blocks: Port over some of the type information for @wordpress/blocks from DefinitelyTyped

[joshualip-plaudit]

What?

Closes #77390

This PR adds in the generics that were missing and patches up some differences between the types added in #76312 and the underlying code. It also includes a couple of spots where I patched up mismatches between the types and the underlying logic of the select and dispatch calls in the process of porting over the types.

Why?

This PR fixes issues introduced by the differences between the types added in #76312 and the DefinitelyTyped version.

How?

I ported over the original typedefs where useful and tweaked the ones that didn't match. I didn't rename any of the new types, so there will still be compatibility issues in some cases, but those are fixable via a quick find-and-replace, so I didn't think that the added changes in this PR would be worth it

Testing Instructions

1. Build the project
2. Try building something that previously relied on @types/wordpress__blocks with the built types
   • You may need to do some substitutions for the updated type names, but the key part is the generics

[github-actions]

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Co-authored-by: joshualip-plaudit <joshualipstone@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: manzoorwanijk <manzoorwanijk@git.wordpress.org>

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[manzoorwanijk]

I’m travelling for the next couple of days. I’ll get back to this next week if nobody beats me to it.

[manzoorwanijk]

This looks good to me. I just have a suggestion for improved changelog entry.

[manzoorwanijk]

Meanwhile, I have created a PR to get rid of some @types/* packages, including the blocks package - DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped#74886

[aduth]

It's unfortunate we lost this documentation, as it's one of the most important APIs in the block editor and I would fully expect people would be frequently referencing its API documentation through the developer site.

I'm guessing this is a case where the auto-documentation tool isn't able to handle function overloads we're adding, and the solution would be to improve the auto-documenter to handle those better?

[manzoorwanijk]

I'm guessing this is a case where the auto-documentation tool isn't able to handle function overloads we're adding, and the solution would be to improve the auto-documenter to handle those better?

Yes, the tool needs some improvement.

[aduth]

Created an issue at #77457

[joshualip-plaudit]

@manzoorwanijk / @aduth
Do either of you know when this will get published to npm? I'd prefer to have the generics available in @wordpress/blocks before approving DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped#74886, but I also don't want to leave it sitting.

[manzoorwanijk]

I'd prefer to have the generics available in @wordpress/blocks before approving DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped#74886, but I also don't want to leave it sitting.

Previous versions of @types/wordpress__blocks should continue working.

[joshualip-plaudit]

I'd prefer to have the generics available in @wordpress/blocks before approving DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped#74886, but I also don't want to leave it sitting.

Previous versions of @types/wordpress__blocks should continue working.

@manzoorwanijk The problem is that all of these changes have been going out as minor version updates (i.e. "15.16.0 -> 15.17.0" instead of "15.16.0 -> 16.0.0"), which means that even if I pin everything in my root package.json file, the updated (and incompatible) versions get downloaded because every pinned package that I have is using "^15.16.0" for @wordpress/blocks. I've spent a solid 12 hours dealing with infrastructure issues because the build process keeps breaking for sites and plugins during routine updates, and I'm likely going to have another good chunk of a day either removing the hacks I put into place or formalizing them so that I'll have ready access to a company-wide off-switch for updates if this happens again.

[joshualip-plaudit]

I'd prefer to have the generics available in @wordpress/blocks before approving DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped#74886, but I also don't want to leave it sitting.

Previous versions of @types/wordpress__blocks should continue working.

@manzoorwanijk Yep. Called it. All of your changes in DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped#74886 got deployed as minor versions, which broke the processes I mentioned again.

[joshualip-plaudit]

@manzoorwanijk / @aduth Any idea when this is going to get published? I'm using PNPM's overrides for now, but it's been over a week.

[aduth]

You might be able to use the @next tag which was published 3 days ago. @latest is published with the plugin release schedule (every 2 weeks), and the last was 8 days ago, so probably about another week.

[joshualip-plaudit]

Thanks