Gutenberg Contributors Explore Expanding Background Image Block Support and Refining UI for Background Tools – WP Tavern
Background instruments in Gutenberg are presently restricted to the Cowl block, however contributors are engaged on increasing help in order that any block can decide into it. Discussions about one of the best ways to do that have been occurring for the previous two years and now are gaining some momentum.
“Proper now it’s potential so as to add video backgrounds, coloured overlays, and many others, to the Cowl block alone,” Matias Ventura stated in 2019 ticket on the UI for background instruments. “It might make sense to extract this and prolong to different container blocks (group and columns, for instance) in addition to increasing the options.”
Gutenberg contributor Andrew Serong has created a draft exploratory PR for including opt-in, server-rendered background help for blocks, which might save background picture values to the block’s type
attribute in a backgroundImage
key. Serong created the PR as a tough, experimental method and printed a number of screenshots of how the inspector controls would possibly slot in. Nevertheless, Gutenberg designers are engaged on a extra refined design for background help within the editor.
As we speak, Gutenberg designers Joen Asmussen and Javier Arce printed a GitHub issue with their imaginative and prescient for an entire reorganization of background controls that features layer administration, layer reordering, and help for filters/mix modes.
“The core thought is to group all of the layers (each overlays and media layer) inside a single sidebar part known as Background, abstracting the group of the Cowl Block layers on the canvas and simplifying the block sidebar,” Arce stated.

These new designs intersect with the purpose of increasing background help to be used in different blocks past the Cowl block. There are numerous different issues that splinter out of including background picture help to blocks, which contributors have famous within the discussions. These embody options like the flexibility so as to add a physique background picture to dam themes, specify a shade palette for use for background colours, and the flexibility so as to add a number of background photos.
Increasing background picture help and refining the UI for background controls continues to be a bit methods off, however the undertaking is beginning to make important steps ahead. This can be an thrilling addition that can markedly broaden customers’ capacity to customise blocks.