Research how extensions extend archive templates

[dinhtungdu]

We need to research how extensions are extending archive templates. We aim for some metrics:

• What are the most frequently used actions?
• What are the most frequently used filters?

To limit the scope of the research and ensure that we can get some outcome, we will examine extensions and themes on WooCommerce.com only.

[dinhtungdu]

Hooks usage in WooCommerce.com extensions

The table shows that the loop and loop item hooks are extended most, which gives us a narrower focus on implementing the compatibility layer.

Hook	Count
woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item	85
woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item_title	44
woocommerce_before_shop_loop	21
woocommerce_shop_loop_item_title	21
woocommerce_before_shop_loop_item_title	19
woocommerce_after_shop_loop	17
woocommerce_before_shop_loop_item	13
woocommerce_no_products_found	13
woocommerce_after_main_content	10
woocommerce_archive_description	9
woocommerce_before_main_content	8
woocommerce_show_page_title	1
woocommerce_shop_loop	0
woocommerce_sidebar	0

[dinhtungdu]

With Blocks Editor, we can skip these hooks:

• woocommerce_show_page_title
• woocommerce_archive_description
• woocommerce_sidebar

woocommerce_before_main_content and woocommerce_after_main_content is tricky to implement the exact behavior, but I think wrapping them around the Products block should be sufficient enough.

Other hooks can be prepended/appended to the render function of the corresponding block through the render_block filter. It's possible to process only blocks belonging to the Products block that inherit query from the templates by modifying the block data using the render_block_data filter.

What do you think @nerrad @Aljullu?

[nerrad]

We'll also want to make sure we remove_action/filter for callbacks that add content non-relevant to the context right (for instance on woocommerce_before_main_content:

• Woo registers a content wrapper for various theme compatibility.
• Woo registers a default output wrapper (which is unregistered for the theme compatibility code).
• Woo registers a breadcrumb (which will be replaced by a block).
• Woo registers structured data (which we may want to leave).

The same will need to be evaluated for any other hooks.

[dinhtungdu]

• Woo registers a content wrapper for various theme compatibility.
• Woo registers a default output wrapper (which is unregistered for the theme compatibility code).

The archive templates only work with block themes, so we won't need to care about theme compatibility here (which is for classic themes). We will remove the default output wrapper as we don't need it for archive templates.

We will also remove actions that are replaced by our blocks, such as notices, catalog orders, or results count. WooCommerce template system needs those hooks but our archive templates don't, so we will remove most of the default actions added by Woo. The actions will be mainly for extensions to continue working with our blockified templates.

• Woo registers structured data (which we may want to leave)

Definitely.