Decouple block themes into composable parts: Tracking issue

[scruffian]

What problem does this address?

Block themes are made of three elements:

• Templates
• Patterns
• Styles (theme.json)

Each of these parts are independent, which means they can be used interchangeably. This issue captures some of the ways we can surface that to users.

• Global Styles: Managing style variations #38333
• Remove coupling of templates, parts, and patterns when switching themes #25071
• Surface related patterns in the template inspector #44582
• Global Styles: Allow saving, importing, exporting, copying from another theme without switching to it #45371

Related technical issues

• Template definitions don't belong in theme.json #42732
• Empty HTML comments are rendered in the editor #48408
• Style Variations previews on hover not properly reflecting fonts #40699
• Patterns: Use patterns from the directory in the pattern block. #47880

[carolinan]

If I understand correctly, this list assumes that parts are already patterns, is there an overview issue for that? Has work on it continued after 6.4 beta?

[scruffian]

I wasn't sure whether to put parts under templates or patterns so I left it ambiguous!

[talldan]

If I understand correctly, this list assumes that parts are already patterns, is there an overview issue for that? Has work on it continued after 6.4 beta?

I don't think there's been any progress made on this, but I think it's ok to consider them related as concepts, even if they're technically quite different right now. I'll also try to write an issue for it so that we at least know what the challenges are.