Improve sidebar settings after entering Template Editing Mode

[annezazu]

What problem does this address?

When one opens up the template editor from the post editor, the focus causes the sidebar settings on display to be a dead end. This feedback comes from the sixth round of testing from the FSE Outreach Program:

The “Template” tab in the sidebar is mostly useless. I’m sure there’s more we could do here to educate and relevant functionality we could expose.

What is your proposed solution?

I imagine there are a few ways forward:

• Share a description in that sidebar setting
• Change the focus so it lands on the first block in the template
• Something I'm not thinking of 😅

[jameskoster]

Since we now display the template details in the top bar, I'm not sure we really need this tab at all?

Displaying the name and description makes sense, but we should probably do it there rather than the sidebar. I opened #32362 to explore this some more.

#29147 is related, but we can probably put this in the top bar as well.

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Another option would be to make the sidebar an educational area that explains in more detail what templates are, with links to documentation etc.

[annezazu]

Agreed on removing it if that's included in the template details. In that case, I imagine it would make more sense to have this open on the top most block (site title)? However, I do like the idea of links to documentation!

[annezazu]

More feedback from this experience of landing in template editing mode from @synora:

What part of the template we’re editing is evident to us because we’re testing but what about the user? There’s no indication of where exactly they are. I was expecting some sort of highlighted area or even label to let me know where I was, but there was nothing.

[jameskoster]

There’s no indication of where exactly they are

In the Site Editor, template parts are highlighted in the top bar:

We should probably do something similar in the template editor once template parts are a feature there. The sidebar isn't the best place for this information since it is often collapsed.

[youknowriad]

With all the iterations on the Document bar the sidebar of the template editor, I think this issue is not relevant anymore.