Editor: Describe the post title in the sidebar instead of "No block selected"

[jasmussen]

What?

Aruably closes, but let's not yet, #79285, as there are some related followups still in #79285 (comment).

Clicking the post title and opening the Block tab no longer says "No block selected." It describes the title, and explains that its appearance comes from the template, with a way to go and edit it.

Before:

After:

How?

Claude wrote this:

With the template hidden, the title is not a block at all: PostTitle is editor chrome rendered outside <BlockList>, and focusing it clears the block selection. So there is nothing for the block inspector to select, and no existing state that distinguishes "the title is being edited" from "nothing is selected" — both look identical to getBlockSelectionStart().

PostTitle already tracked its own focus locally for styling. That now also records isEditingPostTitle in the editor store, following the pattern of the other small UI flags there (blockInserterPanel, listViewPanel). The sidebar renders the title panel in the Block tab when that flag is set and no block is selected.

Two details that are easy to get wrong:

Focus is not cleared on blur. Opening the sidebar's Block tab moves focus out of the title, so clearing on blur would unset the flag in the same gesture that opens the tab meant to read it — the panel would only ever appear on a second click. Selecting a block is what supersedes the title, and the sidebar checks for that directly. This mirrors how block selection already survives clicking into the sidebar.

BlockCard is now exported from block-editor's private APIs. The card describes core/post-title even though no such block exists in the tree, so the information comes from getBlockType() rather than from a selection. editor already unlocks these APIs in several places.

The notice uses status="info" rather than a warning: nothing has gone wrong, and it appears every time the title takes focus, so a persistent amber would be a lot of alarm for a routine state.

Testing Instructions

1. On a block theme, edit a post or page with Show template off (the default).
2. Click into the title, then open the Block tab in the sidebar.
3. Expected: a Title block card, and a notice naming the template with a button to edit it. Previously this said "No block selected."
4. Press the button. It should navigate to that template.
5. Click a block in the content. The panel should give way to that block's inspector.

Please also confirm:

• A classic theme, or any post with no template. Only the card shows — there is no template to name or offer.
• A user without template editing permission sees the card without the notice.
• Show template on. Unchanged: the template's own blocks are selectable and the block inspector behaves as before.
• The title still behaves normally — typing, selection, Enter to create the first block.

Testing Instructions for Keyboard

1. Focus the title field.
2. Open the sidebar and move to the Block tab.
3. The card and notice should be reachable, and the button should be in the tab order and announce which template it opens.

Use of AI Tools

Claude Opus 5.

[github-actions]

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Co-authored-by: jasmussen <joen@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: mirka <0mirka00@git.wordpress.org>

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[jasmussen]

Note, there's a typographic widow in the Notice. This is likely because it doesn't internally use the Text component. Does Notice V2? CC: @WordPress/gutenberg-components

[github-actions]

🤖 PR meta 🤖

📦 Bundle size

Size Change: +839 B (+0.01%)

Total Size: 8.06 MB

📦 View Changed

Filename	Size	Change
build/scripts/block-editor/index.min.js	474 kB	+31 B (+0.01%)
build/scripts/editor/index.min.js	583 kB	+752 B (+0.13%)
build/styles/editor/style-rtl.css	31.9 kB	+15 B (+0.05%)
build/styles/editor/style-rtl.min.css	27.2 kB	+13 B (+0.05%)
build/styles/editor/style.css	31.9 kB	+15 B (+0.05%)
build/styles/editor/style.min.css	27.2 kB	+13 B (+0.05%)

_{faa3c40 Run}

⚡ Performance

Show the results

Client side metrics exclude the server response time.

front-end-block-theme

Metric	20bb16a	trunk	% Change
timeToFirstByte	56.2 ms +9.07% -2.31%	54.2 ms +5.44% -1.2%	3.69%
largestContentfulPaint	100 ms +4% -10%	96 ms +4.17% -8.33%	4.17%
lcpMinusTtfb	42.7 ms +5.27% -20.49%	38.2 ms +10.47% -13.09%	11.78%
wpBeforeTemplate	27.92 ms +13.18% -2.01%	27.27 ms +1.87% -0.84%	2.38%
wpTemplate	24.14 ms +3.36% -2.9%	23.37 ms +4.32% -2.18%	3.29%
wpTotal	52.43 ms +9.8% -1.95%	50.61 ms +5.83% -1.15%	3.6%
wpMemoryUsage	7.53 MB +0% -0%	7.48 MB +0% -0%	0.58%
wpDbQueries	17 +0% -0%	17 +0% -0%	0%

front-end-classic-theme

Metric	20bb16a	trunk	% Change
timeToFirstByte	43.9 ms +3.64% -1.71%	43.15 ms +8.57% -2.09%	1.74%
largestContentfulPaint	100 ms +0% -4%	96 ms +4.17% -0%	4.17%
lcpMinusTtfb	54.05 ms +3.98% -1.85%	52.85 ms +3.12% -2.27%	2.27%
wpBeforeTemplate	26.39 ms +1.82% -2.77%	25.95 ms +6.86% -1.81%	1.7%
wpTemplate	14.34 ms +2.37% -0.91%	14.33 ms +4.19% -3.14%	0.07%
wpTotal	40.99 ms +3.85% -1.9%	40.41 ms +8.71% -2.3%	1.44%
wpMemoryUsage	5.52 MB +0% -0%	5.47 MB +0% -0%	0.81%
wpDbQueries	14 +0% -0%	14 +0% -0%	0%

media-processing

Metric	20bb16a	trunk	% Change
mediaProcessingJpeg	392.93 ms +0.08% -0.46%	393.95 ms +1.17% -0.89%	-0.26%
mediaProcessingAvif	6035.35 ms +0.19% -0.08%	6032.25 ms +0.09% -0.02%	0.05%
mediaProcessingJpegToAvif	4174.09 ms +0.13% -0.1%	4172.07 ms +0.09% -0.06%	0.05%

media-upload

Metric	20bb16a	trunk	% Change
jpegUploadProcessing	1438.93 ms +35.58% -1.98%	1411.58 ms +1.01% -0.57%	1.94%
pngUploadProcessing	207.44 ms +4.21% -2.12%	210.08 ms +1.2% -3.34%	-1.26%
largeJpegUploadProcessing	1414.64 ms +0.71% -0.61%	1400.96 ms +0.99% -0.19%	0.98%
multipleImageUploadProcessing	1581.36 ms +1.36% -1.46%	1548.77 ms +0.24% -1.16%	2.1%

post-editor

Metric	20bb16a	trunk	% Change
serverResponse	428.69 ms +4.34% -9.58%	424.99 ms +1.34% -8.45%	0.87%
firstPaint	194.45 ms +17.22% -10.17%	215.74 ms +9.27% -5.2%	-9.87%
domContentLoaded	1241.81 ms +2.97% -1.72%	1262.61 ms +1.16% -1.65%	-1.65%
loaded	1242.98 ms +2.97% -1.72%	1263.8 ms +1.16% -1.63%	-1.65%
firstContentfulPaint	421.24 ms +4.08% -4.76%	421.5 ms +1.49% -1.66%	-0.06%
firstBlock	3397.14 ms +0.26% -1.61%	3411.41 ms +0.34% -0.36%	-0.42%
type	15.81 ms +5.88% -7.02%	14.33 ms +8.16% -10.05%	10.33%
typeWithoutInspector	13.9 ms +8.49% -3.09%	14.49 ms +7.59% -8.14%	-4.07%
typeWithTopToolbar	17.86 ms +10.3% -3.25%	18.13 ms +8.55% -8.44%	-1.49%
typeContainer	9.01 ms +6.1% -10.54%	9.04 ms +14.93% -3.87%	-0.33%
focus	76.13 ms +24.1% -5%	78.37 ms +20.38% -11.83%	-2.86%
firstFocus	175.96 ms +0% -0%	173.69 ms +0% -0%	1.31%
selectAll	561.74 ms +0.07% -3.65%	545.1 ms +0.27% -0.29%	3.05%
listViewOpen	64.86 ms +6.29% -4.01%	67.99 ms +13.1% -16.08%	-4.6%
inserterOpen	22.88 ms +6.38% -12.54%	21.22 ms +10.89% -6.64%	7.82%
inserterHover	3.73 ms +6.7% -8.04%	3.65 ms +9.04% -3.84%	2.19%
inserterSearch	8.55 ms +9.24% -7.02%	8.2 ms +20.49% -2.93%	4.27%
loadPatterns	628.48 ms +7.13% -1.36%	623.19 ms +4.76% -2.92%	0.85%
wpTotal	417.57 ms +4.14% -9.86%	413.63 ms +1.43% -8.67%	0.95%
wpMemoryUsage	13.06 MB +0% -0%	13.02 MB +0% -0%	0.34%
wpDbQueries	54 +0% -1.85%	54 +0% -0%	0%

site-editor

Metric	20bb16a	trunk	% Change
serverResponse	507.81 ms +2.42% -4.21%	484.35 ms +6.62% -3.12%	4.84%
firstPaint	257.89 ms +60.12% -8.32%	284.57 ms +4.62% -13.78%	-9.38%
domContentLoaded	1356.2 ms +0.86% -1.33%	1344.62 ms +1.37% -0.97%	0.86%
loaded	1357.46 ms +0.85% -1.33%	1345.79 ms +1.36% -0.96%	0.87%
firstContentfulPaint	432.76 ms +1.7% -3.02%	426.7 ms +2.25% -0.66%	1.42%
firstBlock	4381.83 ms +0.23% -0.26%	4246.13 ms +0.76% -0.96%	3.2%
type	13.88 ms +3.46% -4.03%	14.09 ms +4.05% -4.05%	-1.49%
navigate	102.85 ms +1.93% -10.75%	98.31 ms +10.89% -7.6%	4.62%
loadPatterns	1475.15 ms +10.7% -15.85%	1521.9 ms +9.8% -5.91%	-3.07%
loadPages	1079.06 ms +2.07% -2.16%	1028.08 ms +2.82% -0.72%	4.96%
wpTotal	497.93 ms +2.54% -4.25%	474.92 ms +6.8% -3.2%	4.85%
wpMemoryUsage	12.07 MB +0% -0%	12.03 MB +0% -0%	0.37%
wpDbQueries	43 +2.33% -0%	43.5 +1.15% -1.15%	-1.15%

_{faa3c40 Run}

[mirka]

Note, there's a typographic widow in the Notice. This is likely because it doesn't internally use the Text component. Does Notice V2? CC: @WordPress/gutenberg-components

Yes, the new Notice is doing text-wrap: pretty for both title and the description. I guess you're free to use the Text component in the old Notice, too.

[jasmussen]

Thank you. I pushed Text now.

[jasmussen]

Noting that I pushed a fix similar to what was discovered here#82675 (comment).

[jasmussen]

Aki made a solid point here that the Notice should also be visible when you are editing a page (not template) with show template enabled, so now it is: