Bring post formats to block themes

[draganescu]

What problem does this address?

WordPress supports post formats since version 3.1 (year 2011). In block themes one can use functions.php to add support for post formats, but then that's about it.

What is your proposed solution?

• Add a new type of template which is aimed at displaying a post of a specific format - basically, add built in support for formats in the site editor
• Introduce fomat specific archives (all asides, all videos) - this has to be specific for block themes as the archive itself does not exist in WP by default.

Formats are a powerful feature. They do have overalpping purposes with custom post types and custom templates, but as a user experience they sometimes make a lot more sense, for example if you want a simple log (not blog, nor magazine, not shop) website.

[Mamaduka]

Related #45866. cc @courtneyr-dev

[jasontucker]

This need to happen

[carolinan]

I think it is a matter of adding post formats to the template hierarchy.

[boogah]

I am dying to get this feature into Gutenberg — and eventually WordPress core. Happy to do whatever I can to help!

[draganescu]

Having had separate discussions with folks from the @WordPress/gutenberg-design here is what I learned:

• post formats are overlapping with many current features such as CPTs and CPT templates, block patterns and block templates, block templates which work only in specific template types
• post formats were originally aimed at rendering certain posts differently in the loop less so for rendering a different template, although that was possible
• one item that seems missing in the site editor is not so much post formats as conditional rendering which is available in classic themes
• a post with one block, say a quote, and no title is effectively a post format. So is appears what we should focus on is improving:
  • handling of title less posts in the loop and in templates
  • the new post flow where one should be able to start with a pattern
  • the specific formatting of the post content bloc in the query loop

[SaxonF]

@boogah could you tell us a little bit about when you last needed post formats? As @draganescu mentioned we are thinking through whether there are more flexible, alternative ways to solve some of the problems post formats did.

[boogah]

My biggest use case for post formats has been one that hasn't really come up yet. At least not in this conversation. 😉

Link posts.

Video, audio, quotes, asides, and status posts (as well as the others I didn't bother listing off) would all benefit from improved handling of titleless posts, I agree. As would a post flow where a user can pick the pattern for the post they're trying to craft.

Link logging is something that I enjoy doing. On the days that I don't feel like writing a full post, I usually have a link in my back pocket that I'd like to be able to share. It'd be great to have a way to natively do that in WordPress as it is today instead of falling back to a classic theme or hack something to make link posts work.

[Ipstenu]

Video posts, for me, has been the biggest one. Sure I could make a CPT but if I want a video post to show up in the normal post tags and categories, archives etc, and NOT have to worry about training editors, it’s post formats all the way.

Last used last week.

[janboddez]

Got the same—I think?—issue with CPTs, despite Site Editor support for them.

In search results or when they share tags with regular posts, it’s not uncommon to see the different types listed on one and the same page. Yes, in the loop!

(At the moment I use a super convoluted “hack,” i.e., several strategically placed instances of a dynamically rendered custom block, to display post meta for that exact post type, where I want it for that specific post type. Or format, if you like.)

As for titleless posts, I do a lot of those (using those same CPTs, but they could as well be post formats). The way I deal with them, and “outgoing link titles,” in the case of link posts/bookmarks/“likes,” is I override the Post Title block’s render callback!

(To merely hide a certain format’s titles, one could probably fall back to CSS-based solutions.)

Anyway, it’d be nice (or at least somewhat easier) if there could be several instances of the Post Template—not entirely sure that’s what it’s called—“block” (for one and the same query), one for each format (well, or post type) you would like to support.

[carstingaxion]

In addition to the mentioned use cases, I‘d like to add post-kinds like the #fediverse uses them and all kinds of indieweb POSSE apps.

I have found this many times a nice use-case for the built-in post_formats as they are almost 100% fitting the open-web recommendations.

[jordesign]

One thing i've appreciated in themes that use Post Formats well is within the index page (so equivalently the Query Block) where they have different treatments within the index for different formats (ie. including the video, or a blockquote in the loop instead of title/excerpt).

Like Baskerville (for example).