Blocks

What are blocks?

Blocks are single units of content within a page, document or canvas which have ‘types’ that determine how they display data.

For example, a block may be a ‘table’, ‘kanban board’, ‘gantt chart’, or anything else that the application which contains it supports.

While the type of a block can be changed, the underlying data remains the same. This separation of 'view' and 'data' allows the representation of information referenced by a block to be changed (e.g. a table converted into a kanban board, and back again) without risking loss, corruption or inadvertent modification of the underlying data in the process.

Blocks typically allow end-users to input, edit, and delete the data within them -- but can also be rendered in ‘view-only’ modes. Typically when in an editing context, blocks can be flexibly composed and arranged.

Blocks enable the creation of modular, composable documents and interfaces.

Block instances

A single individual block can be referred to as an ‘instance of a block’, or a ‘block instance’.

The Block Protocol

The Block Protocol is an open standard for developing blocks, and block-based applications. It defines the methods by which blocks may communicate and interact with the applications that embed them (“embedding applications”).