Aspect ratio block support: Follow-up tasks

[andrewserong]

This is a small issue to track follow-up tasks associated with the aspect ratio block support that landed in #56897.

Short-term To-do

• Backport PHP code for the block support (Core PR: Backport aspect ratio block support wordpress-develop#5963)
• When updating aspect ratio in the Cover block, see if we can reset / clear the value for the Cover block's ad hoc minimum height control (so that it's clear to a user that the aspect ratio overrides the minimum height) — PR: Cover block: clear the min height field when aspect ratio is set #59191
• The aspect ratio dropdown displays Original as the selected item both when there is no aspect ratio set on the block and when the aspect ratio is explicitly set to auto. The default / unset state should be clearer. In terms of labelling, one idea would be to use the word Auto in all cases as suggested in this comment: Dimensions: Add Aspect Ratio block support #56897 (comment)
• Cover block not working when changing the aspect ratio #60224
• Aspect ratio support breaks child theme CSS when unnecessary #60922

Longer term (for discussion and possibly to open separate issues)

• See which other blocks can use the block support rather than an ad hoc aspect ratio control — this way the controls are more consistent between blocks, and we can opt other blocks in to using aspect ratio in global styles. For example, what would be involved in converting the Featured Image block to use the block support?
• Which panel does aspect ratio best belong in? It would ultimately be good for it to be in a consistent place across all blocks.
• Group Block: Add Aspect Ratio Control #61326
• Cover block not working when changing the aspect ratio #60224

Tracked elsewhere

• A consistent aspect ratio component #47962
• Add aspect ratio presets support via theme.json #47271

[eric-michel]

@andrewserong Could you include this issue in your follow-up tasks list? I see that the Aspect Ratio Control is being folded into a lot of other blocks, including the Group and Image blocks. If inline styles eliminating aspect-ratio start getting added to every Group and Image block even when the control is not used, it would be catastrophic for us.

I am very worried that a future WP update will break large portions of sites we have in production. We use aspect-ratio in our theme CSS to target Cover, Group, and Image blocks regularly. We've already had to fix all of our Cover block aspect ratio CSS, and we use Cover blocks the least out of those three.

[andrewserong]

Thanks for calling that out, I've added it to the list. That behaviour was introduced to remove any aspect ratio that might have been set in global styles, and it didn't factor in that themes might be setting aspect-ratio intentionally via a classname.

I currently don't have scope to work on this particular block support right now, but feel free to pick this up if anyone else is interested in contributing in this area. For now, as mentioned in #60922, a workaround would be to ensure that theme CSS that intends to override it has a higher specificity, though I'm aware that's not an ideal long-term solution.