current_theme_supports( ‘woocommerce’ ) in block themes: is it still needed?

[Aljullu]

With classic themes, there was the concept that a theme might "support WooCommerce" or might not. Usually that meant that the theme included templates specific to WooCommerce and was tested/supported by the authors to work with WooCommerce. That was represented by adding this code snippet to the theme: add_theme_support( 'woocommerce' ), which would cause calls to current_theme_supports( ‘woocommerce’) to return true.

With block themes, however, we wanted to take a different approach: all block themes should work out-of-the-box with WooCommerce, without theme authors needing to do anything specific. Of course, theme authors can still override the block templates and provide specific styles for WooCommerce blocks, but WooCommerce should work in the same way in those themes as in any other block theme.

That's why we have been recently wondering if current_theme_supports( ‘woocommerce’) should be limited to classic themes and whether it should be assumed to be true when the active theme is a block theme.

As for the implementation, we envision two ways to implement it:

1. Making it so if the active theme is a block theme, current_theme_supports( 'woocommerce' ) returns true.
2. Auditing all usages of current_theme_supports( 'woocommerce' ) in the WooCommerce codebase and replacing them with wc_current_theme_supports_woocommerce_or_fse() when appropriate.

We are starting this discussion publicly to hear from folks in the community, in case you have any preference. We know some themes and plugins are reading the value of current_theme_supports( 'woocommerce' ) so we acknowledge we need to be wary if we change how it works.

That's why I personally lean towards option 2, as I consider it to be a “safer approach” because it doesn't modify what's returned by current_theme_supports( 'woocommerce' ). However, it means that if a 3rd-party plugin is currently relying on current_theme_supports( 'woocommerce' ) to detect if a theme supports WC, it will keep missing block themes. In those cases, the plugin authors would need to audit their codebase and switch to wc_current_theme_supports_woocommerce_or_fse() when appropriate.

Both approaches have pros and cons, so we are interested in hearing if the community has any preferences on this!

[gigitux]

Thanks @Aljullu, for kicking off the discussion!

That's why I personally lean towards option 2, as I consider it to be a “safer approach” because it doesn't modify what's returned by current_theme_supports( 'woocommerce' ).

I agree with the option 2.

However, it means that if a 3rd-party plugin is currently relying on current_theme_supports( 'woocommerce' ) to detect if a theme supports WC, it will keep missing block themes. In those cases, the plugin authors would need to audit their codebase and switch to wc_current_theme_supports_woocommerce_or_fse() when appropriate.

I'm not sure that this point is a "real issue". Mostly because of the growing prevalence of block themes, plugin developers are likely already updated their codebases to ensure compatibility with these themes. For this reason, this issue may not be as significant as it seems.

[Aljullu]

A quick follow-up on this discussion, given that it has been open for more than 7 weeks:

I'll add it to the next Store Editing snaps just to make sure it gets some visibility in the community. If before the next cooldown we hadn't received any feedback against option 2, I will create a cooldown issue to work on it.