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Why typography-v2 became just typography (and an alias)

· 2 min read
Jon-Michael Lastimosa
Jon-Michael Lastimosa
Senior Web Developer

The question: UnysonPlus is a fresh restart of Unyson. The rich typography control shipped as typography-v2 while the original typography was a weaker, older implementation. Do we upgrade typography-v2 in place, or promote it to the clean typography name and scrap the -v2 suffix?

Context​

Two option types existed side by side: the modern typography-v2 (family + Google-font variation/subset + size / line-height / letter-spacing + color) used in ~11 real places, and a stale typography (size / family / style / color only) used essentially nowhere but the demo files. Shipping typography-v2 as the canonical control forever contradicts the "fresh restart" premise — a -v2 suffix implies there is a v1 you should avoid, which is confusing in a clean product.

The key realisation​

The option-type string is not stored in the database — saved values are keyed by option id, and the type lives only in the PHP schema. So renaming typography-v2 → typography (with the new typography being today's v2 code) needs no data migration: the value shape is identical, it just gets served under a cleaner name.

Options considered​

  • Bolt the enhancements onto typography-v2. Buys nothing the rename doesn't, and locks in the -v2 name permanently.
  • Promote v2 → typography, keep typography-v2 as a thin alias. Clean name, no data migration, and old schemas keep working.

Decision​

Promote the v2 implementation to the canonical typography. typography-v2 becomes a deprecation alias — a small subclass that overrides only get_type() and reuses the canonical view, editor JS/CSS, google-fonts, value parsing, and defaults. Both 'type' => 'typography' and 'type' => 'typography-v2' now render and save identically. New code should use typography.

Why​

Because the rename is cheap now (11 call sites, no stored-type coupling) and only gets more expensive later, and because a deprecation alias means we modernise the name without breaking anyone still referencing typography-v2. This is the pilot pattern for retiring the other -v2 / -v3 option types the same way.