Alkamy Block Editor Product Descriptions for WooCommerce

Description

This plugin enables the block editor (Gutenberg) for the two description boxes on the WooCommerce product screen: the product description and the short description. You get headings, lists, images, tables, buttons and columns in your product copy, and the rest of the screen stays where it is.

Nothing else about the product screen changes. Each editor writes to the same form field WooCommerce already saves, so price, Featured, catalog visibility, the gallery and variations are saved by the same Update button as before. The plugin does not touch Product data, the publish box or the meta boxes your extensions add.

This is an independent plugin, not an official WooCommerce extension.

What you can do

• Add blocks with the + button, or type / in an empty line.
• Use the toolbar for undo, redo and the selected block’s tools. The cog opens that block’s settings.
• Insert images from the Media Library, or upload new ones.
• Write the short description in blocks too. On a block theme, the plugin keeps its formatting on the product page.

Descriptions you already have

Opening a product does not change it. A description written in the classic editor is shown as blocks, and it is only saved as blocks once you edit it. Until then it is posted back as it was stored.

Blocks on offer

The description offers Paragraph, Heading, List, Quote, Pullquote, Image, Gallery, Video, Audio, File, Media & Text, Cover, Embed, Table, Buttons, Columns, Group, Details, Separator, Spacer, Code, Preformatted, Verse, Custom HTML and Shortcode.

The short description sits beside the price and the add to cart button, so it keeps to text: Paragraph, Heading, List and Quote.

Blocks that need a full post editor, such as Post Title or Query Loop, are left out.

Google for WooCommerce

Google for WooCommerce sends each description with its HTML, and with its block markup when it was written in blocks. This plugin hands it plain text instead: one line per paragraph, heading, list item or table row. That applies to every product description, including those written in the classic editor.

Limits worth knowing

• The editors draw blocks with WordPress’s default block styles. Fonts and colours can differ from your storefront, so check the product page after a bigger change.
• Only the blocks that come with WordPress load in these editors. Blocks from other plugins are not offered.
• Panels that belong to the full post editor, such as an SEO plugin’s sidebar, are not available here.
• Users who turned off the visual editor in their profile keep the plain editors.
• Tested on WordPress 7.1.2 with WooCommerce 11.1.2 and a block theme. Not tested in a browser with a classic theme, on multisite, or with extensions that add their own scripts to the product screen.

For developers

• pdblocks_allowed_block_types filters the blocks an editor offers. It receives the list and which editor it is for: description or short_description.
• pdblocks_format_post_excerpt_block controls whether a short description written in blocks keeps its formatting in the Post Excerpt block on the product page. Return false to turn that off.
• pdblocks_google_description_as_text decides whether a description is sent to Google for WooCommerce as plain text. It is true by default. Return false to leave descriptions as Google for WooCommerce prepares them.

The source and tests are on GitHub.