Can’t drag and drop blocks in 5.5

Thanks for telling us how to do this, not obvious at all. I’m hoping that the next release fixes this. The previous way to do it was rather intuitive, please switch back.

I thought something was wrong with my 5.5 update install or maybe some JS error causing the drag handle to not appear. Completely unnatural and wasn’t able to figure it out for half an hour now until I stumbled upon this thread.

Adding another vote to change this back. It took me at least 20 minutes of googling to find this one forum and get the answer, and I’m a full time WP developer.
Completely not user friendly, especially for any new WP users – I’m now going to have to email every client that updates WP to explain how to do this.
Please put it back!

It says hold down the up or down arrow and it took me so long to even find where that was, as nothing shows up when I click on a block.

For some reason the up and down arrows, that little editing block that pops up, does not show anywhere near the block itself, I have to scroll up to find it. Is that a bug in the program? Normally it used to be right there at the top of a block. Thanks.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by heather.

Heather – it’s possible the Top Toolbar it turned on, and if it is that will turn off the floating toolbar. Click the 3 vertical dots at the top right corner and make sure there is no check beside “Top toolbar”. That “should” replace your floating toolbar.

It’s worth noting the WP v5.5.1 made additional changes to the floating toolbar although it did not resolve this problem (no obvious way to drag & drop blocks) or make it any more intuitive.
pk

This old dog is no fan (yet?) of Gutenberg (or burg or bug or whatever he is) or of blocks. I gave it a spin because I read somewhat that eventually the Classic Editor plugin would no longer work with WP five-plus-who-knows-how-much. One thing I stalled out on was this dragging business. I finally gave up and switched back to Classic Editor. Now I just saw this thread referenced on Facebook. That was last month, I think. I still haven’t recovered so I’ll keep working in Classic Editor. ??

In fact Gutenberg is currently useless. Isn’t it worth a quick fix? How this update have passed the quality assurance? Missing the drag handle in a drag & drop editor… holy shit.

Good news: https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-9-0-brings-major-improvements-to-navigation-screen-and-query-block

Other notable UI enhancements include a new drag handle added to block toolbar for drag-and-drop capability. (It is not visible on the top toolbar). Blocks can be dragged to other areas of a post as an alternative to using the up/down arrows.

Finally got this working. For those still struggling. You click and hold down on the arrow icon and then move the arrow icon to where you want that block item to go. I was holding it down and then click on the block and trying to move that – like you did pre 5.5. Very confusing for those coming from 5.4.

Seriously, what?! WHY? It was twitchy and confusing enough before when there was a handle, but this is just ridiculous. Please put a handle back or at least have SOME indication of how to drag and drop blocks within the editor. I thought the whole point of the new editor was to make it easier on content editors to craft posts/pages, not more confusing and unintuitive!

I second the UI frustration, having wondered where the flip the handles had gone – they’re mentioned in the vid tutorial which I’m following to try to wrangle 2020 into one of those designs it’s supposed to be able to make. I’m not against the block editor move, but it feels like I’m wrestling with an octopus in jelly. I understand why some designers have gone old skool with ClassicPress, not a route I’d follow as I like to stick with the main path.

Anyway, I’m glad I found this thread, though I had to sherlock somewhat over a half hour, as it’s removed my frustration.