Block comments: Add the ability to reopen resolved comments

[joemcgill]

Description

This sub-issue is part of #66377

Currently in the experimental block level commenting feature (#60622) does not allow a resolved comment to be reopened once it is marked as resolved, nor can any additional comments be added to that block.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Enable the block level commenting experiment in wp-admin/admin.php?page=gutenberg-experiments
2. Open a post and leave a comment on a block
3. Click the ✓ icon to resolve the comment
4. Notice that the comment cannot be reopened
5. Try adding a new comment to the same block

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

No response

Environment info

No response

Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

• Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.

• Yes

Please confirm which theme type you used for testing.

• Block
• Classic
• Hybrid (e.g. classic with theme.json)
• Not sure

[adamsilverstein]

Hey @joemcgill - thanks for opening this, I'm reviewing all the issues you opened for inline commenting and this seemed like a good place to start. I see there is a PR for it already, amazing (Thanks @yashjawale, I only noticed your PR after writing this comment up)!

I noticed you haven't listed a "proposed solution" and searching around the previous discussions I didn't see any mockups for this flow.

To start I documented the flow as it exists today in the Gutenberg experiment as well as in Google docs:

Gutenberg

Adding a comment

(side note: that "no comments available" message feels like a bug)

Resolving a comment

Confirmation dialog

Resolved comment

No further interaction is possible at this point. As noted in the description, I cannot add an additional comment to the same block; essentially commenting is locked for the block.

Google Docs

resolve button

reopen option in ... menu

re-opening by adding an additional comment

Proposed solution

• When a comment is resolved, the "..." menu does not go away. Instead the "Edit" and "Delete" options are replaced with "Re-open". No new UI element is required, only the menu items change based on the resolved context.
• The comment form entry area appears below the resolved comment with the placeholder "Adding a comment will re-open this discussion...". This makes re-opening or un-resolving the discussion thread as simple as clicking in the form and replying.
• Remove the confirmation dialog for commenting. This disrupts the flow and feels excessive given that we can un-resolve and also delete comments
• In either flow, once a comment is un-resolved it acts just as it did before it was resolved.

Additional notes and questions

• Consider removing the confusing "No comments available" message when a block is selected with no attached comments. I found this confusing.
• Should we capture meta data for the "comment was unresolved" event? (I saw mention that we capture data for comment resolving, but haven't looked at the details yet).

@joemcgill what do you think? does that cover all of the requirements for this issue? are there any additional mockups or discussions on this already that I missed?

[joemcgill]

Thanks for documenting the current flow and adding a proposed solution, @adamsilverstein. I agree with the approach suggested and see that the PR @yashjawale has been working on has already incorporated much of this already.

I also agree that the "No comments available" message is confusing. Can you document that in a separate issue?

Should we capture meta data for the "comment was unresolved" event

I think we probably should. I noticed that when you resolve or reopen a comment thread in Google Docs, those events are shown in the thread, which I think could be a nice touch.

[yashjawale]

Updated the attached PR based on above discussion

For resolve/unresolve metadata capture, should we tackle it in this issue or a separate one?

[adamsilverstein]

For resolve/unresolve metadata capture, should we tackle it in this issue or a separate one?

Fine to tackle in a separate sub-issue, can you create one @yashjawale ?