Creating page templates from the block editor is a subpar experience compared to the Site Editor

[carolinan]

What problem does this address?

When you edit a page or post in the block editor, you can open the Summary panel and click on the template name and select "Create new template" menu item to create a new template.
The next step is choosing a name for the template.

This flow has already been improved in Gutenberg compared to just using WordPress 6.4.x
But then you are redirected to the "template editor", and there are some default blocks added to the template automatically:
A couple of group blocks, site title, post title and post content.

I think that users finds it difficult to go from here, to a template that matches the rest of the theme/website.

What is your proposed solution?

Add the blocks from the default page or post template, respectively, instead of these basic blocks.

[talldan]

Oh yeah, it isn't great. I hadn't tried it before 😄

Hopefully the editor unification might lead to this being in a better place.

I've also wondered if there could be quick ways to add the header/footer template part areas to new empty templates.

[carolinan]

I believe it would be good to get some more eyes on this editing flow and see if it can't be updated for 6.6.
@WordPress/gutenberg-design

[jameskoster]

For now it might make sense to reuse the experience you see when creating a template from the admin; when you land in the editor a modal appears offering suggested options for the new template. The options include the 'closest' template in the hierarchy, plus any patterns supplied by the active theme that are associated with the new template.

That way we can refine this experience holistically later, potentially aligning it with the 'add new page' flows. For instance instead of forcing users to select a single pattern from a limited scope, we could allow more expression by allowing them to pick and choose specific sections while composing the template in zoomed out view (#50739).

[abhi3315]

@carolinan It feels we might have to recreate a modal for editor similar to side-editor https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/trunk/packages/edit-site/src/components/add-new-template/index.js

[noisysocks]

@carolinan It feels we might have to recreate a modal for editor similar to side-editor https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/trunk/packages/edit-site/src/components/add-new-template/index.js

We can move this to @wordpress/editor which is the package used for components shared by the site editor and post editor.

[ndiego]

Has any progress been made on this? If not, thoughts on punting to 6.8?