Cannot edit navigation settings or styles when editing navigation specifically

[felixarntz]

Description

When editing the navigation of the site specifically in the Site Editor, the navigation block's settings and styles cannot be modified. This is confusing because this UI literally exists to edit the navigation, but a key part of doing so is not accessible via the UI.

Users currently need to edit the navigation as part of a template or template part to have the navigation block settings and styles available. This can lead to a user not even being aware of these options because, if they want to edit the navigation specifically, they'll likely open the UI that is purely focused on the navigation (which of course also helps focus by avoiding the "clutter" of other blocks on the page).

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Use a block theme, e.g. Twenty Twenty-Five.
2. Open the Site Editor via Appearance > Editor.
3. In the Site Editor sidebar, click Navigation.
4. Click on the three dots icon (Actions), and then Edit in the dropdown.
5. In the editor, select the overall navigation block. You'll see in the editor sidebar Block tab that "Navigation" is selected, showing the overall menu items. But the tabs for the block's settings and styles are not there, which is the bug I am reporting here.

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

Environment info

This bug has nothing to do with the environment, it happens consistently.

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

Please confirm which theme type you used for testing.

• Block
• Classic
• Hybrid (e.g. classic with theme.json)
• Not sure

[carolinan]

As far as I know, this is intentional.
I am not saying the issue is not valid. But what you are editing is not the navigation block, but the menu.
If you look at the screenshot it says "Navigation Menu" and the block tab is the inner block.
The menu that is the content, the menu that can then be assigned to a navigation block.
The navigation block is what decides the placement and design.

[Andrew-Starr]

Yes as carolinan says it's not a bug.

This allows the menu to be re-used elsewhere in a navigation block. For example using the same menu in header and footer where you may need it to be styled differently. If the styling was directly on the menu, then everywhere that menu was used would inherit identical styling.

As an analogy, a post title does not have styling/color/font size applied directly, allowing the post title to be displayed where it is required but with different styling based on where it is being displayed and in what context.

[carolinan]

Even if this is how it works, it is unclear to many users, it is not easy to understand the differences.

[Andrew-Starr]

I agree it is unclear and I must admit that I was initially confused when Navigation first appeared in the site editor sidebar.

How could it be made clearer and easier to understand the differences?

Going back to classic theming, menu management was named "Menus" and there was no mention of the word navigation.

Now in block theming we have the "Navigation" block, and the menu management panel is also named "Navigation" in the site editor sidebar.

[felixarntz]

what you are editing is not the navigation block, but the menu.

If it was actually implemented that way, I could see it. But it is possible to edit everything of the child blocks of the navigation menu, including styles. So if it's indeed intended to only edit the contents of the menu, I'd say it's still a half baked implementation that would need to be fixed, as it's neither clear nor consistent.

Personally, I don't see why we would want to not allow changing how the navigation menu behaves, i.e. the navigation block's settings and styles.

But if y'all think it makes more sense to only allow editing the navigation menu content via this view, we should make sure it's consistent, i.e. users shouldn't be able to edit the child blocks' settings and styles either, only the contents.

[felixarntz]

If you look at the screenshot it says "Navigation Menu" and the block tab is the inner block.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The block tab refers to "Navigation", which is the user-facing name of the navigation block. It's not referring to an inner block, other than listing them below. It is possible to select the overall navigation block via this view, which is arguably pointless if this view should only allow editing the contents of the navigation menu.