Enable Site, Post, Query, Navigation, and Reusable Blocks in the Widgets Editor

[getdave]

What problem does this address?

In #32761 we disabled all "entity" blocks in the Widgets Editor. This was because they didn't work as expected and required additional refinement which wasn't possible prior to 5.8.

What is your proposed solution?

Post 5.8 let's look at how we can enable all these blocks.

[talldan]

@paaljoachim mentioned that Reusable Blocks could potentially be re-introduced when #32464 is merged, as that introduces a separate 'save' button.

That PR is currently targeted for 5.8.1.

[jonathanlundstrom]

Hi! What is the current status of this? We're currently developing a site where access to reusable blocks within widget areas would open a new world of opportunities.

[ndiego]

👆 I would like to echo the question above. This issue should also be considered related to #26170

[noisysocks]

No update, sorry. The Gutenberg team is focused mostly right now on shipping the site editor as part of WP 5.9. If anyone would like to volunteer to work on this issue I'd be happy to help them get set up and answer any questions.

[jonathanlundstrom]

I see. Thank you for the update. Is there some experimental support, or some hook or filter that would enable it as of now? I would sincerely love to get involved as I have been developing for WordPress now for the better half of 12 years, focusing on extending the core functionality with pure and clean WP-centric code. But right now, at this point in my life, I unfortunately lack the time to do so :(

[draganescu]

Is there some experimental support, or some hook or filter that would enable it as of now?

No :) This is not a small update or tweak. Introducing support for entity powered blocks adds a new save workflow and also has the potential to disrupt the architecture of the entire screen. IMO, ideally, this will also bring saving widget areas themselves to a CPT and getting widgets out of the options storage they're in now, via some sort of forward compatible upgrade.

[talldan]

This now extends to the navigation block, as that started using an entity recently.

[noisysocks]

It's been a while since I looked at how the multi-save panel in the post editor works, but I believe it's an additional panel and process that's entirely seperate to how a post is saved. That means we can probably add it to the widgets screen without too much hassle. Pressing Save would open the multi-save panel and then pressing Save again would save any deleted entities and then save the widgets using our current saveWidgets action.

No idea how to hook this into the Customizer, though 😅

[JTorresConsulta]

At this moment Wordpress has become a frustration factory

You cannot use widgets in the block editor
You also can't use blocks in the widget editor

LOL

[slomeli79]

For anyone else arriving here and frustrated by this still-unsolved issue, the Reusable Gutenberg Blocks Widget plugin gets it done.

[mateuswetah]

Any improvements on this? Some classic themes may benefit of this, such as having the query block in sidebar areas 🥲

[draganescu]

@mateuswetah classic themes can include sidebars that are block template parts. See here for a walkthrough. Is that maybe a better alternative path?

[mateuswetah]

Sorry for late answer @draganescu!

Yes, it is an alternative, while a bit inconvenient to wait for classic theme developers to provide specific template parts when desired... but I understand it speaks loudly to the transitory nature of the widgets editor.