Drag and drop: Fix cursor feedback and add grabbing state in iframe editor #72629
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juanfra
added
the
[Feature] Drag and Drop
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This reverts commit 77765a1.
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Size Change: +150 B (+0.01%) Total Size: 2.19 MB
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This is cool @juanfra! I looked at this before and I thought overriding the cursor during HTML drag events was impossible and set at the OS level (unlike mouse events), but apparently that's not true. Cool! It seems to work fine for me in Chrome, but maybe I'm not testing the failure case correctly. I'll have a look through the code to understand how exactly it works. |
ellatrix
reviewed
Oct 24, 2025
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| // Blur the drag handle to clear the :active state. |
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Could you elaborate on why the active state needs to be cleared?
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Sure :) since we set cursor: grabbing; for the active state of the “drag” button in the block toolbar, without clearing it, the cursor would stay grabbing even after the drop action. Clearing the active state ensures that when the “drag” button is hovered again, the cursor: grab style is shown as expected.
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I'm actually noticing that blur won't be clearing the active state, so we'll have to try something else.
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Tbh this sounds like an accessibility concern
ellatrix
reviewed
Oct 24, 2025
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| // Blur the drag handle to clear the :active state. | ||
| if ( event.target instanceof HTMLElement ) { |
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Since this element is not in an iframe, it's fine, but I find it generally better to explicitly get HTMLElement from defaultView to communicate what is expected.
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Makes sense. I’ll look into that and update it.
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Actually, this only sets the styles for drag and drop from the block toolbar or list view right? You're not adjust any styles for direct drag and drop as for as I can see. Somehow the |
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Thanks for taking a look @ellatrix !
Yes, fortunately it’s possible — there are a few common approaches (some use cursor: move, others the grab/grabbing pattern, which feels the most intuitive to me).
Exactly, this PR builds on the existing logic that handled the body class for drag and drop cursors (
Interesting. For the list view or the block toolbar? I’m not seeing that behavior in Chrome on my side. Chrome has been pretty erratic for me when it comes to this, and from what I’ve seen, it seems related to the dropEffect issue I mentioned earlier. There are a few issues reported on their repo. |
Neither, I mean for direct block drag and drop (like images). |
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What?
Fixes drag and drop cursor feedback in the block editor by ensuring cursor styles apply within the iframe context, and adds
cursor: grabbingstate when blocks are actively being dragged.Found while testing drag and drop improvements for 6.9
Why?
The current drag and drop experience has a cursor feedback issue: when dragging blocks, the body class that changes the cursor is applied to the parent document, but since the editor runs in an iframe, these cursor changes aren't visible to users. This creates a disconnect in the UX where the visual feedback doesn't match the interaction state. Also, we weren't showing the native
grabbingcursor during active drag operations.How?
cursor: grabbingCSS rule when blocks are actively being grabbed/draggedNote: There's a known limitation in Chrome where the
dropEffectproperty doesn't always update the cursor as expected during drag operations. Firefox and Safari handle this correctly. The fallback cursor styles still provide visual feedback in Chrome, though not as dynamically as in other browsers. So, maybe it's better to test this in Firefox.Testing Instructions
grabcursor, and when grabbing it should show thegrabbingcursor.Screenshots or screencast
drag-n-drop-cursor.mp4