden, which leaves it keyboard accessible.alt textfield in the Details panel should have the same alternative text information context found in all other media contexts.Overall, the screen reader feedback and experience is fairly good.
ramonjd commentedon Jul 7, 2026
Thanks for testing @joedolson
I can get a PR up to address your points soon. Appreciate the feedback.
ramonjd commentedon Jul 7, 2026
This is looking like a broader components change. From what I can see, the
modalize()helper that handles this lives in@wordpress/componentsModal, and is shared by every modal. I reckon that's better for a separate PR.ramonjd commentedon Jul 7, 2026
I'm not confident this is right, but threw it up anyway
[-]Media Editor Modal task tracking[/-][+]WordPress 7.1 Iteration: Media Editor Modal task tracking[/+]ramonjd commentedon Jul 17, 2026
Heads up: this issue will be closed after 7.1 ships.
Planning next steps to be done over in:
t-hamano commentedon Aug 12, 2026
Since the 7.1 release is next week, can we close this issue and create a tracking issue for 7.2 if needed?
andrewserong commentedon Aug 12, 2026
Yep! The 7.2 tracking issue is already up over in #80389 so let's close this out now.