Little Big Things for WordPress Editing

Agentic workflows are taking a leading role in how we interface with WordPress, and that’s a good thing. But it doesn’t mean the editing experience has to stay difficult for the folks who want to sit down and build something, or make the tweaks that their agent can’t seem to narrow down.

So these are a few “little big things” I’ve been exploring after coming back from paternity leave, all aimed at making it easier to edit in WordPress. None of them are big in scope, but they’re all about removing complexity that’s piled up a bit.

Block Locking

Right now, patterns inserted into a page get a kind of auto-lock, as a new construct introduced in WordPress 7.0, separate from content only locking. These two ideas are doing nearly the same job, but one is a bit difficult to comprehend while the other is only a technical know-how.

My fix is to use the existing content only locking when patterns are inserted, while adding a layout lock option in the block lock modal. This gives authors a way to set the content only locking easily, while also adapting the behavior of inserted patterns to be either a function of locked, or unlocked, instead of something in-between.

I also want to bring those lock controls into List View. The lock icon today is currently decorative: you see it and there’s nothing to do. My PR makes it useable, where you can select it to see a full list of locking functions when unlocked: lock movement, lock removal, lock layout. And a one-click unlock when the block is locked. No more hunting.

Soon we’ll be able to remove the existing block locking modal entirely, when we update the block toolbar menu to use this same flyout, further reducing the UX complexity of locking to one click to see the options, and another to apply an option (in the same spot).

Editing Synced Entities

When you want to edit a synced pattern, a template part, or an inserted pattern, the editor currently routes you differently for each. You lose your sense of place. You’re no longer in the page you were composing; you’re in some other view, and you have to find your way back.

My PR on unifying the edit/done interactions collapses these into one flow. Click edit, the selected block stays in focus while the rest fade out (spotlight mode), make your changes, click done (or anywhere else on the canvas).

It’s the same interaction whether you’re working with a synced pattern, a template part, or a freshly inserted patter: a temporary unlock where you can make changes without loosing your place in the editor.

Sure, if you want to go to the isolated view of synced entities, you can using the “Edit original” menu item (no change).

There’s even more we could do here that isn’t in this initial PR. Right now only the parent of a synced pattern shows the purple sync indicator; everything inside it looks like regular content. It could be better for the whole synced subtree to read as synced. Also, the block card could carry a “Synced” badge instead of a “Pattern” badge (which I don’t think is useful).

Those are small affordances, but they keep you oriented without sending you somewhere else to understand what you’re looking at.

Zooming Out

Zoom out has its own version of the same problem. It lets you see the page as a composition and rearrange it. Pattern insertion is part of that job, but the current flow doesn’t behave like the rest of the canvas. It opens the sidebar inserter, which slides your content over, and then you’re figuring out how to close it and get back to where you were.

The fix is to stop investing a new UI/UX for the zoom-out interaction and reuse the existing Patterns Explorer modal. The page stays put, you pick a pattern, and you return to the same canvas. There’s no manual resetting necessary.

The modal creates a clear, temporary selection state: open, pick, close, keep going. The standard blue insertion line handles drag and drop, so the separate “Drop pattern” strip goes away with this.

I also added items to the block toolbar options menu, “Add before”, and “Add after” which opens the same Patterns Explorer at the correct insertion index. Those already exist everywhere, but instead of having a blank insertion point, when you’re working with patterns you’ll see patterns.

The toolbar follows the same idea. “Change design” becomes “Replace”, and instead of opening a custom up-to-six dropdown of patterns in the toolbar, it opens the Patterns Explorer modal with the active category preselected.

Again, just reducing the complexities and matching the expectations of the existing editing experience.

Pushing these forward

If you know me, you know I’m not precious my PRs. I’ve kicked off the efforts and I believe in the direction, but I don’t need to be the one who lands them (or becomes a bottleneck).

If you’re a contributor, please pick these pull requests up, test, suggest/push commits, and take them over the line.

Now that we have many of the pieces in place for WordPress, circling back and reducing complexity is the most important work we can do.