Site Editor: Remove the Navigation Menus Sidebar

[Copons]

The "Navigation Menus" sidebar is in a rough beta state and is more confusing than helpful.

We should remove it for the time being. It will likely show up again in a better state somewhere else in the Gutenberg UI (for example in the dark left sidebar).

Originally requested in p1670010686600519-slack-C048CUFRGFQ and pc4f5j-2Fb-p2#comment-3228

[Copons]

This looks much more complicated than anticipated, as the Navigation Menus sidebar is not registered via hook, but it depends on the process.env.IS_GUTENBERG_PLUGIN feature flag (which is inherently enabled on Dotcom and, as you can imagine, is not something we can disable haphazardly).

https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/c05d7c5535a38ae18661c8c7e99c1aec72720722/packages/edit-site/src/components/sidebar-edit-mode/index.js#L67-L75

Furthermore, the Navigation Menus is connected to the Navigation block's "Open list view" button (currently re-labelled "Open navigation list view" in the current Gutenberg trunk).

The functionality is undergoing radical changes with the off-canvas navigation editor experiment (__experimentalEnableOffCanvasNavigationEditor) that, if I understand it correctly, should open the navigation menu in the block's setting sidebar.

WordPress/gutenberg#46335

Given that, in this instance, the feature flag changed from plugin to experimental:

- if ( process.env.IS_GUTENBERG_PLUGIN )
+ if ( window?.__experimentalEnableOffCanvasNavigationEditor === true )

I have the feeling that the Navigation Menus will be either removed altogether or gated by a different feature flag, because otherwise I'm not quite sure what is the point of it anymore.

@scruffian I see that you are closely involved with the new approach. Do you have any insider intel about the fate of the Navigation Menus sidebar?

[scruffian]

What we could do is just hide this feature behind the window?.__experimentalEnableOffCanvasNavigationEditor. I created a PR for this here: WordPress/gutenberg#46710

[Copons]

@scruffian nice! I wasn't sure if the two features were related or if the inspector view would make the nav sidebar obsolete. Thanks for opening the PR! 🙇‍♂️

[Copons]

WordPress/gutenberg#46710 has been merged and should be included in 14.9. Dotcom can wait. 🙂

[Copons]

Circling back, this has been fixed a while ago when Gutenberg 14.9 was merged on Dotcom! 🎉
Thanks again @scruffian!