block-controls-toolbar-and-sidebar.md

Block Controls: Block Toolbar and Settings Sidebar

To simplify block customization and ensure a consistent experience for users, there are a number of built-in UI patterns to help generate the editor preview. Like with the RichText component covered in the previous chapter, the wp.editor global includes a few other common components to render editing interfaces. In this chapter, we'll explore toolbars and the block inspector.

Block Toolbar

When the user selects a block, a number of control buttons may be shown in a toolbar above the selected block. Some of these block-level controls are included automatically if the editor is able to transform the block to another type, or if the focused element is a RichText component.

You can also customize the toolbar to include controls specific to your block type. If the return value of your block type's edit function includes a BlockControls element, those controls will be shown in the selected block's toolbar.

{% codetabs %} {% ESNext %}

import { registerBlockType } from '@wordpress/blocks';

import {
	RichText,
	AlignmentToolbar,
	BlockControls,
} from '@wordpress/block-editor';

registerBlockType( 'gutenberg-examples/example-04-controls-esnext', {
	title: 'Example: Controls (esnext)',
	icon: 'universal-access-alt',
	category: 'design',
	attributes: {
		content: {
			type: 'array',
			source: 'children',
			selector: 'p',
		},
		alignment: {
			type: 'string',
			default: 'none',
		},
	},
	example: {
		attributes: {
			content: 'Hello World',
			alignment: 'right',
		},
	},
	edit: ( props ) => {
		const {
			attributes: {
				content,
				alignment,
			},
			className,
		} = props;

		const onChangeContent = ( newContent ) => {
			props.setAttributes( { content: newContent } );
		};

		const onChangeAlignment = ( newAlignment ) => {
			props.setAttributes( { alignment: newAlignment === undefined ? 'none' : newAlignment } );
		};

		return (
			<div>
				{
					<BlockControls>
						<AlignmentToolbar
							value={ alignment }
							onChange={ onChangeAlignment }
						/>
					</BlockControls>
				}
				<RichText
					className={ className }
					style={ { textAlign: alignment } }
					tagName="p"
					onChange={ onChangeContent }
					value={ content }
				/>
			</div>
		);
	},
	save: ( props ) => {
		return (
			<RichText.Content
				className={ `gutenberg-examples-align-${ props.attributes.alignment }` }
				tagName="p"
				value={ props.attributes.content }
			/>
		);
	},
} );

{% ES5 %}

( function( blocks, editor, element ) {
	var el = element.createElement;
	var RichText = editor.RichText;
	var AlignmentToolbar = editor.AlignmentToolbar;
	var BlockControls = editor.BlockControls;

	blocks.registerBlockType( 'gutenberg-examples/example-04-controls', {
		title: 'Example: Controls',
		icon: 'universal-access-alt',
		category: 'design',

		attributes: {
			content: {
				type: 'array',
				source: 'children',
				selector: 'p',
			},
			alignment: {
				type: 'string',
				default: 'none',
			},
		},
		example: {
			attributes: {
				content: 'Hello World',
				alignment: 'right',
			},
		},
		edit: function( props ) {
			var content = props.attributes.content;
			var alignment = props.attributes.alignment;

			function onChangeContent( newContent ) {
				props.setAttributes( { content: newContent } );
			}

			function onChangeAlignment( newAlignment ) {
				props.setAttributes( { alignment: newAlignment === undefined ? 'none' : newAlignment } );
			}

			return [
				el(
					BlockControls,
					{ key: 'controls' },
					el(
						AlignmentToolbar,
						{
							value: alignment,
							onChange: onChangeAlignment,
						}
					)
				),
				el(
					RichText,
					{
						key: 'richtext',
						tagName: 'p',
						style: { textAlign: alignment },
						className: props.className,
						onChange: onChangeContent,
						value: content,
					}
				),
			];
		},

		save: function( props ) {
			return el( RichText.Content, {
				tagName: 'p',
				className: 'gutenberg-examples-align-' + props.attributes.alignment,
				value: props.attributes.content,
			} );
		},
	} );
}(
	window.wp.blocks,
	window.wp.editor,
	window.wp.element
) );

{% end %}

Note that BlockControls is only visible when the block is currently selected and in visual editing mode. BlockControls are not shown when editing a block in HTML editing mode.

Inspector

The Settings Sidebar is used to display less-often-used settings or settings that require more screen space. The Settings Sidebar should be used for block-level settings only.

If you have settings that affects only selected content inside a block (example: the "bold" setting for selected text inside a paragraph): do not place it inside the Settings Sidebar. The Settings Sidebar is displayed even when editing a block in HTML mode, so it should only contain block-level settings.

The Block Tab is shown in place of the Document Tab when a block is selected.

Similar to rendering a toolbar, if you include an InspectorControls element in the return value of your block type's edit function, those controls will be shown in the Settings Sidebar region.

Block controls rendered in both the toolbar and sidebar will also be used when multiple blocks of the same type are selected.