Theme Directory Redesign: What should be the default filter?

[beafialho]

In the current version of the site, there's a "Block Themes" filter showing in the themes grid.

With the new redesign proposal, filters would be reorganised which means that filter would be less visible. For that reason, as @ellenbauer well pointed out here, it could make sense to have block themes showing as default (or figure out another way to highlight them). I'd like to open this up to discussion.

Current	Proposal

[ellenbauer]

Thank you so much for opening this issue @beafialho

As mentioned in the Figma file, it would most likely be a radio button in this case. But as there are either or (classic or block themes), it would be amazing if we could give block themes the much-needed exposure this way.

I feel it's so important to embrace block themes, blocks, block based WordPress in general in order to show WordPress users what we have been building and to invite them to use the new options.

[beafialho]

Thank you for bringing this into discussion @ellenbauer!

What concerns me about the radio button approach is that we're enforcing that filter to always be active, which is not ideal for a search. For that reason, and thinking about the main problem here "How can we expose and highlight block themes?", @panchovm mentioned the idea of doing that more explicitly, as a section featuring Block Themes in the landing page (which could have a slightly or drastically different color), followed by all themes ordered by popularity with the main grid.

cc: @wordpress/gutenberg-design

[paaljoachim]

Thank you for the design ping!
The thing is that gradually the focus will be equal between Block themes and (Full) Site Editing themes.
Below I have highlighted Block, (Full) Site Editing or Classic themes in the Feature Filter.

Here is one example.

I also included a black circle with a ? in it, so users can hover or click the ? and get an explanation of what a Block, Full Site Editing and Classic themes are. As users might wonder which to select.

[ellenbauer]

@paaljoachim Now I'm a bit confused as from my knowledge there are only block themes and classic themes?

[ellenbauer]

But regarding the last iteration @beafialho shared. Yes, actually it's all about featuring/highlighting block themes for me and giving the latest new tools in WordPress the much needed exposure.

So I believe an extra section is even better as it says 'Hey, we have something new year, try it out'. I love that. The more we can highlight a block theme section from a design point of view, the better 😍 imo.

I love the dark mode though, as most themes are either with a white or colourful background, I feel. So the dark background works better to showcase themes. I think I like the first design proposal best in this regard, but maybe we can still work on it a little bit. I will think of further ideas as well, and maybe research how others have solved this problem.

[jasmussen]

I wonder if full site editing themes is an older filter? Or perhaps it refers to classic themes which have some site editor features, also called "hybrid themes". They might be registering template parts, header/footer etc, and use blocks in those.

That's also one of the reasons why I like the idea of having checkboxes for the type, even if we check the "block themes" box by default. Because I might want to browse both block themes, classic themes, and hybrid themes.

The separate promo box makes good sense to me as well.

[ryelle]

That's also one of the reasons why I like the idea of having checkboxes for the type, even if we check the "block themes" box by default. Because I might want to browse both block themes, classic themes, and hybrid themes.

We can keep the checkbox approach for the filters if we use the separate block themes section @beafialho suggested. The issue that lead me to suggest radio buttons was: if the main page defaults to showing Block Themes, then that checkbox is checked by default, and what should happen if someone clears it? No filters are selected, but by default we'd show only block themes, so actually it should be checked… 🔁

In any case, I like the separate section to feature block themes, we can definitely do that.

[carolinan]

For context, the tag full site editing was added before the term block themes was used and long before the suggestion to rename the features to site editing. There has been different discussions about renaming the tag but no change has been implemented.

Block themes and full site editing themes are the same thing: themes with this full site editing tag is what shows up under block themes in the directory.

There is no tag for hybrid themes, because they have no definition. The defintion should come from the community as themes evolve.

[carolinan]

If you as a user want a theme with the customizer, classic menu, block patterns and the site editor, checking the boxes for these features would give you a hybrid theme - if the theme author has added the correct tags.