How The Documentation Is Organised

Canvas is a large product: a block library, a full screen of site wide options, its own content types and a catalogue of ready made designs. Knowing which of those four you are looking at gets you to an answer faster than searching, so read this page once and you will rarely need the search box again.

The documentation has two layers, and knowing which one you are reading tells you what to expect from it.

The Reference Is Generated

Every page under Blocks, Content Types, Theme Options and Designs is produced directly from the running software. The block registry, the options registry and the registered content types describe themselves in code, so their names, defaults, choices and conditional rules are read out of the product rather than typed by hand. A setting cannot drift out of date here, because a check fails the build the moment the product and these pages disagree.

That has one consequence worth knowing: where a page says a setting has no description, the product genuinely carries none yet. Nothing is invented to fill the space.

The Guides Are Written

Everything else is written by a person, because it needs judgement, a worked example and an opinion about what to do. A guide never retypes a default or a setting name from the reference. It points at the reference instead, so a rename in the product cannot leave a guide quietly wrong.

Where To Look

Start from the shape of your question:

• Blocks covers everything you place on a page, grouped exactly as the block inserter groups it. Each block has its own page listing what it is for and every setting it exposes.
• Content Types covers the things Canvas adds to the WordPress admin menu, from Portfolio projects and Events to headers, footers and popups.
• Theme Options covers the site wide settings under the Canvas menu, one page per tab. A change here shows up on every page that uses the feature, which is what makes it the right place for a decision you want applied everywhere.
• Designs covers the blocks and content types that arrive with a particular ready made design. If you meet a block you cannot find under Blocks, it belongs to the design your site was built from and it is documented there.

Settings Are Listed, Not Tabulated

Each setting appears as its name, then what it does, then a short line of facts: its default, its choices where it is a menu, the condition that reveals it, and the name it is stored under for anyone working in code.

That last line answers the question people ask most often. When a setting seems to be missing from the editor, look for its "Shown when" fact. Canvas hides settings that do not apply yet, so a setting that reads "Shown when Media Box is on" is not missing, and turning on the switch above it brings the setting back.

What To Read Next

Read Controls Every Canvas Block Has before any individual block page. Three panels sit under every block in the library, and knowing them once saves reading them two hundred times.