Copy blocks

  • Michael King

    (@michael-king-1)


    7 years, 2 months ago

    Working my way into Gutenberg use…told myself I’m not falling back to Classic Editor. BUT I can’t find a way to copy a Gutenberg “block” or blocks from one place to another. I want to believe I’m missing something…am I? Tried searching for an answer but I didn’t find anything useful. Surely I’m not the first person to want to copy a bunch of stuff from one page to another, but no one else seems to have asked, which makes me think this ability is just hiding in plain sight.

    Yes, I know I can mark blocks as reusable but if I only want to do this one time, not over and over, then that’s a lot of work for several blocks, including un-marking them after. I haven’t tried but I suppose I could switch into the HTML view and copy that way, which would be easy for a while page, but a PITA for just a few blocks.

    And yes, I know I could create a new empty block on the destination page, and COPY/PASTE the contents from the source page. That’s okay for one block but a giant PITA for a bunch of blocks.

    For all the magic in this, seems like there should be a right-click or something to COPY/PASTE a block or group of blocks, just like there is for a string of text? What am I missing?

    Thanks!

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Joy

    (@joyously)

    7 years, 2 months ago

    It does appear to be missing. In the 3 dot menu in the upper right, there is “Copy all content”, but that is not “Copy selected content”.
    There is also the 3 dot menu above the selection, which has “Duplicate”, and it works, but it’s in the same post instead of in the clipboard.
    Also, when you have multiple blocks selected, the sidebar shows the Block tab, which says how many blocks are selected, but it does not have a “Copy” command there, as I expected, even though the icon looks like one that is typically used for “Copy”.

    This might already be fixed in the plugin, though. You can try that and see, and look for an issue at GitHub. If it’s not, definitely write one.
    https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/

    Thread Starter Michael King

    (@michael-king-1)

    7 years, 2 months ago

    Thanks @joyously – nice to hear I’m not completely foolish.

    Actually, I didn’t even know you could select multiple blocks, but now that I know, I don’t know what the use of that would be, unless it’s just to know the word count???

    Probably beyond my technical skills to develop a fix, and I certainly don’t have time for that – I’ll have to depend on the skill & generosity of others.

    Joy

    (@joyously)

    7 years, 2 months ago

    Well, I didn’t expect you to fix it. Just try the plugin to see if it’s fixed already, and if not, see if it’s been reported so others can fix it. Writing an issue is how you get the developer’s attention onto it. Asking here in the forums doesn’t do much, since we aren’t writing code here.

    And there is a use for selecting multiple blocks. It’s already in the menu to “Duplicate” and “Remove” and I did both, so I know they work on a selection of multiple.

    Thread Starter Michael King

    (@michael-king-1)

    7 years, 2 months ago

    Well hello – the penny has dropped! After I realized I could select multiple blocks, one of those little voices in my head said “what happens if you just use CMD-C/CMD-V like any copy/paste?”

    So I tried that – bingo, my problem is solved! The answer was truly hiding in plain sight all along. I still wonder why it’s not better documented, but I can live with it now that I know the basic answer. Still not clear how I would apply this method to a single block, but that’s easy to solve via other means.

    Thanks Joy!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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