Using role: content in blocks and why

[justintadlock]

In light of the Pattern Editing experiment becoming stable, it's more important that block authors correctly use role: content in their blocks to let WP know when something is or is not content.

• Pattern editing: stabilize and remove the experiment flag gutenberg#74843

It's probably also worth exploring useBlockEditingMode() for displaying items based on the mode.

This is not a well-formed topic idea just yet. Just adding a few thoughts, and maybe we can get the ball rolling.

[bph]

Thanks @justintadlock for picking this up. We did have a prior issue that was closed to cover this more broadly. I just leave the links here for some background:

• How to add contentOnly editing support to a custom block #303
• First Draft by @ndiego

[talldan]

Thanks for starting this. Agree this is important. There is a small amount of documentation for role: 'content', so that might be worth referencing and, I think it might also be good to look at improving it:
https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/block-api/block-attributes/#role

A new addition is there's also a contentRole: true block supports (WordPress/gutenberg#71539), which does the same thing as role: 'content'. It exists for blocks that might not have an appropriate attribute to apply role: content to. An example is the site tagline block which doesn't have an attribute for its content:
https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/8f69c4d4c45f4412cacf1a85fa47c203514db92e/packages/block-library/src/site-tagline/block.json#L40

It's also used for container blocks like buttons, list, social links, navigation. When parent and child blocks have the content role (using either block supports or the block attribute role) it allows for insertion of the child blocks in contentOnly mode.

This is something that I think still needs dev documentation.

Also related to that is the new list view block supports (Add list view tab to the buttons, list and social icons blocks](WordPress/gutenberg#74120), which shows a mini list view in a block's sidebar (which is also shown in patterns).

I think that also needs dev docs!

[bph]

The topic was approved. The conversation continues on the issue:

• Using role: content in blocks and why #450