Connectors: add support for activation and deactivation from the Connectors screen

[JeffPaul]

Currently, users who want to temporarily stop using a configured Connector must deactivate the associated connector plugin outside of the Connectors screen (meaning directly within the Plugins screen).

While connector configuration (including any stored credentials / API key) is preserved when a connector plugin is deactivated, this workflow is not obvious to users and requires navigating away from the Connectors interface.

Potential use cases include:

• Temporarily disabling a Connector while troubleshooting
• Switching between multiple configured AI providers
• Avoiding the need to delete and later reconfigure Connector credentials

The underlying functionality already exists through plugin activation and deactivation. However, the Connectors UI does not currently provide an obvious way to manage Connector availability.

This ticket proposes exploring improvements to the Connectors screen that would allow users to activate or deactivate configured connectors directly from that interface, while preserving existing configuration and credentials.

This issue was identified through AI provider connectors but applies generally to the Connectors infrastructure in Core.

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Originally reported by @pbearne in ​https://github.com/WordPress/ai/issues/632.

[pbearne]

I wonder if we should also change the behaviour when a plugin is deactivated (in plugins) to remove the setting and the toggle in the connectors page, just disables them keeping the settings

[iamchitti]

Taking this. The source for the Connectors screen lives in routes/connectors-home/ in the Gutenberg repository (not in WordPress directly). So, changes will be via a Gutenberg PR.

[iamchitti]

Automation didn't kick. I've raised a PR here - ​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/79532 .