Postponed on #3318549: Rename Custom Block terminology in the admin UI.
This issue is part of the wider reorganisation of the block UI #3318110: [meta] Reorganize Block items in the administration menu.
Problem/Motivation
In the linked meta issue the Block items are getting reorganized and renamed in the administration menu. While working through the issues it was apparent that those changes would require a few changes to titles and labels for layout builder as well to keep consistency and at the same time improve the clarity to the user.
In a standard Drupal 9.5.x-dev install with Layout Builder installed (without any Layout Builder related extra modules), with the changes suggested in the meta issue, the + Create custom block button label would become + Create content block. This is perfectly fine and clear to the user.
The overall title Choose a block is “ok” but imprecise. The first category title the user reads is called Content fields even though blocks are the elements the user would expect based on the sidebar title. Then there is also User fields at the end of the list. None of the fields listed in Content fields and User fields could be added under Block layout (/admin/structure/block), so technically they aren’t blocks the user might ask? This could be considered a potential source of confusion.
In this context it is also uncertain if shortening the category term titles to just System, Content, Menus and so on is such a good idea. In particular the User fields category has a block category counterpart (User<-> User Fields). Then Custom Blocks are getting renamed into Content blocks in the meta issue, so with the same current naming conventions applied the counterpart situation would be also the case here with Content<-> Content fields.
And there is also the fuzziness in regards of the naming of the sidebar title Choose a block which also applies to the + Add block-button label in the main layout builder window.
For the reference the issue was discussed and agreed on in the linked issue on Slack by @aaronmchale, @benjifisher, @rkoller, and @smustgrave
Steps to reproduce
Proposed resolution
- Rephrase the overall title Choose a block to something else. Because strictly speaking the user is able to choose between blocks and fields. The sidebar title should reflect that. The + Add block button should be changed accordingly since you are able to add blocks and fields there as well. (*There is no idea and no consensus about a suggestion yet)
- Append block to every block category. Then you have Content fields , Content blocks, User fields, User blocks, Devel blocks, Help blocks and so on. It would be clearer to the user without any ambiguity.
- Since there are cases with only a single item in a category it might be considered to add a singular and plural form to the category titles so based on the count it would be User block with one item and User blocks for several items (for the english singular/plural example)
- One nitpick, the category title core is written in lowercase but all other terms are upper case at the beginning of each category title.