Feedback as a theme partner, merchant and developer

[thomaskimura]

Hi all!

First of all thank you for creating this space for feedback. It's great to see Shopify taking this direction for theme development.

I really like the approach of theme blocks and flex sections. I think this is the right direction but making this transition is going to be a huge under taking - theme partners, theme store, and the theme editor/liquid itself will all need to major changes.

Here are some more of my thoughts

Theme partners

• From what I'm reading much of the direction with "OS 3.0" is pushing us towards a "power theme" that can build multiple layouts/sections by combining different blocks. How will this fit in the theme store ecosystem? Themes now are required to have unique designs but how will that work if themes are built with flexible sections that can build nearly any layout.
• For more context - a theme we had submitted in December was just rejected for "striking similarities" - of course the new theme if someone wanted to could re-recreate layouts from our old theme but the new theme has much more power to create new layouts. Is this the direction themes/theme store is going in? Based on these announcements I'd assume Shopify would want more themes that have more layout flexibility rather than being locked into one layout/design. It would be great to have more alignment on the theme store team with the new vision of themes.
• I'm also wondering if there's going to be a change to the 5-preset limit for each theme. Seeing as new themes will have the ability to create nearly infinite layouts/sections using theme-blocks wouldn't it then make sense to give theme partners more chances to showcase a themes ability.

Developer experience

• Seeing as a "Custom section" can be used 100s of different ways it would be great to have pre-built defaults or presets. It would be amazing to have a "Icon grid" or "Image grid" as sections that could be added to a store instead of starting with "Custom section"
• In the theme reference there are some situations where a parent section/block will share the same settings as a child block. It would be great if we could set rules for how these values get passed down. Ideally child blocks could inherit settings from parent blocks/sections.
• Having the ability to limit which blocks can be used on different sections will help ensure merchants have an easier time setting up their storefront. There's really no point in surfacing all blocks - especially if some could lead to broken layouts.
• Right now if you click "Add block" your shown a pretty long list of items with little info on what each block actually is. It would be great if developers could sort blocks into sub-categories (Containers - Row, Column, etc - Media - Image, Video, etc)
• When clicking into a block there's often a lot of settings - having the ability to collapse this further would be great. I'd love to only surface the content settings (text, image, etc) and have alignment, color, and other style settings under a dropdown

Merchant experience

• Initial view is overwhelming. The theme editor is starting to look like a messy Figma file - not an easy-to-navigate storefront builder.
• Would be great to see sections/blocks collapsed on each template. Not sure if there’s much of a benefit having all sections and groups expanded.
• Seeing a preview of each block much like the section preview would be helpful when clicking “Add block”

[t-kelly]

Themes now are required to have unique designs but how will that work if themes are built with flexible sections that can build nearly any layout.

I'm also wondering if there's going to be a change to the 5-preset limit for each theme. Seeing as new themes will have the ability to create nearly infinite layouts/sections using theme-blocks wouldn't it then make sense to give theme partners more chances to showcase a themes ability.

IMO when you check all the boxes of HOW to build a high-quality website/theme (perf + scoping + a11y, etc.), you eventually arrive at a very narrow set of solutions. Differentiation by code is going to become less and less possible since there really is only 1 ideal way of building a particular element.

As we drive towards higher and higher quality solutions, the future of themes inevitably looks more and more like WHAT you build with these patterns/pieces and WHO you're targeting and selling it to.

In the theme reference there are some situations where a parent section/block will share the same settings as a child block. It would be great if we could set rules for how these values get passed down. Ideally child blocks could inherit settings from parent blocks/sections.

I think this is possible with presets?

When clicking into a block there's often a lot of settings - having the ability to collapse this further would be great. I'd love to only surface the content settings (text, image, etc) and have alignment, color, and other style settings under a dropdown

I'm in favour of declaring hidden settings like mentioned here

[stephanie-shopify]

Having the ability to limit which blocks can be used on different sections will help ensure merchants have an easier time setting up their storefront. There's really no point in surfacing all blocks - especially if some could lead to broken layouts.

As we design some solutions, we would love to get some input from you all about some use cases you are considering around targeting. Please share your thoughts here: #20

[stephanie-shopify]

Seeing as a "Custom section" can be used 100s of different ways it would be great to have pre-built defaults or presets. It would be amazing to have a "Icon grid" or "Image grid" as sections that could be added to a store instead of starting with "Custom section"

Blocks and sections support presets.