Gutenberg: Can't cut/paste partial selection across multiple paragraphs
Perhaps this has already been reported but I couldn't find a ticket so creating a new one.
- Create a new post and add 3-4 paragraphs
- Try to select 2+1/2 paragraphs
- Cut them
- Paste them somewhere else.
The fact that G. treats paragraphs as blocks adds a lot of complexity to a simple task and unfortunately that leads to unexpected results. Sometimes not all text is properly deleted/cut, sometimes content is not pasted exactly where it should, other times it gets deleted correctly, pasted on the right place, but content still gets messed-up, empty blocks get left behind etc.
The behavior doesn't seem to be consistent on my end.
OSX (10.13.6), Chrome 68, Gutenberg 3.3.0
aristath
All 6 comments
I don't know when this changed, but right now it's not even possible to select 2陆 paragraphs.
If you try to select 2陆 paragraphs of text, 3 blocks get selected, making it harder to do tasks that are ridiculously easy in any other editor.
aristath
on 31 Aug 2018
Tested and confirmed this is an issue.
brandonpayton
on 26 Sep 2018
@aristath @brandonpayton How do I reproduce? It's never been possible to select two and a half blocks.
ellatrix
on 27 Nov 2018
Yes, this is a design decision made a long time ago. There were tradeoffs in both approaches we had to take and this is the tradeoff of having multiple content editables. I'm closing this as won't fix.
Would be good to find the context of these discussions and link here though.
youknowriad
on 27 Nov 2018
@aristath @brandonpayton How do I reproduce? It's never been possible to select two and a half blocks.
And how is that not a problem? Gutenberg may not be able to do it, but the classic editor and any other editor out there can select multiple paragraphs or parts of paragraphs etc. Doesn't removing something that people have been able to do (and are used to doing) for decades make this a clear regression?
Gutenberg is supposed to be an editing experience better than the previous one.
Editing a blog-post means that we write text, then edit it, and that means - among other things - moving things around.
In any editor I can do simple things like copy-pasting, cut-pasting, selecting the text I want etc. In Gutenberg that is not possible. If I want to efficiently edit a post, I basically have to write and edit the whole thing in a classic block, then once finished convert to blocks. And once that happens, I can no longer efficiently edit things like any other editor can.
A paragraph is part of my content, it is not a separate entity. Someone that writes posts all day doesn't think of paragraphs as "blocks", they are simply part of the text they are writing.
There are workarounds to this (using Shift+Enter instead of just enter), but Gutenberg is a content-creation and editing tool. As content-creators we really shouldn't have to resort to hacky solutions and mentalities just to make things work the way any other editor - both online and offline - works.
aristath
on 27 Nov 2018
Just noting I see complaints about this and I personally find it frustrating still. If I'm using WordPress to write, sometimes I'll want to cut and paste sections here or there, but I can't do it without selecting entire blocks.
This is not a normal editing experience.
The fix seems to be to use something else for writing, then paste into WordPress for formatting. I don't think that's our intention.
supernovia
on 18 Sep 2020
Related issues
mapk
路
84Comments
mtias
路
83Comments
jasmussen
路
173Comments
mapk
路
80Comments
DeveloperWil
路
102Comments
Most helpful comment
And how is that not a problem? Gutenberg may not be able to do it, but the classic editor and any other editor out there can select multiple paragraphs or parts of paragraphs etc. Doesn't removing something that people have been able to do (and are used to doing) for decades make this a clear regression?
Gutenberg is supposed to be an editing experience better than the previous one.
Editing a blog-post means that we write text, then edit it, and that means - among other things - moving things around.
In any editor I can do simple things like copy-pasting, cut-pasting, selecting the text I want etc. In Gutenberg that is not possible. If I want to efficiently edit a post, I basically have to write and edit the whole thing in a classic block, then once finished convert to blocks. And once that happens, I can no longer efficiently edit things like any other editor can.
A paragraph is part of my content, it is not a separate entity. Someone that writes posts all day doesn't think of paragraphs as "blocks", they are simply part of the text they are writing.
There are workarounds to this (using Shift+Enter instead of just enter), but Gutenberg is a content-creation and editing tool. As content-creators we really shouldn't have to resort to hacky solutions and mentalities just to make things work the way any other editor - both online and offline - works.