Editing cells

• Text and numbers: type to replace, double-click to edit, Enter to confirm, Escape to cancel. Copy and paste works within a column. To match a supplier's list by SKU, use Paste a list on Products (see Pasting a list from a spreadsheet).
• Checkboxes: click to toggle. Right-click to tick or untick the whole selection.
• Dropdowns (status, type, stock status, tax class…): double-click and pick. Variations offer their own vocabulary (Enabled/Disabled, Same as parent).
• Dates: double-click for the calendar, or right-click to set one date on many rows.
• Rich text (description, short description, purchase note, review text): opens the WordPress editor in a modal.
• Image and gallery: open the media library; drag gallery thumbnails to reorder, or use the arrows on each thumbnail. The arrows and the remove button show when you point at a thumbnail or reach it with the keyboard, and always on a touch screen.
• Categories, taxonomies, options: a searchable multi-select.
• Tags: search existing tags or type a new one to create it on save.
• Linked products (upsells, cross-sells, grouped, coupon products): search by name or SKU.
• Attributes: add global attributes and pick their values (or add a new value), add custom attributes with |-separated values, set visibility and "used for variations", drag to reorder or use Move up and Move down. On a variation the same cell picks one option per attribute.
• Default attributes: the variable product's default form selection.
• Downloads: file name and URL, chosen from the media library or typed.
• Custom fields of either advanced type (a list stored by a plugin, or JSON): a validated JSON editor.
• Password (Products): percent signs, backslashes and spaces inside it are kept, as on the product screen, so the password you give customers is the one that opens the product. It is one line, trimmed at either end: a space pasted after it is not part of it, and a cell of spaces alone is no password. It can be up to 255 characters; a longer one is not saved and its cell says why.

Backslashes are kept when the grid saves a record: in a product's name, description, short description, password and purchase note, a variation's name and description, a variable product's default attributes, a coupon's description and an order's customer note. That holds for everyone who can use the grid, shop managers and, on a network, site administrators included. For someone who may not post unfiltered HTML, these fields are still cleaned as they are on the product screen, so a script typed into a description is taken out and the backslashes stay. Earlier versions took one level of them out whenever such a field was saved, even when the change was to another cell such as the status, so a description's C:\Temp became C:Temp, and a block's setting stored as \u003cb\u003e became u003cbu003e, which breaks the block. Up to 1.5.1 this still happened whenever someone who may not post unfiltered HTML saved, and up to 1.5.2 a variation's description and a variable product's default attributes lost them whoever saved. WooCommerce's own product screen still takes them out of those two. Text saved like that stays as it is until you type it again.

Cells that do not apply to a product type are locked — for example prices on a variable parent, or categories on a variation.

Keyboard#

The grid is one stop in the Tab order, and the sort buttons in its column headings are one more: Tab moves into the grid, the next Tab reaches the sort button of the column the list is sorted by, or the first one when no heading sorts it that way (Left and Right move between the sort buttons, Home and End go to the first and last, and Enter or Space sorts; other keys pressed there, Backspace or a digit say, never reach the cells), and the Tab after that moves on to the next control. Shift+Tab comes back the same way. Inside it, the arrow keys move between cells, typing replaces the selected cell's value and F2 edits it in place (rich cells open their own editor), Space ticks a checkbox cell, Enter confirms an edit and Escape cancels it. While a cell is being edited, Tab confirms it and moves one cell right, as in a spreadsheet; once the edit is confirmed or cancelled, focus is back on the grid, so the next Tab moves on as before. Keys pressed anywhere outside the grid act there and never on the cells behind it: on the message after a save, Tab goes from Undo to Dismiss and Enter presses the one that has focus. Shift+F10, or the menu key, opens the bulk tools at the selected cell: move through them with the arrow keys, Home and End, run one with Enter or Space, and close them with Escape. Every list you can drag (column order, custom fields, attributes, gallery images) also has Move up and Move down buttons, and a screen reader is told the new position.