Tracking: Dimensions Design Tools Consistency

[aaronrobertshaw]

Overview

This issue details the current state of dimensions and spacing block support or design tool adoption across all blocks and tasks required to fill any gaps. Overall design tool consistency efforts are being tracked via the parent issue: #43241.

Guidelines for Adopting Spacing Supports

• We're generally happy to have padding & margin support for all blocks. (Exceptions possible)
• We're leaning towards simple opt-in for margin support i.e. true rather than ["top", "bottom"]
• Neither padding nor margin should be shown by default i.e. they're accessed via the ellipsis menu. (Exceptions possible)
• All blocks (except special cases like Heading & Paragraph) should have box-sizing: border-box. This will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. (Exceptions likely).

Legend

Value	Description
✅	Feature has been adopted and is displayed as a default control
✅ (Optional)	Feature has been adopted but is an optional control
⚠	There is a bug or issue with this block support feature's adoption
❌	Feature has been explicitly opted out of
<PR#>	Links to PR adopting the feature for this block
-	Feature has not explicitly been adopted/omitted
🛠	Implemented via an ad hoc / bespoke control
🚧	Work is in progress towards adopting this feature (no PR yet)

Block Support Adoption

Note: Deprecated blocks have been omitted from this table. e.g. Comment Author Avatar, Post Comment & Text Columns.

Block	Padding	Margin	Block Gap	Height	Width	Min Height	Aspect Ratio
Archives	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Audio	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Avatar	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	🛠	🛠	-	-
Button	✅ (Horizontal, Vertical)	-	-	-	🛠	-	-
Buttons	✅	✅ (Top, Bottom)	✅	-	-	-	-
Calendar	⚠ #43654 (Optional)	⚠ #43654 (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Categories	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Code	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional / Top, Bottom)	-	-	-	-	-
Column	✅	-	✅	-	🛠	-	-
Columns	✅	✅ (Top, Bottom)	✅ (Horizontal, Vertical)	-	-	-	-
Comment Author Name	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Comment Content	✅ (Horizontal, Vertical)	-	-	-	-	-	-
Comment Date	✅	✅	-	-	-	-
Comment Edit Link	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Comment Reply Link	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Comment Template	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Comments	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Comments Pagination	#43905	#43905	-	-	-	-	-
Comments Pagination Next	#43905	#43905	-	-	-	-	-
Comments Pagination Numbers	#43905	#43905	-	-	-	-	-
Comments Pagination Previous	#43905	#43905	-	-	-	-	-
Comments Title	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Cover	✅	✅ (Top, Bottom)	✅	-	-	🛠	✅
Details	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	✅	-	-	-	-
Embed	-	✅	-	-	-	-	-
File	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Footnotes	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Gallery	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	✅(Horizontal, Vertical)	🛠	🛠	-	-
Group	✅	✅ (Top, Bottom)	✅	-	-	✅	-
Heading	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Home Link - Navigation	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
HTML	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Image	-	✅	-	🛠	🛠	-	🛠
Latest Comments	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Latest Posts	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
List	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
List Item	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Login/logout	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Media & Text	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
More (Read More)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Navigation	#66392	#66392	✅	-	-	-	-
Navigation Link	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Navigation Submenu	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Next Page (Page Break)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Page List	#66385	#66385		-	-	-	-
Paragraph	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Post Author	✅	✅	-	🛠	🛠	-	-
Post Author Biography	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Author Name	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Comments Count	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Comments Form	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Comments Link	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Content	✅ (Optional)	#66366	✅	-	-	✅	-
Post Date	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Excerpt	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Featured Image	✅	✅	-	🛠	🛠	-	🛠
Post Navigation Link	#64258	#64258	-	-	-	-	-
Post Template	-	-	✅	-	-	-	-
Post Terms	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Post Title	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Preformatted	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Pullquote	✅	✅	-	-	-	✅ (Optional)	-
Query	🚫	🚫	🚫	🚫	🚫	🚫	-
Query No Results	#64601	#64601	-	-	-	-	-
Query Pagination	#66398	#66398	-	-	-	-	-
Query Pagination Next	#66394	#66394	-	-	-	-	-
Query Pagination Numbers	#66401	#66401	-	-	-	-	-
Query Pagination Previous	#66393	#66393	-	-	-	-	-
Query Title	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Quote	✅	✅	✅	-	-	✅ (Optional)	-
Read More	✅	✅ (Top, Bottom)	-	-	-	-	-
RSS	#66411	#66411	-	-	-	-	-
Search	-	✅	-	-	🛠	-	-
Separator	-	✅ (Top, Bottom)	-	-	-	-	-
Shortcode	🚫	🚫	🚫	🚫	🚫	🚫	🚫
Site Logo	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Site Tagline	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Site Title	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Social Link	#63782	#63782	-	-	-	-	-
Social Links	✅ (Optional)	✅	✅ (Horizontal, Vertical)	-	-	-	-
Spacer	✅	✅ (Top, Bottom)	-	🛠	🛠	-	-
Table	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Table of Contents	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Tag Cloud	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Term Description	✅	✅	-	-	-	-	-
Time To Read	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-
Verse	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	✅ (Optional)	-
Video	✅ (Optional)	✅ (Optional)	-	-	-	-	-

Known Issues

• Several blocks adopting padding support will also probably need box-sizing: border-box added to their styles. A sweep should be completed before closing this issue.

• Before the Post Template block can fully adopt spacing supports it may need a bit of a refactor: Post Template: Refactor ad hoc flex container to use layout block support flex type #44557

Merged PRs

The following list details all the PRs merged as part of this effort to increase spacing support.

• Add margin/padding support to Archives block #43350
• Add margin and padding supports to Audio block. #43351
• Tag cloud: add spacing block supports #43367
• Table of contents: add spacing supports #43368
• Table: add spacing block supports #43370
• Term description: add spacing block supports #43372
• Spacer: add spacing block supports  #43366
• Post Date: Add spacing support #43406
• Heading: Add padding support #43454
• Paragraph: Add spacing block supports #43455
• Query Title: Add padding support #43458
• Post Title: Add padding support #43457
• Video: add spacing block supports #43365
• List: add spacing block supports #43402
• Media & Text: Add spacing block supports #43456
• Verse: Add margin support #43461
• Categories List: Add spacing support #43647
• Comment Edit Link: Add spacing support #43657
• Comment Date: Add spacing support #43656
• Comment Reply Link: Add spacing support #43658
• Avatar: add padding support #43519
• Site Logo: add padding and margin support #43520
• Social Icons: Add missing padding support, update margin support #43885
• Add a minHeight block support under dimensions #45300
• Add spacing tools to time to read block #49392
• A margin option is added to the Embeded preview block #39384
• Preformatted: Add spacing support #45196
• Quote: Add spacing supports #63545
• Buttons: Add border, color, and padding block supports #63538
• Image: Adopt margin block support #63546
• Search: Add margin support #63547

PRs with pending questions, discussions, or concerns

Possible Follow-Ups

• Dimensions Design Tools Consistency Follow-up: Review box-sizing settings across blocks #43465
• Layout: layout styles overriding block axial margin values in theme.json #43404

[carolinan]

I suggest not adding spacing to the more block which uses the <!--more--> tag and does not use any block props on the front.

[andrewserong]

Small update: as of #45300 there is now a Min Height dimensions block support that we can opt into. That PR has opted in both the Group and Post Content blocks, and I've updated the table in the issue description. @jasmussen flagged on the PR (here: #45300 (comment)) that when we use the Min Height block support, it usually shouldn't be a default control (that is, it should be optional and only exposed via the drop-down menu). There is also a follow-up tracking issue in #45501 to look at tweaks and enhancements for the UI of the Min Height controls.

[t-hamano]

I have updated the table cell because I found #43243 which adds margins to the Embed block.

[annezazu]

Noting this heavily requested negative margins feature request as potentially that could be addressed as part of this wider work: #32644

[aaronrobertshaw]

Thanks for flagging that issue @annezazu 👍

It is something that has been explored previously (#40464), however, there were a few blockers at the time, and more recently, there was an issue with layout support styles overriding the margin block support styles. That last issue was a blocker to adopting the design tools here as well.

Supporting negative margins will likely require some design work to ensure we come up with a nice UX. So while I'm 100% on board with us supporting negative margins in the near future. I think it might be better to keep it separate to the efforts adopting dimensions and spacing design tools as they have a knack for hitting enough roadblocks as is 🙂

@andrewserong's comment on the negative margin feature request issue goes into more detail on what we need to address and provides extra context.

[t-hamano]

Update: I have added the Footnotes and Details blocks to the list.

[t-hamano]

Update: I have updated the table with the latest specs.

At the same time, I also added the minHeight and units support column. We need to also consider whether we can add this support, except for blocks that already have it and blocks that clearly do not need it.

Something I noticed while working on this is that even if I don't explicitly define support in __experimentalDefaultControls, the control will be displayed by default.

For example, the following definition shows the padding, margin, block gap and min-height controls by default:

{
	"supports": {
		"dimensions": {
			"minHeight": true
		},
		"spacing": {
			"margin": true,
			"padding": true,
			"blockGap": true
		}
	}
}

This behavior is different from the Typography support. I don't know if this is an original specification or some kind of bug 🤔

[aaronrobertshaw]

Thanks again @t-hamano for all the effort in keeping these issues up-to-date.

I don't think the units support is intended for wide-spread adoption, or at least might be best dealt with separately to these efforts. Maybe remove it? What do you think?

This behavior is different from the Typography support. I don't know if this is an original specification or some kind of bug

These block supports pre-existed the ability to define which controls display by default. I believe the current behaviour is for backwards compatibility. Perhaps creating an issue to address and discuss this further would be a good idea?

P.S. Can you update the merged PRs list with any links for the blocks you updated?

[t-hamano]

I don't think the units support is intended for wide-spread adoption, or at least might be best dealt with separately to these efforts. Maybe remove it? What do you think?

I also have no strong opinion on adding units support to this PR, so Il remove the units column.

These block supports pre-existed the ability to define which controls display by default. I believe the current behaviour is for backwards compatibility. Perhaps creating an issue to address and discuss this further would be a good idea?

Yes, maybe it can be addressed after this issue is completed.