Contrib.social

Ability to display block_content entities independently, also outside of Blocks

Open on Drupal.org →
Created on 12 April 2016, about 8 years ago
Updated 20 June 2023, about 1 year ago

Problem/Motivation

When I display a custom block using the block layout configuration the block prints using the block.html.twig template. However if I have a custom block view, each row is just the rendered fields, not the whole rendered block. The same problem occurs displaying a rendered block content entity in an ER field or displaying it programmatically like a normal content entity. It causes problems for themers and is inconsistent with similar row formats like "Show: Content" for nodes, and also means that contextual links don't show.

The problem is that block_content entities explicitly have no defined #theme/template because they were expected to always be rendered as a block (core, page_manager, .. doesn't matter, but it has to be a block).

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Create a custom block
  2. Create a view showing custom blocks
  3. For the view format select Show = Custom block

Available workarounds

  • Twig Tweak → v2 has a Twig tag that lets you render blocks including block content.
  • Block content template adds a new template for block content entities and restores contextual links.

Proposed resolution

So the answer to this might simply be that this is on purpose, if you want to display something with views or references or ..., then don't use block_content but either a node type or custom entity type. I'm not sure I see an alternative for keeping it working correctly and efficiently (=no double-render caching of the same content, for example) also within a block. However it's a major DrupalWTF moment when you realize this. It's also a while since D8 was released, there's no documentation about this and there's functionality available in core to trigger this bug.

✨ Feature request
Status

Postponed: needs info

Version

11.0 🔥

Component
Block content  →

Last updated 4 days ago

Created by

🇦🇺Australia rooby

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  • DrupalWTF

    Worse Than Failure. Approximates the unpleasant remark made by Drupal developers when they first encounter a particular (mis)feature.

  • VDC

    Related to the Views in Drupal Core initiative.

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Comments & Activities

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It's likely this issue predates Contrib.social: some issue and comment data are missing.

  • Comment about 1 year ago →
    🇺🇸United States smustgrave

    Wonder if anyone can confirm if ✨ Add view tab + standard template for block content Needs work solves the problem?

  • Comment about 1 year ago →
    🇬🇧United Kingdom AndyF

    Thanks @smustgrave, it'd be great to move this forwards! However there were (at least) a couple of reservations raised with the general idea IIUC:

    block_content entities simply aren't designed to be displayed in another way, if you check the view builder you can also see that it explicitly works around render caching and has that disabled.

    So the answer to this might simply be that this is on purpose, if you want to display something with views or references or ..., then don't use block_content but either a node type or custom entity type. I understand that not everybody will like that but I'm not sure I see an alternative for keeping it working correctly and efficiently (=no double-render caching of the same content, for example) also within a block.

    https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/2704331#comment-11863202 ✨ Ability to display block_content entities independently, also outside of Blocks Postponed: needs info

    block_content entities are exposed as block plugins and saving reusable blocks triggers a block plugin discovery. The more of them you have the more expensive that becomes.

    https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/2704331#comment-14604615 ✨ Ability to display block_content entities independently, also outside of Blocks Postponed: needs info

    I don't really grok the double render-caching issue and it's not clear to me why using a custom entity type might be better

    If I build a custom entity type that's similar to block content entities and is for embedded content... I can see at some point being asked to write a plugin to make it accessible to the block system so that we can place these embeddable entities that way too. And then aren't we back in the same situation?

    https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/2704331#comment-13474270 ✨ Ability to display block_content entities independently, also outside of Blocks Postponed: needs info

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