List: indent and outdent multi-selected items with Tab

[ellatrix]

What?

Tab indents and Shift+Tab outdents multi-selected list items, the same way they already work on a single item.

Why?

The indent and outdent toolbar buttons already act on the whole selection, but the keys did nothing during a multi selection. With #82314 merged, Tab inside the canvas is free to mean indentation where that makes sense, and when it cannot indent it still steps out to the canvas stop.

How?

1. During a multi selection focus sits on the writing flow container, not inside any list item, so the per item key handler never saw the key. A document level, capture phase listener on the first selected item handles the key instead.
2. It acts on the same set the toolbar buttons work on: every selected block must be a list item, and only the first item's instance responds.
3. It only claims the key when it acts. If indenting or outdenting is not possible, the key is left alone and the canvas Tab handling moves focus out as usual.
4. The items stay selected afterwards. They keep their place through the move and remain selected as a whole block, so Tab or Shift+Tab can be pressed again to move them another level.

Testing Instructions

1. Make a list with a few items and select several of them with Shift+ArrowDown.
2. Press Tab: the selected items indent together. Shift+Tab: they outdent together.
3. The items stay selected after each press, so Tab or Shift+Tab again moves them another level.
4. Select items that cannot indent (starting from the first item) and press Tab: focus steps out of the canvas onto its stop.

Covered by new tests in test/e2e/specs/editor/blocks/list.spec.js.

Written with the help of an AI assistant.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features
  • Added support for indenting and outdenting multiple selected list items with Tab and Shift+Tab.
  • List items can move between nesting levels while preserving the full selection.
• Improvements
  • Improved list editing with Enter and Space for more consistent indentation and outdentation.
  • List nesting actions now better handle surrounding items and empty parent lists.
  • Tab behavior is limited to the writing area, preventing unintended changes from toolbar and panel controls.

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Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 2fe7073 and 71364be.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-multi-select-tab.js

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)

• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-multi-select-tab.js

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

List-item indentation and outdentation now use shared utilities. Keyboard and toolbar handlers access the block-editor registry. Multi-selected list items support Tab and Shift+Tab, with end-to-end coverage for movement and selection state.

Changes

List item indentation

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Shared movement utilities packages/block-library/src/list-item/utils.js	Adds target resolution, nested-list movement, indentation, and outdentation utilities for single and multi-selection flows.
Keyboard and toolbar integration packages/block-library/src/list-item/edit.jsx, packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/*	Updates toolbar, Enter, Space, and merge handling to use registry access and shared utilities. Adds multi-selection Tab handling and updates hook exports.
End-to-end keyboard validation test/e2e/specs/editor/blocks/list.spec.js	Tests multi-selected list-item indentation with Tab and outdentation with Shift+Tab while checking content and selection state.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to 71364

This change adds keyboard indentation and outdentation for selected list items without any identified remaining merge-readiness risk.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Editor
  participant useMultiSelectTab
  participant Registry
  participant ListItemUtils
  Editor->>useMultiSelectTab: Handle Tab or Shift+Tab
  useMultiSelectTab->>Registry: Read multi-selection
  useMultiSelectTab->>ListItemUtils: Indent or outdent selected items
  ListItemUtils->>Registry: Move blocks and restore selection

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🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 31.25% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 16 functions across 8 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely describes the main change: adding Tab-based indentation and outdentation for multiple selected list items.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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🤖 PR meta 🤖

📦 Bundle size

Size Change: +122 B (0%)

Total Size: 8.01 MB

📦 View Changed

Filename	Size	Change
build/scripts/block-library/index.min.js	371 kB	+122 B (+0.03%)

_{71364be Run}

⚡ Performance

Show the results

Client side metrics exclude the server response time.

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front-end-classic-theme

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media-processing

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media-upload

Metric	67ee8f7	trunk	% Change
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pngUploadProcessing	216.97 ms +5.65% -6.31%	210.78 ms +4.41% -4.12%	2.94%
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multipleImageUploadProcessing	1590.21 ms +1.01% -0.65%	1558.94 ms +0.9% -0.47%	2.01%

post-editor

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type	20.26 ms +10.41% -13.52%	21.71 ms +3.5% -25.79%	-6.68%
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site-editor

Metric	67ee8f7	trunk	% Change
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_{71364be Run}

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Co-authored-by: ellatrix <ellatrix@git.wordpress.org>

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
In `@packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-multi-select-tab.js`:
- Line 67: Update the keydown listener setup in useMultiSelectTab so events are
handled only when their target is inside the writing-flow container. Preserve
existing multi-selection behavior for targets within that container, while
ignoring same-document editor UI events outside it so indentListItems does not
intercept toolbar Tab navigation.

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Team

Run ID: 83ec09f2-73bf-40b6-a55d-f7c5cbfb880b

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between b808f50 and 2fe7073.

📒 Files selected for processing (11)

• packages/block-library/src/list-item/edit.jsx
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/index.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/move-blocks-to-nested-list.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-enter.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-indent-list-item.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-merge.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-multi-select-tab.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-outdent-list-item.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-space.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/utils.js
• test/e2e/specs/editor/blocks/list.spec.js

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (3)

• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-outdent-list-item.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/use-indent-list-item.js
• packages/block-library/src/list-item/hooks/move-blocks-to-nested-list.js

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