Theme Blocks functionality

Online Store and Theme Development
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Has anyone here been able to make any meaningful use of theme blocks yet in production-ready themes/custom work?

I’m keen to use them for a new project, and I think the potential for a more component-based design flow is huge, but without the style input settings that are still only available in the flex sections preview, I’m finding they’re functionally useless. I’ve created my own duplicate set of custom settings to effectively recreate the style input settings, but without the mobile breakpoints it’s not functional, plus without the Shopify UI for the style panels it’s much less user-friendly for clients. And I think trying to convert this to the Shopify style panels when they’re released would be a huge pain.

I also think the grouping structure needs some more UX thought before it’s ready for clients. We’ve gone from section and block functionality being easily understandable to multiple layers of groups, all with the same name, where functionality and even layout aren’t clear at all. I don’t think this is a UX improvement for clients, even if it’s more logical for me as a designer.

So I’m interested - is anyone else making much use of theme blocks yet?

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Generally we see the same thing

Another potential issue seems to be that if you add a block to s block group, you cannot move that block to another block group or outside of the block group - you can only delete it and recreate it again elsewhere. I’m not sure if it’s intended, but will create friction anyway.

But this is pretty common for Shopify to deliver something that works, but is not necessary polished. I’m guessing (and hoping) we’ll see a number of improvements in coming months.

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Hi there, thanks for the feedback! These are all great points and I will circulate them internally within our teams.

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