Block Editor Paper Cuts 📄🩸 #81453

Continuation of #63255. All items ticked here are for the 7.2 cycle.

Big tasks

• Appenders & Inserters
  • Rethink how container blocks express emptiness: template, appender, placeholder #81239
  • Standardize the block appender #65643
  • Gallery Block: Difficult to "Add image" when existing image is selected #47200
• Mobile/iOS
  • Can’t select multiple blocks at a time on iOS #16206
    • Dragging a selection handle into the post title makes later taps jump back to the title 🚧
    • A field that stops being locked while the canvas is editable loses focus
    • The iOS end-to-end test's double tap sometimes selects no word
  • iOS Safari: keyboard doesn't start capitalised (uppercase) #63261
    • Return that ends a list or quote leaves the iOS keyboard lowercase 🚧
    • Add an iOS test for the keyboard capitalization 🚧
  • How do you “press” Enter when an image is selected and the keyboard is hidden? Worst when it’s the last block.
  • iOS Safari: block toolbar isn't viewable consistently on text selection #82308
• Writing flow: merge partial text selections across nesting boundaries instead of deleting the whole block #80489 🚧 🚧
• Drag and drop: continuation of Block editor: try direct drag (outside text editable) #67305
  • Drag and Drop: allow dragging image/full text/multi selection directly #63267
  • click-and-hold highlighted text to reposition it #3339
• Multiple blocks: Keep all text formatting icons #27221

Features and enhancements

• Writing flow: select next block on Enter key #63484
• List
  • Tab trap escape hatch: leave/enter the canvas with Escape/Enter #82314
  • List: indent and outdent multi-selected items with Tab #82411
  • List: indent and outdent a fully selected list item with Tab #82460
• Multi-Selection
  • Number of blocks selected (when using container blocks) is inaccurate or misleading #56068
• Format library: visualise non-breaking spaces #74040

Bugs

Selection and caret

• Writing flow: arrow keys no longer select ancestors #76568
• Safari: shift+click from one list item to another does not extend the selection #80661 🚧
• Writing Flow: Shift + down-arrow key to select across spacer block selects one too many blocks #53674 🚧
• Partial multi selection: undo should restore selection in correct place #39456
• Forward delete from empty block selects previous block #64235
• Firefox: Pressing Up arrow takes you two lines up, if cursor is at beginning of second line of paragraph #34215
• Some Mac keyboard shortcuts work unexpectedly across blocks #9880
• Lost nuance of hit detection between blocks #28682 🚧
• Page jumps away when trying to edit an anchor link if you only enter # #72505
• [Writing Flow regression in 7.1] Down arrow key navigation fails to auto-scroll viewport when post title is visible #82839 🚧
• List: in useMerge, consider preventing propagation of Tab/Shift-Tab keypress even if unable to indent/outdent #82184

Merge and split

• Writing flow: Pressing delete in an empty heading block should delete the heading block #78767
• Writing Flow: Pressing Delete from post title should delete from first block #73315 🚧
• Backspace key moves default block into Group block instead of deleting the default block #65850
• Details block is not reliably deleted via Backspace/Delete when selected as a block (works via toolbar "Remove" and multi-select delete) #79869
• List: deleting sub items requires deleting twice #40979
• List block with anchor re-appears when deleted with backspace #76965 (empty container with an anchor survives deletion; the attribute variant of List: deleting sub items requires deleting twice #40979)
• List: Merge into the previous line on Backspace instead of outdenting #82145

Paste, transforms and conversions

• Raw Handling: Paste from MS Excel no longer creates a table block #42570 🚧
• List block: preserve original markup when copy/paste for nested UL/LI structures #26713 🚧
• Demo content: paste not working properly after selecting all blocks #22339 (copy side only; legacy markup paste remains)
• Raw Handling: unexpected results when pasting table with list from Google Docs #45774 🚧
• Raw handling: Pasting from Google Doc doesn't recognize Markdown formatted code #32917 🚧
• Pasting an image onto the Media + Text block is broken #56062 🚧
• Copy/paste images, wrong order #73092
• Paste: replace non-breaking spaces at the edges of text with regular spaces #83464
• Copying the block when its entire text is selected can prevent the text from being copied #84362 🚧
• Audit block transforms #63635
  • Columns: Transform to Group does not transform, but group #52857

Drag and drop

• No drop indicator appears when dragging a file into an empty post or block list #44064
• Cannot drag and scroll with the touchpad/scrollwheel #23491
• Automatic scrolling while dragging is not intuitive #24770
• While moving a block: Show border and block name of hovered blocks #24750

UI

• Can't use arrow down to move to end of link input.
• Popover may go offscreen on small screens.
• Scroll gets stuck when cursor is over the in-between block inserter (possible regression of #63260) #80712 🚧
• Inline inserter: Can't insert into top position #27540
• Block editor: placeholders: try admin shadow #33494 🚧
• Writing flow: update prompt to clarify you can just start writing #81880
• Hard(er) to select inline image in rich text #72949
• Image Block: Right-click context menu is unavailable #70425

Math

• Math block encodes content incorrectly for users without unfiltered_html #77787
• Math component Problem with matrix #80732