Full Site Editing/FSE: Creating New Template Issue

[retnonindya]

Quick summary

Creating a new template is quite tricky. There is a "Add New" button that somehow will only open the Front Page template (what if the user wants to create a completely new template?) -- and the button will go missing once the Front Page template is created -- and creating a new template from the page/post editor sidebar pops up an error.

Steps to reproduce

There are two ways of creating a new template, and both of them need improvements.

Creating a new template from Templates section:

1. Go to Appearance section, then click "Editor". This will open template editor as expected.

2. Click the dropdown arrow on the header area. Click "Browse all templates".

3. Once clicked, see the Templates area. See "Add New" button on the top right corner. When clicked, it will only provide option "Front Page Template", and nothing more (you can't create a new template).

4. When you returned to the Templates area, notice the "Add New" button is no longer there.

Why this is important: "Add New" button gives understanding that users can create templates as many as they want. To have "Add New" button disappears can be quite confusing.

Create a new template from post/page sidebar:

1. Open/edit a post or a page.

2. On the sidebar, notice "Template" tab. Click on it, and click "New" to create a new template.

3. Name the new template.

4. Notice the editor switched to template format. This is expected. Then, add some blocks or change some blocks there.

5. Click "Update" to save the changes. Notice the prompt that the action will save both the page and the template.

6. See error appearing:

The error appears on another issue (switching template):
#59570

The template, however, is visible and actually saved on Templates section (this is the WP Admin view: ...wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=wp_template):

... And on Templates area:

Why this is important: The error message will definitely caused confusion and frustration on users.

What you expected to happen

For users to be able to create templates, no matter from where they are coming from (either from Templates section or from post/page editor sidebar)

What actually happened

Missing "Add New" button on Templates section and error message when saving a template

Context

Personal testing on my personal site. FSE active, Free plan.

Simple, Atomic or both?

Simple

Theme-specific issue?

No response

Browser, operating system and other notes

No response

Reproducibility

Consistent

Severity

Most (> 50%)

Available workarounds?

Yes, difficult to implement

Workaround details

I have been tinkering with FSE for a couple of weeks, and I found it's really easy to create a new template from WP Admin:
WEBSITEADDRESS/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=wp_template

I'm not sure how we want to use this, but maybe as a fallback, we can add the Templates section? I noticed it was there 1-2 weeks ago:

(Please disregard the red box on "Editor" section -- I use it for my personal blog purpose. Notice there are "Templates" and "Template Parts" after "Editor")

[kimerlin81]

Thanks @retnonindya -

I was able to reproduce the add new template (front page template only) and the missing new template button issues on both Atomic and Simple test sites.

I was only able to replicate the save error in step 6 when I tested on a Simple test site.

[eduardozulian]

Also reproduced during our team testing: p7BLOB-4mD-p2#comment-5292

[joweber123]

I also just came across this when I was doing testing on my own today. I expected that I would be able to create a completely new template from the screen below and I was confused that I was only shown the option to add a new "Front Page" template.

[creativecoder]

I believe improvement to template creation and management are planned for Gutenberg, leading up to WP 6.0. Here are a few issues I found in the Gutenberg repo, related to this

• Template Part: Improve template part creation flow WordPress/gutenberg#29950
• Site Editor: template management WordPress/gutenberg#29449
• Expand the types of templates that can be added in the Site Editor WordPress/gutenberg#37407

[creativecoder]

Setting this to normal priority, since the error that was part of the initial report was resolved. Addressing what remains needs significant feature development in Gutenberg.