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Navigation block: Hiding a link item breaks the HTML into two separate lists #78784
Description
Description
I hid one of the links inside the navigation block, and on the frontend it shows two <ul> elements, one with all menu items up to the hidden link, and the next with all items after the hidden link. This affects styling.
I noticed it on our site because our menu uses CSS multi-column layout, and the menu items after the hidden item were below on their own line instead of in the usual flow.
Step-by-step reproduction instructions
- Add navigation block.
- Add several items to navigation block.
- Use the new block visibility feature to hide one of the items.
- View frontend and see menu has two
<ul>s now.
Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet
No response
Environment info
- WordPress 7.0
Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.
- Yes
Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.
- Yes
Please confirm which theme type you used for testing.
- Block
- Classic
- Hybrid (e.g. classic with theme.json)
- Not sure
Activity
vedant-ere commentedon May 29, 2026
I can reproduce this on WordPress 7.0 with Gutenberg active.
Hiding a middle navigation item results in two separate
<ul class="wp-block-navigation__container">elements in the DOM one containing items before the hidden block,
one containing items after it.
Looking into the Navigation block's render logic for a fix.
vedant-ere commentedon May 29, 2026
Root cause identified:
In
WP_Navigation_Block_Renderer::get_inner_blocks_html(), the loop tracks list state using an$is_list_openflag. When a block is hidden via block visibility,$inner_block->render()returns an empty string''.WP_HTML_Tag_Processorfinds no<li>in the empty string, so$is_list_itemisfalse. This satisfies the close condition! $is_list_item && $is_list_open, closing the<ul>prematurely. The next visible item then opens a brand new<ul>, producing two separate lists.Fix: Added an early
continueto skip empty block markup inside theforeachloop, preserving the$is_list_openstate across hidden blocks:PR attached in #78793.