[Block Editor - Inserter]: preload media categories empty client side
The problem
When a user opens the inserter we need to make some requests to check if there is at least one media item per category(audio, image, video). If there is no result we don't need to show the inserter menu item for that category.
If we don't make these requests, the media tab would need to wait for the resolution of these calls, making it display afterwards. This can be a jarring experience and we want to avoid it.
The media inserter tab is implemented for post and site editors.
Right now these requests are preloaded here: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/trunk/lib/compat/wordpress-6.2/edit-form-blocks.php#L18.
In the back port PR for 6.2 there were suggestions to do this client side: https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/3894#pullrequestreview-1268540839.
I'm not sure how much we gain doing it here or this is the right approach TBH. I'll need feedback.
The other implementation I was considering was to do the requests in Editor and Site Editor loading(ex: in useBlockEditorSettings) something like this:
// We need to check if there is at least one item for each media category before
// opening the inserter, in order to avoid late rendering of the media tab.
useEffect( () => {
// Loop through categories to check if they have at least one media item.
inserterMediaCategories?.forEach( ( category ) => {
// Some sources are external and we don't need to make a request.
if ( ! category.isExternalResource ) {
category.fetch( { per_page: 1 } );
}
} );
}, [] );
...but when this API(setting) becomes stable, there would be no way to update this if that setting changes.
Testing Instructions
- Needed requests are made on editor load client side
- Everything works as before.
Size Change: +16 B (0%)
Total Size: 1.33 MB
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build/block-editor/index.min.js |
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The BlockList is used in a few other places like Previews. Does it make sense to run the side-effect in those cases where we don't render Inserter?
In the back port PR for 6.2 there were suggestions to do this client side: https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/3894#pullrequestreview-1268540839.
I'm curious about this. If we can preload server-side it seems better no?
Server-side preloading comes with the cost of increasing TTFB. I think it mostly depends on how critical the data is.
TTFB is less critical in the editor (as opposed to frontend) but I can see the point. Seems we should gather all these preloads and have a unique way to perform them client site as well. We now have two of them: media and patterns
Maybe we can have something similar to SWR's preload helper - https://swr.vercel.app/docs/prefetching.
@youknowriad Is there no way for us to reasonably anticipate when the user will open the inserter / interact with a UI that needs the media categories (so that we could trigger the API requests early enough to not have a user visible delay)?
The main concern about preloading is that we shouldn't preload something that we don't know for sure is needed. It's fine to preload things that would otherwise be requested on every editor load anyway, but for more specific use-cases I'd say we should be cautious, since every preload adds to TTFB.
Is there no way for us to reasonably anticipate when the user will open the inserter / interact with a UI that needs the media categories (so that we could trigger the API requests early enough to not have a user visible delay)?
Not really. A user can just open the inserter as soon as the editor loads.
@ntsekouras @youknowriad Taking a step back here, to understand the use-case better: Can you provide some context why we need to know media categories whenever the block inserter is opened? Shouldn't that only be relevant to using blocks that interact with media?
My thinking is: If all I want to do with the inserter is e.g. insert a button block, or maybe I don't even want to use the inserter at all and just write some text, why do the media categories need to be loaded?
@felixarntz In the new inserter, you can insert "media" directly and these are shown per category in the inserter
@ntsekouras @youknowriad I just gave this a test to understand the concerns better. Here's my thoughts:
- I see how the "Media" tab appears a split second later after you have opened the inserter. That is certainly not a great user experience, so +1 to fix it.
- However, I would like to know, why does loading the media categories prevent the "Media" tab from showing? I understand that these categories are important to show the content of the "Media" tab, however that is not the default tab, so even if something in that tab content is only populated a split second after opening the inserter, this should go unnoticed by the user.
- There's also the "Openverse" category in the "Media" tab content regardless of whether I have media on my site or not, so I would argue that tab should simply always be displayed unconditionally.
Does that make sense? Can we change the logic to always show the "Media" tab? This means we can just keep issuing these API requests only when the inserter is opened, rather than on page load, without any user-facing implications.
@felixarntz the media tab could be empty if no media in Library and have the Openverse integration disabled with this setting. That would result in the media tab disappearing.
Are these three requests for one item per media type so expensive that affect the performance?
Maybe we could add a check about the Openverse setting mentioned above first and do the other requests async client side. That could probably work.. I'll try this out.
In my last commit the approach is:
- If
enableOpenverseMediaCategorysetting is set totrue(which is the default) show themediatab and also init the requests for the media types in library. This ensures that the media tab will be there right after we open the inserter and since it's not the default tab for any editor, it will almost certainly have resolved the requests when a user selects that tab. - If
enableOpenverseMediaCategoryis set to false, themediatab will wait for the resolution of the requests and will be displayed if there are any available media categories. This is not ideal, but it's less common and it's better than showing themediatab where there could be a chance to remove that tab after the requests' resolution.
Flaky tests detected in 545af30b4bad7d2f070e4e0a4a2d3b58e7f078a0. Some tests passed with failed attempts. The failures may not be related to this commit but are still reported for visibility. See the documentation for more information.
🔍 Workflow run URL: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/actions/runs/4230535508 📝 Reported issues:
- #39787 in
specs/editor/various/multi-block-selection.test.js - #39763 in
specs/editor/various/multi-block-selection.test.js
I just cherry-picked this PR to the wp/6.2 branch to get it included in the next release: 42bba6ec5d
@ntsekouras @youknowriad Just thinking out loud here, I wonder if (for a future enhancement) we could potentially consider using the overall attachment count for this. Wouldn't having any attachment already satisfy the condition that at least one of the media categories is present, thus satisfy the criteria for showing the tab (together with the Openverse check)?
If so, potentially we could use wp_count_posts() for the attachment post type, which can be used for that purpose. It would still add a (cached) query, but it's a simple query that is already present on several other admin pages on page load. Not saying this is necessarily the right approach, but another one to consider.