Allow selecting draft Pages using the Link UI

[Addison-Stavlo]

The navigation "page link" feature gives you the option to create a page as a draft, but its search does not resolve drafts.

If it can create drafts and add them to the menu, then it should be able to search drafts and add them to the menu.

One problematic example could be if a user adds a navigation block, links a page by creating a draft option, and is then interrupted (the nav block errors and must be removed / re-added, the editor errors and must be reloaded, the nav block is accidently deleted, etc.). Now the user must re-add the navigation block, page link will not find the newly created draft and force the user to create ANOTHER draft for the same page - this will result in duplicated draft posts and confusion down the road.

What I would expect

For drafts to show up in the results of the page search.

[annezazu]

Noting that this is still an issue as of 5.9.

[porg]

Another use case:

• In the main text flow of your page you add a link to a page which you create as a draft, e.g. "Our Office" (slug: /our-office/)
• Later in the text you may want to refer to that freshly created draft again. If you can't find it that's an inconvenience.
  • Even worse, if unaware of the technicalities the user may re-create a second draft, with the slug then being (/our-office-1/).
  • Hence I proposed: Navigation: Creating new page from within the linker shall set title and slug right away (currently sets numerical ID) #46731
  • If the slug gets created right away, it's reserved in the namespace instantly, and you can start to refer/link to it from any open Editor instance from that moment on.

[getdave]

This can be solved in two ways other than allowing Drafts to appear in search results:

• Allow users to set the post status to Publish in Make it easier to create new Pages directly from Navigation block #66923
• Allow finding Drafts as part of Allow selecting from all available Pages when adding to Navigation block #66925

[porg]

As this topic of "drafts and linking" finally gets some attention from something senior of the Gutenberg team, what do you think of my proposal:

• Navigation: Creating new page from within the linker shall set title and slug right away (currently sets numerical ID) #46731

[getdave]

👍 I've responded to your proposal and requested additional input on that Issue.

I don't see that as a blocker to improving the UX in the situation described by this Issue.

I believe that for most users, showing drafts in the search results is going to add additional noise and complexity.

Nonetheless, I acknowledge that for some users it would be helpful to see drafts which is why I think we could decide to add an alternative workflow as part of #66925 which would allow users to also see "Draft" pages.