Allow extensions to customize the template name in the 'Add template' screen

[Aljullu]

Description

When creating a new template, Custom Post Type taxonomies are displayed with not very user-friendly titles. Ie: Recipe (recipe_cat).

That's not ideal because:

1. Users depend on slugs to distinguish between templates.
2. It's not very obvious that Category (recipe_cat) means the Recipes by Category template.

Currently, the values which are used are the singular_name label and the taxonomy slug:

gutenberg/packages/edit-site/src/components/add-new-template/utils.js

Lines 372 to 377 in 39500f6

	menuItemTitle = sprintf(
	// translators: %1s: Name of the taxonomy e.g: "Category"; %2s: Slug of the taxonomy e.g: "product_cat".
	__( '%1$s (%2$s)' ),
	labels.singular_name,
	slug
	);

However, that doesn't give enough flexibility to 3rd-party plugins because singular_name is used in other parts of the UI so it can't be adapted to the context of the Site Editor.

A real-life example

While the Recipe example I showed above is quite simple, there are other plugins which might add more templates, like WooCommerce:

(Sidenote: currently WooCommerce doesn't show these templates in the 'Add template' screen, but we would like to: woocommerce/woocommerce#42532)

Suggested solutions

I would like to propose some possible solutions that, I believe, would help improve this part of the UI:

1. Adding a new label value in the register_taxonomy() WordPress function intended to be used to name the templates in the admin. In the Product Category case, that could be Product Category Archives. If a plugin registers a taxonomy without specifying that value, the singular_name could be used as a fallback.
2. If, for some reason, we want to avoid the first approach, we could add a JS filter to let plugins customize the elements in the 'Add template' screen. That means using a less-explicit filter hook instead of the most explicit API from approach 1; however, it would have the advantage that it could be made so 3rd-plugins can also customize the template icon, for example.
3. Modifying the UI of the Add template screen to keep CPT templates separate from the others. If we could add a header for each specific CPT or plugin that registers custom templates, using singular_name would automatically become more use friendly. In the WC example, I'm thinking that there could be a Product or WooCommerce header where all product-related templates could be grouped. Ideally that would require no work by plugins.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Add this code snippet to your site in order to create a Recipes post type and a Recipe category taxonomy (you can use Code Snippets plugin if needed):

add_action( 'init', function () {
	register_post_type(
		'recipe',
		array(
			'labels'       => array(
				'name' => 'Recipes',
			),
			'show_in_rest' => true,
		)
	);
	register_taxonomy(
		'recipe_cat',
		'recipe',
		array(
			'label'        => 'Categories',
			'labels'       => array(
				'name'          => 'Recipe categories',
				'singular_name' => 'Category',
			),
			'show_in_rest' => true,
		)
	);
} );

2. Go to Appearance > Editor > Templates > Add New Template.
3. Once the 'Add template' screen shows up, notice how the title of the custom taxonomy template is not very user friendly: Category (recipe_cat).

Expected result:

As a user, I don't need to know that Recipe Categories uses the recipe_cat slug internally. Ideally, those buttons should show up a user-friendly name like: Recipe Category Archives or Recipes by Category.

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

No response

Environment info

No response

Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.

Yes

[Aljullu]

cc @gziolo and @ntsekouras to know your thoughts about the above. I think the questions are:

1. Do you agree this is an area where the UI could be improved, or would you prefer to keep it as-is?
2. If you agree that we could introduce changes, do any of the proposed solutions I wrote sound like a good approach to you?

I would be more than happy to contribute fixing this, but would like to hear your thoughts about it before getting started. 🙂

[ntsekouras]

Thanks for the issue @Aljullu! For me your first suggestion would be the best:

Adding a new label value in the register_taxonomy() WordPress function intended to be used to name the templates in the admin. In the Product Category case, that could be Product Category Archives. If a plugin registers a taxonomy without specifying that value, the singular_name could be used as a fallback.

A similar label could be considered for post type's labels too.

Regarding grouping or reordering is a different issue and could considered as well, besides the label.

[Aljullu]

Thanks for the input, @ntsekouras!

A similar label could be considered for post type's labels too.

Agree, good point.

I opened two PRs, one in Gutenberg and the other one in WordPress, which I think handle all the work related to introducing a new label when registering a CPT and Taxonomy:

• Update 'Add template' screen to prefer template_name label instead of singular_name #60367
• Introduce 'template_name' label to custom post types and custom taxonomies wordpress-develop#6344

Hope you don't mind I added you as the reviewer. 🙂

[mcsf]

I agree with adding a label to the taxonomy type, that would be my first move.

That said, it's worth exploring UI improvements. If nothing else, to distinguish custom types from standard. I wonder what information we could use from the registration process to reliably determine provenance or namespace (like "Woo", etc.), avoiding the cost of another extension of the API.