TypeCellOS/BlockNote v0.56.0

on GitHub

0.56.0 (2026-10-14)

This release brings two major features:

• Layout blocks & block frames (preview): custom blocks that hold and arrange other blocks, such as tabs, steppers and alerts with a body. 💖 Sponsored by XWiki.
• Version history overhaul: a new history sidebar, version comparisons with author attribution, and a YHub storage backend. 💖 Sponsored by DINUM 🇫🇷.

See below for details. This release has breaking changes; see Breaking changes before upgrading.

🚀 Features

• Layout blocks & block frames (preview): custom blocks can now hold other blocks (layoutOnly) and draw a frame around their content and children (renderFrame). (#3059)
• Keyboard settings for custom blocks (experimental): set how Enter, Backspace and Shift-Tab work in a block with experimental_keyboard. (#3059)
• Toggles rebuilt: Enter in an open toggle adds a block inside it, a closed toggle keeps its children, you can drop blocks into a toggle (also an empty one), and the toggle button is accessible to screen readers. (#3059)
• Menus follow the schema: the slash menu and block type select show only the block types your schema supports, including only the configured heading levels. (#3059)
• Version history rebuilt, with customizable snapshot actions. (#3090)
• Side menu hover rewritten: the side menu now follows the block under the pointer, which fixes nested blocks, columns, scrolling containers and overlapping editors. New hoverMargin and dropMargin options. (#3179)
• Down arrow in a block without content at the end of the document creates a paragraph. (#3113)
• Better Backspace handling in nested blocks. (#3124)
• Mod+A shortcut changes. (#2995)

🔥 Performance

• Less layout shift when the Inter font loads. (#3130)
• Large version diffs show in one transaction. (#3090)
• Removed an unused source preview anchor. (#3099)

🩹 Fixes

• Suggestion menu: it opens below unless cramped, keeps its side and width while you filter, flips above when fewer than five items fit below, and doesn't jump when it scrolls. (#3188, #3190, #3198)
• Email exporter: text is escaped instead of being inserted as HTML. (#3100)
• Dropping a block into a toggle works with a real drag. (#3195)
• WebKit no longer scrolls when a block is dropped. (#3122)
• The formatting toolbar stays hidden when focus returns to editor UI. (#3187)
• A code block typed without a language uses the default language. (#3024)
• Inline code no longer clears comments. (#2832)
• Math previews open on the first click, and selected inline math is styled correctly. (#3129, #2983)
• Markdown autolinks round-trip. (#3115)
• insertInlineContent no longer adds content after the cursor. (#3112)
• No error when the placeholder style is already removed. (#3145)
• Block changes from before the view exists are no longer marked. (#3193)

⚠️ Breaking changes

Side menu

• By default, the side menu only shows while the pointer is over the editor (including its padding). Before, it also showed up to 250px around it. Set sideMenu.hoverMargin to widen the area. (#3179)

Custom blocks & toggles

• blockTypeSelectItems(dict) is now blockTypeSelectItems(editor), because the items depend on the schema. (#3059)
• Deprecated, still works: meta.hardBreakShortcut. Use experimental_keyboard.enter and experimental_keyboard.shiftEnter. (#3059)

Behavior changes

• Mod+A now selects the current block first, and the whole document on the second press. Set selectAllBehavior: "document" to select the whole document right away. (#2995)
• Backspace at the start of a nested block now merges it into the block above, like a top-level block. It un-nests the block only when they can't merge. (#3124)
• A code block created without a language gets the configured defaultLanguage ("text" by default) instead of "". (#3024)

Imports

• @blocknote/core no longer exports the built-in extensions (including versioning) or UniqueID from its root. Import them from @blocknote/core/extensions. getDefaultSlashMenuItems, filterSuggestionItems, insertOrUpdateBlockForSlashMenu and getDefaultEmojiPickerItems stay in the root. (#3090)
• The versioning components (VersioningSidebar, useVersionUsers) moved from @blocknote/react to @blocknote/react/versioning. (#3090)

Versioning

• The versioning API is new. Apps using the previous API must migrate; see the versioning examples. (#3090)

Layout blocks & block frames (preview)

💖 This feature is sponsored by XWiki. Thanks for supporting BlockNote!

Layout blocks and block frames let you control how a block's children are rendered. With them, you can build block types that weren't possible before:

• Block frames: renderFrame draws one frame around a block's content and its child blocks.
• Layout blocks (layoutOnly: true): blocks with no content of their own that hold and arrange other blocks. Columns are now built this way.

These APIs are a preview and can change before they're stable. We'd love your feedback in Discussions or an issue.

Tabs block

Stepper block

Alert block with a title and body

Version history overhaul

💖 This feature is sponsored by DINUM 🇫🇷

Version history has been rebuilt from the ground up:

• History sidebar: browse stored versions, newest first, and view any version read-only.
• Comparisons: compare a version with the previous one, with the start of the document, or with any other version. Hover a change to see who inserted, deleted or reformatted it, and when.
• Version actions: name, restore (the current content is saved first) and delete versions, or customize the actions with your own.
• YHub storage backend, faster diffs, and fixes for concurrent edits (nested blocks now merge correctly).

❤️ Thank you

• Matthew Lipski
• Yousef
• Nick Perez
• Adarshsm
• Rovshan Muradov
• Kevin Jahns (Yjs)