some items, like roboport dont show the new supply and construction area before build, what makes build in a grid-like kinda annoying: https://imgur.com/a/50MWnUJ

there are even some broken things in the item texts: https://imgur.com/a/eox40Kh

Changing the displayed area directly is quite difficult: I'd have to replace the item while it's in the cursor, and back-replace it once it's back in your inventory - which would affect performance, and might introduce incompatibilities with many kinds of mods.

A workaround is using blueprints: place one item down, copy the resulting entity and then place that in the grid, since the copy/blueprint will show the correct area.

The broken texts are something I can fix, though.