What’s New in WordPress Version 5.4 – Block Editor (part 1)

Video Transcript

In this class, the second of the three classes covering the new WordPress version 5.4 I’m going to cover the changes and additions to the block editor and this refers to both the post editor and the pages editors since they’re exactly the same.

So let’s head on over to a post that I’ve created just for this class. It’s this one right here and the first thing you’re going to notice is the missing sidebar over here on the left. Now this is pretty much a change, not an addition because we’ve always had the ability to remove this sidebar is called distraction free mode or full screen mode. Also, we’ve got the top toolbar mode up here, both of which are now set as the default setting that’s come on over here to the more tools and options, three vertical dots section in the top right corner of our toolbar and I’ll show you see the top toolbar and the full screen mode.

These have been here in prior versions of WordPress dealing with the block editor, but only now in version 5.4 have they been toggled on as the default setting? Not to worry. If you would rather have your admin sidebar back. Just untick that and there it is. Personally, I’d rather have the sidebar so I’m going to leave mine off. Same with the top toolbar.

I prefer to have that in place and what we’re talking about here are the block toolbars. For example, if I click on the paragraph block here, this toolbar is usually found above the block itself. Let’s turn that off and I’ll show you for me though that just kind of clutters up the work area here and in some cases even gets in the way. So I prefer to have my toolbar for all the blocks in one place right up here at the very top.

Speaking of top, in addition to our block editor in version 5.4 is this new select tool. This pencil icon appear in the toolbar. If we click on that, you can see we’ve got two options, the edit and the select, they can toggle between the two and with the select tool active, it highlights the block that you were most recently working in. That’s pretty much it for the new stuff. Related to the toolbar. Let’s come on over here to the right sidebar. Under documents here we’re talking about a change and that is the featured image has changed from being able to just add images by clicking in here and navigating to the media library and selecting your image to now being able to do that and dragging an image from your desktop into this box. Whereas in the prior version of WordPress, you could only click here and go to the media library.

You could not drag and drop here, so that’s a big change. Let’s come on back here and unless you’ve turned it off, whenever you first open up a block editor, you’ll have what’s called the tip model. There’s a little box that pops up here giving you a scrolling list of tips related to the block editor. I’ve always turned mine off, but that’s been replaced with what’s called the welcome guide. Let me show you what I’m talking about and on back over to the top right corner of our toolbar under more tools and options and down here in the tool section, we’ve got the welcome guide.

Click on that and that displays a broad overview of the things taking place here in the block editor. And on the very last item there’s a link for what’s called the detailed guide. So if you want, go ahead and check that out.

I’m going to close that up. And another change slash addition is the breadcrumb down here in the lower left corner of our editor window. This used to be available on each particular block and not so much a breadcrumb as a definition of what that block is. See here we’ve got the title, you’ve got the title, well in the prior version as we hover over the block you can see this as a paragraph. This is a button, this is an image.

Now they’ve just titled the block here, but showing in the breadcrumb section down here in the lower left corner where you’re at, what block you’re working in. And if you’re in a nested block, like a group lock, say it’ll tell you what block within that block you’re working in right down here. And lastly, the add new block tool has moved to the right side instead of the left side.

If it come on back here to the old version, you can see here we’ve got the add new block circled plus sign here on the left of the empty block. And we also had the previously used locks icons here on the right. Well these had been removed all together and the circle plus sign has been moved to the right.
Here we have the add new block tool on the right, not the left, and there’s no previously used block icon charity longer. And speaking of new blocks, that’s where we’re going to begin things in our next class on the changes and additions to the blocks in WordPress 5.4 but for now that’s going to bring us to the end of this class on what’s new in WordPress. 5.4 thanks for checking it out and you have a great day.