Preferences: Adding a toggle to hide Patterns.

[paaljoachim]

What problem does this address?

Clients might insert patterns the web site designer/developer do not want the client to insert.

What is your proposed solution?

For a web site designer/developer to have more control over a web site they might want to hide specific aspects such as inserting patterns. My suggestion is to add a toggle into the Preferences modal to hide Patterns from appearing inside the block inserter.

I am not sure where such a toggle would be inserted.

We could probably followup and do the same treatment for the block Inserter Reusable tab.

@ntsekouras

This issue was influenced by Justin's article here and the comments seen below.
https://wptavern.com/block-pattern-modal-explorer-coming-to-wordpress-5-9

Associated:
[Patterns]: Add a flag to hide patterns from UI
#36108

[ntsekouras]

There is should_load_remote_block_patterns filter that themes can use to hide the core patterns. I think having a flag in the preferences doesn't actually solves the issue described.

[ndiego]

Yeah, also you can use the following to hide all core patterns.

remove_theme_support( 'core-block-patterns' );

If you combine this with #36108, you can hide all core patterns plus make any theme registered patterns hidden from the insertion UI. In doing so, the Pattern panel is hidden in the inserter.

This got me thinking though. I believe this info should be included in the Patterns doc. I don't mind writing it if everyone agrees.

[paaljoachim]

@ndiego Nick do please add the info into the Patterns doc.
@mkaz can help if you need any help getting the information into the document.

[mtias]

Closing this as the presence of the patterns tab should be a reflection of whether there are registered patterns, not a separate preference.