Can closest only be used when the lower level blocks have a setting of the same type?

[dhruveonmars]

Is the closest only available on blocks that have a setting with the same type?
For eg,

I have a section that looks like this;

<div class="flex flex-wrap w-full">
{% content_for "block", type: "_section-header", id: "section-header", closest.collection: section.settings.featured_collection %}

{% content_for "block", type: "_section-sidebar", id: "section-sidebar" %}

<pre>
  {{ section.settings.featured_collection.title }}
</pre>
{% content_for "block", type: "_product-grid", id: "product-grid", closest.collection: section.settings.featured_collection %}

{% content_for "block", type: "_section-footer", id: "section-footer" %}
</div>

I have tried to pass the section collection into the _product-grid and _section-header blocks, however in those blocks, if I try {{ closest.collection.title }} -- {{ collection.title }}, neither of these return anything.

Or am I missing something? I wouldn't expect the collection setting to be required on every block that needs access to it.

Also in the docs - https://shopify.dev/docs/storefronts/themes/architecture/blocks/theme-blocks/dynamic-sources#accessing-the-closest-resource, it says:

// Accessing the closest product
{{ closest.product }}

// Accessing the closest collection
{{ context.collection }}

I'm assuming a leftover that was missed, before the change to closest?

[stephanie-shopify]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Today {{ closest. }} can only be used as setting configuration. We'll update the docs to reflect this
This mean atm closest is not access directly from liquid. They can reference in theme block settings instead via preset or configuration data

we are going to address this in the new year

[dhruveonmars]

Do you have a timeline for when this might get addressed @stephanie-shopify ?

[veken1199]

👋 @dhruveonmars, thank you for your follow up message. You should be able to access closest drop directly from liquid in theme blocks.

[dhruveonmars]

@veken1199 Thank you!! This is great!

[veken1199]

Thanks for calling this out! closest. can only be used with theme settings at the moment. Nested theme blocks settings can be configured in the presets to use {{ closest.<type> }}. For example:

{% schema %}
{
  "name": "Card",
  "blocks": [{"type": "@theme"}],
  "presets": [
    {
      "name": "Product Card",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "type": "group",
          "blocks": [
            {
              "type": "text",
              "settings": {
                "text": "<p>{{ closest.product.title }}</p>"
              }
            },
            {
              "type": "price",
              "settings": {
                "product": "{{ closest.product }}"
              }
            },
            {
              "type": "product-medias",
              "settings": {
                "product": "{{ closest.product }}"
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
{% endschema %}

That being said, in the coming weeks, the team will look into this further. Feel free to share with us more use cases regarding why you need {{ closest. <type> }} to be assessable directly from theme block liquid code.

Also, I wanted to clarify, by looking at the snippet you provided

{% content_for "block", type: "_product-grid", id: "product-grid", closest.collection: section.settings.featured_collection %}

It seems that you are forcing closest.collection to be section.settings.featured_collection. You don't really need to do that as the platform will automatically point closest.collection to the closest collection resource setting in the tree.

forcing closest. in content_tag is useful for use cases in which the section or block explicitly need to pass a resource to nested blocks. For example:

<ul class="product-grid">
  {% for product in block.settings.collection.products %}
    <li>
      {% content_for "block", type: "product-card", id: "card", closest.product: product %}
    </li>
  {% endfor %}
</ul>

[mnj-novicell]

Hi,
My team and I would also like to be able to access closest directly in liquid.
Here is a use case that we would like for it to support:

Having a product-price theme block.
This price block should be available in PDP, on product cards, in cart and so on.
The price should never stand alone and should always be related to the closest product (from block/section/page), so there would be no need for a setting, since it should always be set to closest.
Some of our clients has many settings and therefor it would clutter with unnecessary settings.

[dhruveonmars]

Yeah, agreed! There would never be a need for blocks of a product card block to need to have a setting to select the product. Someone accidentally using this would end up with product grid all with the same price, or all with the same image, etc if all the blocks need this setting instead of just accessing the closest.product.