We are asking for a v3 equivalent of v2's in-canvas edit mode: a block's fields rendered in place in the canvas, where the block sits on the page.

The context, briefly. Our blocks declared "acf": { "mode": "edit" } and editors filled the fields in place, on the page, seeing the block in its real context. WordPress 7.1 now always iframes the block canvas, and v2 guards against that by forcing preview mode and hiding the edit toggle, so v2 blocks became readable but uneditable. Moving to v3 is the correct fix and we have done it. But v3 offers no in-canvas form at all: the options are the Block sidebar or the Expanded Editor.

Neither replaces what was lost. The Block sidebar is too narrow for real field layouts, where repeater columns collapse into each other and image thumbnails land on their captions. The Expanded Editor is a good form, but it covers the page, so editors lose sight of the thing they are editing.

The frustration is the abruptness. In-place field editing is how ACF sites have been built and how editors have been trained for years, and the upgrade path removes it with no equivalent. For an agency with a large estate of client sites, that is retraining every editor on every site, to work around a UI gap rather than a design decision.

Done would be a v3 block able to render its fields in the canvas, in place, as v2 could.