Newsletter feature requires Jetpack Blocks to be enabled

[itsViney]

Impacted plugin

Jetpack

Quick summary

The Newsletter feature appears to be dependent on the Jetpack Blocks feature being enabled, but there's no indication to users that this is the case.

I wanted to set-up Newsletters on a self-hosted site I manage, but I don't want any other Jetpack features. So I installed Jetpack, went to Settings and disabled every feature apart from Newsletters. I was puzzled for a while as to why I couldn't see any of the UI that the documentation refers to (the Newsletter icon in the editor, the ability to preview emails and send test emails, etc.). Through trial and error I discovered that the Newsletter UI doesn't appear in the post editor unless the 'Jetpack Blocks' feature is also enabled.

This isn't necessarily a problem if the Newsletter feature relies in some way on the Jetpack Blocks feature, but if that's the case a warning or some sort of indication should appear if the user has Newsletters enabled but doesn't have Jetpack Blocks enabled.

Steps to reproduce

On a fresh installation of Jetpack, after connecting to a WP account:

1. Go to Jetpack > Settings
2. Disable all features across all tabs
3. Go to Newsletter tab
4. Enable "Let visitors subscribe to this site and receive emails when you publish a post"
5. Draft a new post
6. Notice that the Newsletter (aeroplane icon) doesn't appear in the editor. Newsletter settings aren't accessable.
7. Go to Jetpack > Settings
8. Go to Writing tab
9. Enable the "Jetpack Blocks give you the power to deliver quality content that hooks website visitors without needing to hire a developer or learn a single line of code." feature
10. Go back to your draft post
11. The Newsletter options button is now visible and you're able to preview and send Newsletter emails

Site owner impact

Fewer than 20% of the total website/platform users

Severity

Moderate

What other impact(s) does this issue have?

No response

If a workaround is available, please outline it here.

Enable Jetpack Blocks if you want to use Jetpack Newsletters.

Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

Self-hosted

[jeherve]

Thank you for the report. That's indeed a problem with the current version of Jetpack. In #39449 we introduced a "Blocks" feature that could be disabled, so folks who do not use Jetpack blocks can disable them all in one click from Jetpack's Settings screen. This is useful, but also introduces some issues for folks like you who would like to use some of Jetpack's blocks and editor functionalities, but not all of them. In this scenario, you currently have to enable the Blocks feature, and then disable the blocks you don't want one by one, in the block editor's preference settings.

if that's the case a warning or some sort of indication should appear if the user has Newsletters enabled but doesn't have Jetpack Blocks enabled.

That may indeed be a good work-around.

@keoshi I would be curious to have your take on this.

When Jetpack's blocks module is disabled (you can do that in Jetpack > Settings > Writing), what should we display in Jetpack > Settings > Newsletters?

• Should we hide most toggles and only leave a single blocks toggle explaining that it is needed for newsletters to work?
• Should we leave the toggles as they are, but add a notice and a toggle at the top?
• Should we display things differently whether the newsletter feature is already active, or inactive?
• Should we check if the classic editor plugin is active before we display any warning or anything specific about the blocks module?