Sharing Block: automatically add block to templates in block themes

[jeherve]

Important

This is an experiment to play with the Block Hooks API. It can only work with recent changes made to WP Core, and scheduled to ship in WordPress 6.5 next month.

Proposed changes:

Under a few specific conditions, we want to automatically add a sharing buttons block (and 3 inner blocks, Facebook, X, and Mastodon) to the bottom of the post content.
Site owners can then go to Appearance > Editor if they want to remove or customize that block.

For now, we're trying to automatically add the block right after the post content block, in post and page templates (that includes templates like page-wide, page-no-sidebar, etc).

Here are the conditions:

• The site must be using a block theme.
• An option (jetpack_sharing_buttons_auto_add) must be set. Later on we can add UI to set that option under Jetpack > Settings > Social.
• The sharing module must be deactivated. We wouldn't want to automatically add sharing buttons to the post content twice.
• On WordPress.com Simple, the module is always active. There, we check if sharing posts are enabled on single posts and / or pages, since that matches the template where we'd like to automatically add the block.

To do

• This doesn't quite work just yet, I haven't been able to figure out how to insert inner blocks. The site editor currently shows a validation error when viewing the single post template:
• We should figure out how this should play with the sharedaddy module. Should we look at sharedaddy settings like we do right now and base our response on that? Or should we not look at it at all? In this case, when should auto-addition be triggered on WordPress.com Simple, where the sharing module is always active?

Resources:

• https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/10/15/introducing-block-hooks-for-dynamic-blocks/
• https://github.com/ockham/like-button
• https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59572
• https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/60126

Other information:

• Have you written new tests for your changes, if applicable?
• Have you checked the E2E test CI results, and verified that your changes do not break them?
• Have you tested your changes on WordPress.com, if applicable (if so, you'll see a generated comment below with a script to run)?

Jetpack product discussion

• p1707216098587689-slack-C065QF2R1B6

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

• No

Testing instructions:

• Start by installing the development version of WordPress. Alternatively, launch a quick test site via this link.
• Go to Appearance > Themes and install a block-based theme.
• Go to Jetpack > Settings > Sharing and ensure that the Sharing buttons module is off.
• Via WP CLI, set the jetpack_sharing_buttons_auto_add option: wp option add jetpack_sharing_buttons_auto_add true
• Visit a single post on the frontend
  • Sharing buttons (Facebook, X, Mastodon) should be added below the post content.

[github-actions]

Are you an Automattician? Please test your changes on all WordPress.com environments to help mitigate accidental explosions.

• To test on WoA, go to the Plugins menu on a WordPress.com Simple site. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the upgrade flow to be able to upload, install, and activate the Jetpack Beta plugin. Once the plugin is active, go to Jetpack > Jetpack Beta, select your plugin, and enable the add/hook-sharing-block branch.

• To test on Simple, run the following command on your sandbox:

  bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack add/hook-sharing-block
  

Interested in more tips and information?

• In your local development environment, use the jetpack rsync command to sync your changes to a WoA dev blog.
• Read more about our development workflow here: PCYsg-eg0-p2
• Figure out when your changes will be shipped to customers here: PCYsg-eg5-p2

[github-actions]

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Jetpack plugin:

The Jetpack plugin has different release cadences depending on the platform:

• WordPress.com Simple releases happen daily.
• WoA releases happen weekly.
• Releases to self-hosted sites happen monthly. The next release is scheduled for March 5, 2024 (scheduled code freeze on March 4, 2024).

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[andrii-lysenko]

Thanks for working on this. This is a great POC and works as described.

I understand that it's not a ready solution yet, just wanted to point out what we also should consider in the future.

• We probably need to consider if Sharing Buttons already integrated as a part of Post template and not insert it if it is.
• We also won't need to add these if we add the block manually to the page.
• It would be great to see these buttons in editor as well, so they could be adjusted if needed.

[andrii-lysenko]

Oh, I just got it completely wrong. We actually do change the template of the Post. I it's a great way to do this. 👍

[jeherve]

I think this is ready to go now. It won't appear for anyone since it relies on the jetpack_sharing_buttons_auto_add option that you can only set via CLI today, but it will allow us to start testing, and then to develop an interface for it in the Sharing settings screen in the Jetpack dashboard.

[andrii-lysenko]

I agree that it's safe to move forward as it won't actually show unless option is set tu true.
Let's merge it so we would be able to iterate on this.