Phase 3: Workflows

[priethor]

This overview is a living document originally based on @mtias' Phase 3 Workflows post.

Provide seamless collaboration during the entire editorial process, from draft to publication. Allow users to add comments, suggest edits, and tag other users for peer review. Ensure the interface remains focused on a smooth experience for writers and editors.

Mockup showing a new cursor / tool option in the editor for adding "comments" to blocks.
Improve the publishing flow by customizing the review process, establishing what needs to be done before a publication is ready. For example, an author could leave empty media blocks in a story they are writing and mark them to be completed by another team member, ensuring the post cannot be published while empty placeholders are still there. This could also include other types of requirements, like word count, fields to be completed, and so on.

Make it straightforward to share different types of content, from posts to design changes, while controlling access through permissions. Connect with the admin notifications project to capture comment reviews and mentions. Build upon improvements to the post revisions interface to provide clarity over edit history.

The tools and infrastructure developed need to support simpler use cases (one author sharing previews with friends for feedback) all the way to larger editorial teams, managing deadlines, handoffs, and more sophisticated review processes. Plugins should be able to take it further.

While a lot of this work naturally aligns with unpublished content, it’s also important to consider workflows around already published content and pages.

Scope

• Introduce inline comments on blocks within the editor experience. Explore using comment types to store them. Allow marking comments as resolved. Status of comments also need to fold within individual revisions, so that it’s easy to see what specific edit state a comment refers to. Possible connection with “pending review” functionality.
  • Phase 3: Explore inline block commenting  #59445
• Explore introducing support for “tasks” in publish flow. These would allow highlighting missing actions before a post is to be published. It can be connected to various post statuses (such as going from “pending review” to “publish” readiness, ability to have pending review status over already published content, or other custom statuses). Individual actions should be highly configurable by users and extensible by plugins. Tasks can also go beyond publishing and be relevant for other plugins (like marking fulfilled orders in WooCommerce data structures).
• Ability to share draft links with permission controls and clear revision browsing. This also extends to previewing and sharing design changes across the entire collection of features of the site editor.
• Introduce extension points for in-app previewing. For example, a plugin might want to show how a post looks for subscribers and non-subscribers; with or without ad units; on an RSS feed or an email; etc. Core should provide good mechanics for plugins to hook, control, and modify these views across editors in a way that integrates seamlessly with the editing flows.
• Improve multi-entity saving to allow scheduling design changes on block themes that can be managed through the various revisions systems (styles, templates, patterns, pages, posts). Possibly allow naming future revisions to better manage and orchestrate changes throughout a site. Preview snapshots of a site before they go live.
• Explore hook points for version control systems to smoothly take over internal revision systems if desired.
• Control access with granular permissions for patterns and templates rather than general locking. For example, lock patterns to “content only” for author roles but leave it open for admins.
  • Related: Multi-entity permission management #37489
• Consider multi-author support on posts or improve how it can be represented as a side effect of real-time collaboration and revision authorship.
• Consolidate the Post and Site editor to align in features and simplify the mental model for users: The great unification #41717