Inspector controls UI: settings selected by the user are not persisted unless changes are made

[MaggieCabrera]

Description

When a user selects settings for a block and navigates out of said block, the changes are not persisted unless they make a change using the new controls. This forces the user to make the same selection multiple times all over the same page.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Insert two paragraphs with some text
2. On the first paragraph, open the typography > font family control
3. Click on the second paragraph
4. Click on the first one again. The font family panel is now closed

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

Environment info

No response

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

[hanneslsm]

Big +1, this must be solved!

In my opinion when enabling tools on one block, this should not only be applied to same block category (e.g. Paragraph) but also all other block that are having the same controls (e.g. Quotes, titles…)

1. We need to define the default: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/55208 is already pushing into a direction for consistency.
2. Is this relevant for a11y? This might be the same discussion as if it's possible to stay on the same tab (e.g. style) when switching blocks. @alexstine pointed in https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/55836 out that he prefers always going back to the defaults (aka discarding the settings when another block is selected. This also leads us to this issue here though). #55836 was about the tabs and I can imagine it's the same with where to find the controls.
3. My favourite solution would be if we could save the all settings (what is enabled/disabled by default) globally for the user. I could even imagine exporting/importing those settings to an external file https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/55994 so that it's possible to create different "workspaces" as known from all software from Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign)

[scruffian]

Another option worth exploring here is to have a "show all setting" button at the bottom of each section.

[annezazu]

Noting that this came up in a recent YouTube video where additional controls are reset every time you leave and return, making it cumbersome to have to go back and forth to re-enable each time.