Canvas Docs

Where The AI Button Appears

Canvas does not put the AI button on every field. It puts it on fields that hold content, and keeps it off fields that hold measurements, destinations, identifiers and settings, because a generated number or a generated web address is not a feature. The absence of the button is a decision, not a gap, and this page explains the decision so you can predict it.

The Rule In Short

Canvas reads three things about a field and answers in this order:

  1. The kind of control. Only a single line text box, a multi line text box, a rich text editor, a code box or an image picker can carry the button. A colour picker, a switch, a number stepper, a menu of choices and an icon picker never do, because none of them holds words or a picture. Where a block repeats a row of settings, each field inside the row is judged on its own.
  2. What the field is called. Its name and its label are read as words. A word naming a measurement, a position, a destination, an identifier or a piece of styling refuses the button outright: width, height, size, spacing, margin, padding, gap, column, row, offset, position, radius, ratio, speed, delay, duration, colour, class, style, font, id, slug, url, link, email, phone, key, query, template and their relatives.
  3. What the value is for. Three families are refused whatever they are called: values pasted from another service, conventional interface labels, and brand assets. Those are set out below.

On a single line field, passing all three is not enough on its own. The field's name also has to say it holds content, with a word such as title, heading, subheading, subtitle, tagline, description, excerpt, summary, caption, quote, testimonial, label, message, bio, blurb, byline, intro, slogan, statement, alt or text. A multi line box is treated as prose by default, because that is nearly always what one is for.

Seen On A Real Block

The Canvas Icon Box makes the rule visible in one screen. Four of its fields carry the button and the rest do not:

The Canvas Icon Box settings in the block editor sidebar, with the AI button under Subtitle, Title, Description and Call-to-Action Text and absent from the icon, image, link and class fields

Subtitle, Title, Description and Call-to-Action Text carry it: each is content a visitor reads. Icon, Icon Text, Icon Image, Icon Image URL, Media Box, Call-to-Action Icon, Link URL, Link Wraps, Link Target, Nofollow Link and Link Accessibility Label do not: an icon is chosen from a set, a destination is a place, and the rest are settings. Call-to-Action Text and Call-to-Action Icon sitting side by side show the rule at work, because the words on the link are content and the glyph after them is a choice from a set.

The Three Refusals Worth Knowing

Pasted from another service. A field expecting a tracking snippet, an embed code, a container id or a verification string is copied word for word from somewhere else, and a generated version of it would be wrong by definition. Analytics, tracking, embed, pixel, verification and their neighbours are refused.

Conventional interface labels. "Read More", "Load More", "View All", "View More", "Show More", "See More", "Learn More", "Read Less", "Show Less", "Back to Top", "Go to Top" and "Skip to Content" are words a visitor recognises on sight. Inventing a fresh phrase where recognition is the whole point makes a site harder to use, so any field named or labelled as one of these is refused. A free form call to action is not affected: a field asking for the words on a button keeps its button, and "Start your free trial" is content.

Brand assets. A logo, favicon, wordmark, emblem, watermark, signature, avatar, badge, app icon, seal, certificate, stamp, crest or trademark is something you supply, not something to invent. Image fields named for one of those are refused; photographs, backgrounds, hero images and gallery images keep the button. A media field limited to video or audio also has nothing to generate.

Worked Examples

Fields that carry the button:

  • A Title, Heading or Subtitle field on any block.
  • A Description box.
  • Call-to-Action Text, and any other field asking for the words on a button.
  • Media Image Alt Text, because alt text is a sentence.
  • Picture fields such as Media Image and Custom Thumbnail.
  • The Custom CSS and Custom JS boxes in the Custom Code group of the Misc tab of Theme Options, which offer to generate code rather than prose.

Fields that never do:

  • Icon Animation Delay, Icon Size, Columns and Slide Gap (px), and every other measurement.
  • Link URL and Button URL, and every other destination.
  • Read More Text, and the rest of the conventional labels above.
  • Custom Logo Image and Sticky Logo Override, and every other logo field.
  • Media Image Classes and Title CSS Classes, and every other styling field.

Two Things The Rule Does Not Govern

The block toolbar and the selection button. Those two surfaces are offered on the block's own text and on the words you highlighted, without consulting the rule, because a passage you selected yourself is content by definition. The only blocks they stay out of are the code oriented ones: Code, Custom HTML, Preformatted, Classic and Shortcode.

Fields that opt out by name. A field can be marked as never carrying the button even though the rule would allow it. Words to Avoid on the AI tab of Theme Options is the clearest example: it is a multi line box that would otherwise qualify, and generating a list of words for the AI to avoid would be circular.

Note

The same rule answers wherever a field is edited. A field carries the button in a block's sidebar, in a Theme Options tab and in a meta box, or it carries it in none of them. A button that appears in one place and not another would be a defect, not a setting.

Pitfalls

A content field has no button and you expected one. Read its label as words. A field named for a link, a row, a column or a level is refused on its name even when the words it holds are copy. The workaround is to write the first version yourself and enhance a selection of it from the block toolbar, which the rule does not govern.

A code box offered to generate code. That is deliberate. A box named for CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, JSON, XML or a regular expression generates code, not prose. A box named for HTML does the same unless its label also says it holds content, as "Rich Label (Inline HTML)" does.

No field on the block has a button at all. Some blocks hold no content fields: a carousel of records, a spacer, a filter row. Their content comes from the records they display, so generate it on the record instead.

No field anywhere has a button. Check Canvas > Theme Options > AI > AI Settings. When Enable AI Generation is off, every button is removed on purpose; switch it on and save to bring them back.

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