How to add contentOnly editing support to a custom block

[ndiego]

A lot of work is being done on contentOnly editing. While this functionality has been around for a while, upcoming enhancements will make this editing mode commonplace, especially among new users of WordPress. Here are a few related issues/PRs:

• Writing and contentOnly modes gutenberg#60021 (comment)
• Experiment with block drill down in contentOnly mode gutenberg#64923

While work is being done to ensure Core blocks work as expect within this editing mode, block developers will need to make modifications to their custom blocks if they want to support this mode.

This article will detail what contentOnly editing is, how to apply it to blocks, and how to modify custom blocks to support contentOnly editing.

cc @getdave @noisysocks in case you guys have any thoughts on this article topic.

[fabiankaegy]

I would be great to have a stable official way of doing this.

Today we can do it by adding __experimentalRole: content to an attribute but it isn't documented and has the __experimental prefix...

[ndiego]

Yeah, I know 😬. If contentOnly becomes ubiquitous as intended by the link issues/PRs, we need to stabilize that property. There is also a fair amount of customization you need to do in a custom plugin to "gracefully" support contentOnly.

[ndiego]

I explored this in my Icon Block. It hasn't been released in the public version of the plugin yet, but it took some work: ndiego/icon-block@cacd65b

[fabiankaegy]

Yeah sorry this was not to imply that you don't know it :)

This will also be even more interesting when we actually find a way to enable custom block bindings for pattern overrides :) (WordPress/gutenberg#64870) I know it is somewhat different but also kind of the same 😂

[ndiego]

Yeah sorry this was not to imply that you don't know it :)

No worries, I didn't take it that way! I created this discussion after seeing all the contentOnly updates and knowing that the experience in custom blocks was not great and would require additional guidance.

[noisysocks]

Yes, we should stabilise and document this.

[bph]

This topic as approved in 9/5 Editorial Group meeting. Please continue discussion on the issue

• How to add `contentOnly` editing support to a custom block #300 303

[ndiego]

Post has been published: https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/11/05/how-to-add-content-only-editing-support-to-a-block/