Allow use of ref in theme.json settings, as is possible with styles #57286
Description
What problem does this address?
I use theme.json settings > color > palette to set a "global" list of allowed colors to use throughout the whole block editor, then I restrict certain blocks to certain colors by providing a refined list of colors in settings > blocks > {block_name} > color > palette; however, it seems I have to manually re-define color objects (i.e. { "slug": "...", "name": "...", "color": "..." }) when defining a block-specific palette, and can't reference colors from my global palette in a dynamic way. I end up having to copy/paste the color definitions from my global palette into my block-specific palettes multiple times, resulting in tons of duplicate code that creates maintenance hell should I choose to change colors later. Example:
{
"$schema": "https://schemas.wp.org/trunk/theme.json",
"version": 2,
"settings": {
"color": {
"palette": [
{
"slug": "primary",
"name": "Primary",
"color": "#2563EB"
},
{
"slug": "secondary",
"name": "Secondary",
"color": "#121212"
}
]
},
"blocks": {
"core/button": {
"color": {
"palette": [
{ // duplicate copy-pasted definition:
"slug": "primary",
"name": "Primary",
"color": "#2563EB"
}
]
}
}
}
}
}What is your proposed solution?
In my troubleshooting/research I came across the introduction of the ref mechanism in theme.json's styles, where you can dynamically reference other values in the styles object/tree. This is exactly the solution I want, but for theme.json settings. I would have expected ref to be use-able throughout the whole theme.json tree, not just under styles.
Here's what I'd like:
{
"$schema": "https://schemas.wp.org/trunk/theme.json",
"version": 2,
"settings": {
"color": {
"palette": [
{
"slug": "primary",
"name": "Primary",
"color": "#2563EB"
},
{
"slug": "secondary",
"name": "Secondary",
"color": "#121212"
}
]
},
"blocks": {
"core/button": {
"color": {
"palette": [
{ "ref": "settings.color.palette.primary" }
]
}
}
}
}
}Please let me know if I'm missing an existing capability for achieving this!