DEPRECATED
On our 2 main projects that used to depend on gutenberg-js, we have moved away and started using the Gutenberg packages directly.
Please check:
We made Gutenberg editor a little more customizable!
Gutenberg editor can be easily included in your apps with this package.
This package is based on Gutenberg v4.8.0 and respective @wordpress packages versions.
- Installation
- Development
- Global variables
- Usage
- Customize your Gutenberg
- Rendering Dynamic Blocks
- Custom blocks
gutenberg-js is available through npm.
$ npm install @frontkom/gutenberg-jsSome of the Gutenberg features depend on the TinyMCE text editor and the editor expects to find TinyMCE plugins, themes and skins on the project root. Since gutenberg-js has TinyMCE as a dependency, we suggest to use webpack and CopyWebpackPlugin to handle with that.
// webpack.config.js
const CopyWebpackPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin');
module.exports = {
...
plugins: [
new CopyWebpackPlugin([
{ from: 'node_modules/tinymce/plugins', to: `${ your_root_path }/plugins` },
{ from: 'node_modules/tinymce/themes', to: `${ your_root_path }/themes` },
{ from: 'node_modules/tinymce/skins', to: `${ your_root_path }/skins` },
], {}),
],
...
}GutenbergJS expects to find React (v16.6.3), ReactDOM (v16.6.3), moment (v2.22.1) and jquery (v1.12.4) libraries in the environment it runs. Maybe you would add the following lines to your pages.
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react@16.6.3/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@16.6.3/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/moment@2.22.1/min/moment.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.12.4.min.js" integrity="sha256-ZosEbRLbNQzLpnKIkEdrPv7lOy9C27hHQ+Xp8a4MxAQ=" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>The main goal of Gutenberg JS is to expose all Gutenberg packages and keep them up-to-date.
In order to ensure Gutenberg JS never breaks because of our overrides, we had to use fixed versions for the overrided packages in package.json.
So everytime we have to update Gutenberg JS, there are several steps we must follow:
- Check @wordpress packages versions from Gutenberg release we want to upgrade to and update
package.jsonfile (npm outdatedcould help). - Check if there are new @wordpress packages and import them in
index.jsfile'. - Check if our overrides are updated and work well with new @wordpress packages versions.
- Check if there are new blocks containing images and apply
dataattributes override. - Test, test and test. We can use g-editor to test the editor.
- [To do: unit tests could help]
Gutenberg depends on several global variables: wp, userSettings, wpEditorL10n, wpApiSettings, etc and probably during your Gutenberg experiencie you will discover other required variables, please share with us if you feel they are important to Gutenberg execution.
Here we're only presenting those variables which - by our experience - we belive are crucial to Gutenberg and already set to them default values. If you don't set them up, you'll see that Gutenberg editor won't run.
So we recommend you to set up them all in one file called globals.js or settings.js for example and import them before Gutenberg call. Feel free to override Gutenberg global variables if you need.
// globals.js
window.wp = {
apiFetch,
url: { addQueryArgs },
...,
};
window.userSettings = {
uid: 2, // Among other things, this uid is used to identify and store editor user preferences in localStorage
};
// set your root path
window.wpApiSettings = {
root: 'YOUR_ROOT_PATH',
...,
};We are working to include on gutenberg-js all settings that shouldn't be part of your apps, but you always can override them if you need.
Those two are very important for communication between the editor and remaining app, so you should set them up according your needs.
apiFetch is the method that will handle data operations on Gutenberg, like getting resources (categories for example), saving page changes or deleting pages, etc. It receives an object with path, method, data, etc, so you can treat it as you want.
function apiFetch(options) {
// Do something with those options like calling an API
// or actions from your store...
}Next, we will show some commons API requests Gutenberg does and the respective response it expects. For more information, you can check the WordPress REST API Documentation.
The Gutenberg editor will ask for available Post Types through /wp/v2/types/?context=edit request. The type properties that can be checked in WordPress documentation.
Post Types: post, pages, attachment, wp_block
Request for post type settings: /wp/v2/types/post?context=edit
Request for page type settings: /wp/v2/types/page?context=edit
There is no documentation for /wp/v2/types/wp_block?context=edit request yet, but the response should be similar to post and page responses:
{
"capabilities": { ... }
"description": "",
"hierarchical": false,
"labels": { ... }
"name": "Blocks",
"slug": "wp_block",
"taxonomies": [],
"rest_base": "blocks",
"supports": { ... }
"viewable": false,
"_links": { ... }
}Check the WordPress API documentation for Posts and Pages requests.
Check the WordPress API documentation for Categories.
Taxonomies and Categories are requested to fill Categories panel in Document sidebar. Check the WordPress API documentation for Taxonomies.
Here is the WordPress API documentation for Media. The gutenberg-js introduces the data property which is an object with all data attributes you want to add to image/media DOM element.
{
...,
id: 1527069591355,
link: MEDIA_LINK_HERE,
source_url: MEDIA_URL_HERE,
// Additionaly, you can add some data attributes for images for example
data: { entity_type: 'file', entity_uuid: 'e94e9d8d-4cf4-43c1-b95e-1527069591355' }
...,
}The editor also requests for wp/v2/media OPTIONS:
{
headers: {
get: value => {
if (value === 'allow') {
return [ 'POST' ];
}
},
},
}There is no documentation for /wp/v2/wp_blocks or /wp/v2/blocks request yet, but the response should be similar to posts and pages responses with and id and content:
{
content: "<!-- wp:paragraph -->↵ <p>3</p>↵ <!-- /wp:paragraph -->",
id: 131,
title: "my block",
}Gutenberg editor allows us to create, edit, list, get one and delete one block operations, so make sure you expect GET, POST, PUT and DELETE requests.
Gutenberg will ask for the theme features through the index request (/wp/v2/themes). The response should be the following object.
{
...,
theme_supports: {
formats: [ 'standard', 'aside', 'image', 'video', 'quote', 'link', 'gallery', 'audio' ],
'post-thumbnails': true,
},
...,
}url should has a function called addQueryArgs( url, args ) that handles with url and args and returns the final url to different actions. The original implementation is the following, feel free to keep it or change it according to your needs.
/**
* External dependencies
*/
import { parse, format } from 'url';
import { parse as parseQueryString, stringify } from 'querystring';
/**
* Appends arguments to the query string of the url
*
* @param {String} url URL
* @param {Object} args Query Args
*
* @return {String} Updated URL
*/
export function addQueryArgs(url, args) {
const queryStringIndex = url.indexOf('?');
const query = queryStringIndex !== -1 ? parse(url.substr(queryStringIndex + 1)) : {};
const baseUrl = queryStringIndex !== -1 ? url.substr(0, queryStringIndex) : url;
return baseUrl + '?' + stringify({ ...query, ...args });
}We've tried to make it easy to import gutenberg-js modules to your apps.
// Importing global variables that Gutenberg requires
import './globals';
// Importing domReady and editPost modules
import { domReady, editPost } from '@frontkom/gutenberg-js';
// Don't forget to import the style
import '@frontkom/gutenberg-js/build/css/block-library/style.css';
import '@frontkom/gutenberg-js/build/css/style.css';
// DOM element id where editor will be displayed
const target = 'editor';
// Post properties
const postType = 'post'; // or 'page'
const postId = 123;
// Some editor settings
const settings = {
alignWide: true,
availableTemplates: [],
allowedBlockTypes: true,
disableCustomColors: false,
disableCustomFontSizes: false,
disablePostFormats: false,
titlePlaceholder: "Add title",
bodyPlaceholder: "Write your story",
isRTL: false,
autosaveInterval: 10,
styles: [],
postLock: {
isLocked: false,
},
...
// @frontkom/gutenberg-js settings
canAutosave: false, // to disable the Editor Autosave feature (default: true)
canPublish: false, // to disable the Editor Publish feature (default: true)
canSave: false, // to disable the Editor Save feature (default: true)
mediaLibrary: false, // to disable the Media Library feature (default: true)
};
// Post properties to override
const overridePost = {};
// Et voilá... Initializing the editor!
window._wpLoadGutenbergEditor = new Promise(function (resolve) {
domReady(function () {
resolve(editPost.initializeEditor(target, postType, postId, settings, overridePost));
});
});Note: Gutenberg requires utf-8 encoding, so don't forget to add <meta charset="utf-8"> tag to your html <head>.
Additionally, after initializing the editor, you can have access to Gutenberg stores (core, core/blocks, core/data, core/edit-post, core/editor, core/viewport) through the data module and its select and dispatch methods:
// Importing select and dispatch methods from @frontkom/gutenberg-js package
import { data } from '@frontkom/gutenberg-js';
// Use dispatch to change the state of something
data.dispatch('core/edit-post').openGeneralSidebar('edit-post/block');
data.dispatch('core/edit-post').closeGeneralSidebar();
// Use select to get the state of something
data.select( 'core/editor' ).getEditedPostContent();
// <!-- wp:paragraph -->
// <p>Hello</p>
// <!-- /wp:paragraph -->You can create your custom blocks using the registerBlockType method from blocks module. Check out the example below and the Wordpress documentation to read more about it.
import { blocks, editor } from '@frontkom/gutenberg-js';
const {
AlignmentToolbar,
BlockControls,
RichText,
} = editor;
blocks.registerBlockType('custom/my-block', {
title: 'My first block',
icon: 'universal-access-alt',
category: 'common',
attributes: {
content: {
type: 'array',
source: 'children',
selector: 'p',
},
alignment: {
type: 'string',
},
},
edit({ attributes, className, setAttributes }) {
const { content, alignment } = attributes;
function onChangeContent( newContent ) {
setAttributes( { content: newContent } );
}
function onChangeAlignment( newAlignment ) {
setAttributes( { alignment: newAlignment } );
}
return [
<BlockControls>
<AlignmentToolbar
value={ alignment }
onChange={ onChangeAlignment }
/>
</BlockControls>,
<RichText
tagName="p"
className={ className }
style={ { textAlign: alignment } }
onChange={ onChangeContent }
value={ content }
/>
];
},
save({ attributes, className }) {
const { content, alignment } = attributes;
return (
<RichText.Content
className={ className }
style={ { textAlign: alignment } }
value={ content }
/>
);
},
});Following the same logic, we've created the customGutenberg global object where you can set everything that we made customizable on Gutenberg.
window.customGutenberg = { ... };As the other global variables, customGutenberg should be defined before Gutenberg import.
Important to say that Gutenberg works perfectly without the settings of this object :)
gutenberg-js makes possible to define callbacks (or effects) for Gutenberg actions. Since it is an experimental feature, we are only providing this for 'OPEN_GENERAL_SIDEBAR' and 'CLOSE_GENERAL_SIDEBAR' actions.
window.customGutenberg = {
...,
events: {
'OPEN_GENERAL_SIDEBAR': function(action, store) {
console.log( 'OPEN_GENERAL_SIDEBAR', action, store );
},
'CLOSE_GENERAL_SIDEBAR': function(action, store) {
console.log( 'CLOSE_GENERAL_SIDEBAR', action, store );
},
},
...,
};As you probably know, Gutenberg allows us to create our owns blocks inside the editor and make them reusable. We can look for reusable blocks in the 'Add Blocks Menu' search bar.
If we change to 'Code Editor' mode, we can check that only a ref id is saved for our reusable block.
<!-- wp:block {"ref":1537389905603} /-->Gutenberg uses wp/v2/wp_blocks/[:id] request to get the block content inside the editor. Make sure you do the same process when your app do the final render of the page (outside of the editor).
The same happens with embed blocks:
<!-- wp:core-embed/twitter {"url": "https://twitter.com/drupalgutenberg/status/1040203765452820480", "type": "rich", "providerNameSlug": "twitter"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter">
<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://twitter.com/drupalgutenberg/status/1040203765452820480
</div>
</figure>
<!-- /wp:core-embed/twitter -->And latest posts widget:
<!-- wp:latest-posts /-->Your app must be in charge of the render of the dynamic blocks.
We can create custom blocks to our Gutenberg editor and used them to build our website pages.
A Gutenberg block requires some properties like a title, an icon, a category and the edit and the save methods which describe the structure of the block inside the editor and what block content should be saved.
const myFirstBlock = {
title: 'My first block!',
icon: 'universal-access-alt',
category: 'cloudblocks',
edit() {
return <p>Hello editor.</p>;
},
save() {
return <p>Hello saved content.</p>;
},
};After defining all the properties, the new block must be registered so it becomes available in editor inserter dialog under the chosen category. If the blocks's category doesn't exist yet, we must add it to the editor inserter dialog.
A blocks category requires a slug and a title:
const category = {
slug: 'cloudblocks',
title: 'Gutenberg-Cloud Blocks',
};To check which categories already exist, we can use getCategories() selector and to add a new category to the editor we can use setCategories() action. Both methods are provided by Gutenberg core/blocks store which are accessible througg wp.data.
const { dispatch, select } = wp.data;
const currentCategories = select('core/blocks').getCategories().filter(item => item.slug !== category.slug);
dispatch('core/blocks').setCategories([ category, ...currentCategories ]);Finally, we are ready to register our custom block using registerBlockType method:
const { registerBlockType } = wp.blocks;
registerBlockType(`${category.slug}/my-first-block`, { category: category.slug, ...hero.settings });And the block is available in the editor inserter dialog! Full example:
const { dispatch, select } = wp.data;
const { registerBlockType } = wp.blocks;
// Setting block's properties
const myFirstBlock = {
title: 'My first block!',
icon: 'universal-access-alt',
category: 'cloudblocks',
edit() {
return <p>Hello editor.</p>;
},
save() {
return <p>Hello saved content.</p>;
},
};
// Setting category's properties
const category = {
slug: 'cloudblocks',
title: 'Gutenberg-Cloud Blocks',
};
// Checking the category
const currentCategories = select('core/blocks').getCategories().filter(item => item.slug !== category.slug);
dispatch('core/blocks').setCategories([ category, ...currentCategories ]);
// Registering the new block
registerBlockType(`${category.slug}/my-first-block`, myFirstBlock);In Creating Block Types section of Gutenberg handbook, we can check more examples of how to custom blocks with more complexity. Also we can check more details about blocks properties in Block API documentation.
An easy way to share a custom block is to publish the block as a npm package.
Here is an example of a custom block npm package, the Hero Section.