Try using coloured overlay instead of border for grid visualiser

[tellthemachines]

What?

Addresses some of the feedback from this comment, specifically about improving the look of the grid visualiser.

Testing Instructions

1. Enable the grid experiment under Gutenberg > Experiments in WP admin.
2. Add a Grid block to a post or template, and in the sidebar controls set it to manual mode, and then set a number of columns and rows.
3. It should look something like this:

My main question at this point is whether it makes sense to show the overlay across all blocks, or if perhaps the selected block doesn't need to show it? It does help to see the shape of the grid when there are items spanning multiple columns/rows:

Whereas on trunk it can be almost invisible:

Testing Instructions for Keyboard

Screenshots or screencast

[github-actions[bot]]

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If you're merging code through a pull request on GitHub, copy and paste the following into the bottom of the merge commit message.

Co-authored-by: tellthemachines <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: noisysocks <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: andrewserong <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: jasmussen <[email protected]>

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[github-actions[bot]]

Size Change: +73 B (0%)

Total Size: 1.75 MB

Filename	Size	Change
build/block-editor/index.min.js	259 kB	+67 B (+0.03%)
build/block-editor/style-rtl.css	15.5 kB	+3 B (+0.02%)
build/block-editor/style.css	15.5 kB	+3 B (+0.02%)

ℹ️ View Unchanged

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build/wordcount/index.min.js	1.02 kB

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[noisysocks]

My main question at this point is whether it makes sense to show the overlay across all blocks, or if perhaps the selected block doesn't need to show it? It does help to see the shape of the grid when there are items spanning multiple columns/rows:

Hmm. Maybe it makes sense to show a more subdued (borders only) version of the overlay when an item is selected and then the full overlay when the grid is selected?

That's my lame idea. Maybe @jasmussen has a better one.

[jasmussen]

Nice, thanks for trying this!

Can we use box-shadow instead of outline? I'd also make it inset, so the visualizer has the precise footprint, rather than being 1px outside. This might work:

	box-shadow: inset 0 0 0 $border-width color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 20%, #0000);

That would also mean the 2px $radius-block-ui actually renders correctly to 2px, when it's outside it effectively becomes 3px. If outline is used for Windows high contrast mode, where box-shadows are removed, you can combine it with outline: 1px solid transparent;, as we for focus styles in other places, as high contrast makes the transparent "color" fully opaque.

One aspect that gets a bit more visible when this is applied, is the fact that these cell visualizations are an overlay:

Would it be possible to move this visualization below? I.e. if a cell has a background color, it should ideally cover the cells.

[noisysocks]

Would it be possible to move this visualization below? I.e. if a cell has a background color, it should ideally cover the cells.

We're dealing with the iframed editor here so I don't think it's possible without putting styles on the block itself which we try not to do as they can conflict with theme styles.

[tellthemachines]

Would it be possible to move this visualization below?

Another thing to consider is that if we move it below, it's no longer possible to tell at a glance how many columns/rows a block spans, which I think is nice to have.

[tellthemachines]

Ok, updated to use box-shadow now.

[tellthemachines]

Something I found interesting in testing is that the contrast appears to be greater visually when the current color is a dark, than if it's light.

Hmm that's a good point. Should we be looking at the background color of the group and assigning the grid a constrasting color (and if it's transparent, we fall back to a mid-grey sort of thing)?

[jasmussen]

Something I found interesting in testing is that the contrast appears to be greater visually when the current color is a dark, than if it's light.

I've noticed this as well, but it's important to find a middle-ground here, so one mode of lightness doesn't suffer over the other. Hue-value wise this will also likely shift in perceived contrast where white on blue is likely to have a very high contrast, but shades of green or yellow to have low contrast. Finally, if we can't move the grid visualization under the blocks, it's extra important that this remains decorative, lest any increased opacity will actually reduce the legibility of the content it overlays.

[andrewserong]

Thanks for the extra context! 👍

it's extra important that this remains decorative, lest any increased opacity will actually reduce the legibility of the content it overlays.

Excellent point. Don't let my testing here block anything, erring on the side of decorative to ensure legibility of content sounds like a good way to go.

[tellthemachines]

Thanks for all the feedback and testing folks! I think everything has been addressed, so this should be ready for a final review!

[jasmussen]

On this fine Monday morning, I had a solution to this branch in my head. Dive in, remove the background, keep just the borders for now, and this'll be good. I got as far as removing the background, which works well in the usual themes I'd test. And then I realized: currentColor as we have it today is going to be meaningless:

These outlines should be red. Because the text-color is red, and that the outlines were meant to inherit that red color so that there would always be contrast. Why aren't they? The moment of insight was that the outlines are popovered, so they exist outside of the canvas. Therefore they do not inherit the red color, they inherit the text-color of wp-admin. That also explains why the color kept being so dark on dark backgrounds.

Sorry for not realizing this sooner. Are there any easy fixes we can do here? Can the visualization be moved into the canvas? Or can the color of its in-canvas-inherited-color be copied to the popover? Any other options?

Borders, backgrounds, radius, dashes, we can always tweak and refine. The main motivation for this PR was to use currentColor to ensure contrast. Red on green, white on black, black on white, orange on blue. The only color that works on all of those is the text-color, because it will always be designed to work against a background.

[noisysocks]

Or can the color of its in-canvas-inherited-color be copied to the popover?

I did this 😊

[tellthemachines]

Thanks @noisysocks, LGTM!

[jasmussen]

Holy guacamole, this is working great!