Browser like Undo/Redo in Editor

[HardeepAsrani]

Right now when you do Undo/Redo in Gutenberg, it looks something like this:

You basically press Undo a million times to finally get to your desired result. We can have it similar to how web browsers work:

It will be a great experience. Suggested by local meetup co-organizer @Phantom-Cluster

[ellatrix]

Could you elaborate more on what you're suggesting? I don't get what we would show in this list.

[HardeepAsrani]

@ellatrix When you click on Undo button, it takes you to the last action you performed. When you click and hold on Undo, it will give you list of all the previous actions you took in the editing session so you can revert back to old state of editor. 😄

[ellatrix]

I understand your proposal, but I don't get what we should display in the list. I suspect there will just be a lot of typing actions and some more things... What would it look like?

[HardeepAsrani]

We will have to categorize the items, like "Block Removed: Block Name," "Block Added: Paragraph"

[HardeepAsrani]

It can have the similar UI as Block Navigator. The normal undo seems very backward when working with blocks.

[ellatrix]

It doesn't sound like a bad idea. Most of the history records will be typing. Maybe we could collapse those into one item "Typing (12)". In any case, it would be cool to have a history manager, whether it is a drop down or a modal, to easily navigate through it. This is already done for revisions. Maybe there's a way to all unify it.

[HardeepAsrani]

Typing history that's less than a sentence of X number of words can be ignored?

[karmatosed]

This issue came up in this week's design triage session. There is as already outlined an issue with how granular this could get. As revisions already exist, perhaps seeing this as a way to improve and iterate there could be an opportunity. That said, this feels like something a plugin could really dig into and see perhaps what potential there is and interest.

It's worth noting that an editing experience is a little different from a browsing one, so that's where the balance of 'how much' would need to be worked on. It's an interesting idea, just needs some deeper exploring before diving into a solution. In light of revisions being ripe for iteration and collaborative editing in the future, that feels like a good place to go further with this then.