Simplified Nested Blocks & Reduced Flexibility in Theme

[dhruveonmars]

So, been playing around with the theme editor and trying to make sections/blocks.

It just provides soo much flexibility. Feels like too much flexibility to people that aren't more design aware. And doesn't give theme developers much control of where items are available or what capabilities are available in which groups.

For eg, with nested blocks, we'd actually want to limit and safeguard where certain groups/blocks can be added;

{% schema %}
  {
    "name": "Featured Products Section",
    "settings": [
      {}
    ],
    "blocks": [
      {
        "type": "product-card",
        "name": "Product Card",
        "settings": [
          {
            "type": "text",
            "id": "text",
            "label": "Text"
          }
        ],
        "blocks": [
          {
            "type": "product-cta",
            "name": "Product CTA",
            "settings": [
              {
                "type": "checkbox",
                "id": "fullwidth",
                "label": "CTA"
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
{% endschema %}

And be able to fully control that in one file, so if we're using layouts such as grid, we can set the sizing according to the groups added and their settings.

As an example - we'd only want Product Card Blocks like pricing, product title, etc to be available with the Product Card Block, and that would only be available in specific sections.

Plus needing to select the product, as in the reference theme, of the price block, instead of having it selected once on the parent/section seems like too many steps. And creates some risks, if someone accidentally selects a different product. I believe this is because you can't pass context from block to block like we would with snippets.

Eg, with the current approach, stores could be created looking like this;

I'd imagine this would also increase support queries for themes sold on Shopify Themes massively.

Or if there's a way to have a happy medium - where themes that want or need that restriction, can do it, and still get some levels of nested blocks, if not the full amount.

[TeamDijon]

From what I can read, you're basically asking for section blocks (from Shopify 2.0) with nesting capabilities

It would be a nice touch and a good midway solution for some unique sections as well as a good way to introduce nesting to developers in a more controlled environment, pretty good suggestion in my opinion

Nonetheless, theme blocks are their own thing, really different from what we're used to and thus, should be untouched on the core principles.

[jn-cavera]

I posted something similar in the community forum about Restricting Theme Blocks. Shopify support responded back saying they have passed it along but just wanted to post it here too for everyone's reference