Possible Bug: Highlighting and Deleting Text

  • Unknown's avatar
    writer0001 · Member ·

    Hi,

    I recently posted a question on the Feedback for the Block Editor post, https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/feedback-thread-for-the-block-editor/page/2/#post-3501399. This is the part I’m referring to:

    […] there is one big issue I continuously have with blocks, and that’s highlighting and removing text quickly.
    For instance, I have two Paragraph blocks. One says

    This is paragraph 1.

    and the other says

    This is paragraph 2.

    If I want to get rid of all of one paragraph and only part of the other, I cannot do this. For example, I try to highlight ‘paragraph 1. This is paragraph 2.’ but the whole of ‘This is paragraph 1.’ gets selected. I don’t like having to delete each paragraph one-by-one if I want to get rid of only some text in one of them. […]

    I had thought this happened to everyone, but @supernovia told me that it could be a possible bug.

    The browser I’m using is Chrome. I tried viewing this issue in Microsoft Edge, and it turned out I couldn’t even select text in more than one block at a time. I also tried in Internet Explorer, and the same thing as Microsoft Edge happens. I don’t
    have any other browsers installed, so couldn’t test the issue with those.
    This issue doesn’t happen with specific pages or posts; it happens to every one. In addition, it happens to all of my sites.
    Links to screenshots (Chrome):
    BEFORE:

    AFTER:

    The whole text selects itself when I let go of the cursor.

    Is this a known bug? Is there a way I can fix this myself?

    Thank you in advance.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • staff-zinnia · Staff ·

    Hi –

    A few follow up questions:

    – which version of Chrome and Edge did you use?
    – are there any browser extensions enabled?
    – which operating system does your computer have installed?

  • Unknown's avatar
    writer0001 · Member ·

    Hi,

    Chrome version: 83.0.4103.97
    Edge version: 44.18362.449.0
    Explorer version: 11.836.18362.0
    Chrome extensions: Google docs offline, Docs, Sheets, Slides
    (I couldn’t find where my extensions for Edge/Explorer were listed.)
    Operating system: Windows 10

    Thank you.

  • staff-blorbo · Staff ·

    Is there any improvement with those Chrome extensions switched off?

  • Unknown's avatar
    writer0001 · Member ·

    I have tried that, however, it didn’t change anything. I then closed Chrome and restarted my computer, but the same thing happens.

    I’d like to point out that I’m not the only one facing this problem; @dasyad00 mentioned in https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/feedback-thread-for-the-block-editor/page/3/#post-3503869:

    Selecting and highlighting texts across paragraphs/blocks is impossible without help from a keyboard

    They also started their own report of the problem at https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/selecting-and-highlighting-via-keyboard-shortcuts-with-new-editor/ in case that can provide any further information.

  • Unknown's avatar
    dasyad00 · Member ·

    I was informed to give information of my computer setup in this thread.

    Arch Linux, Firefox 77.0 64-bit

    As a programmer, I have doubts this is a platform dependent problem. This is missing functionality, not a bug.

  • staff-mckluskey · Staff ·

    Hi,

    thank you both for all the info. I have talked to our developers and I can confirm this is expected behavior as the blocks are independent of each other.

    While not ideal, you will want to select the text separately or, merge the paragraphs when editing the text, which will allow you to select everything in one go.


    @dasyad00    , you are correct and you can, in fact, open a feature request for this directly in the GitHub repository on https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    writer0001 · Member ·

    Thank you for checking this for us :) Merging the paragraphs is a good idea, I hadn’t considered that. Thank you very much!

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