A plea to keep Classic Editor
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Like many people, I find the Block Editor impossible to use. I really have tried, but it’s a nightmare. I’m not an IT expert or a professional blogger: I’m just someone who writes two blogs – one as a lockdown diary, one for book reviews – in an essay format, with a few photos. They’re very important to me. I love the Classic Editor. I spent much of yesterday in tears after it disappeared with no warning, before someone kindly found a way to get it back – but, again, we were told that it could disappear again.
Why can’t it be kept? We’re not asking for anything new to be developed, just to keep what’s already there. And we’re not trying to stop other people from using the Block Editor, just asking for the choice.
I can see that many other people have made the same point. Please, please keep Classic Editor. It’s not stopping anyone else from using other formats. I honestly have tried with the Block Editor, using the Classic Blocks, but it’s very difficult to use, especially with photos. I’m sure that IT experts find it easy, but many bloggers, like myself, are not IT experts and just use the blogs as a much-loved hobby.
Thank you.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there, I’ve flagged your thread for Staff to note your feedback.
Meanwhile, WordPress.com also published a guide specifically for writers and bloggers that you can find here https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor-for-writers-bloggers/ Perhaps you’ll find it helpful.
Regardless, post back here if you have any other questions on this.
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Thank you. I’ve seen so many people say they’ll be forced to move to Blogspot or other sites if Classic Editor goes, because Block Editor is just so difficult for non IT whizzes to use, and that would be a great shame.
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I second the request to keep Classic Editor. I find it much faster and easier to post and do other things like search comments.
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Why do they have to change things when we were happy with the old editor, that we knew how to work?
The new comment editor doesn’t work – the links don’t open in a new tab.
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Hi there,
The Block Editor replaced the Classic one last year already: https://wordpress.com/support/replacing-the-older-wordpress-com-editor-with-the-wordpress-block-editor/.
It sounds like your account has been switched to the unified navigation, which is being rolled out on WordPress.com, and you probably used to access the Classic Editor through WP Admin. To keep doing that, you’ll need to turn on the Advanced Navigation in your Account Settings>Dashboard Appearance to access the Classic Editor.
The Classic Editor is currently available, but in the long run, you’ll want to give the full Block Editor or the Classic Block a workout as the WordPress core development team do plan to phase this editor out in the future. The more you use it, the easier it will become.
Have a look at the guide @justjennifer shared above; it may help.
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Believe me, I’ve tried it. I end up in tears every time, and I haven’t got the time to keep on and on trying to work out how to make the best of a bad job. It’s an absolute nightmare, whereas Classic Editor is just straightforward. You can see from all the requests in the forum for help on getting Classic Editor back that many, many people feel the same. I appreciate that the people who kindly answer the questions here aren’t the ones making the decisions, but removing Classic Editor would cause a lot of upset.
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Thanks for the feedback, @theyearwithoutwimbledon. What’s happening when you type in the new editor?
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It’s an absolute nightmare, whereas Classic Editor is just straightforward.
Hi! Thanks for joining the growing list of those who prefer the Classic Editor and are willing to speak out loudly in support of it, sharing their frustrations with the nightmarish Block Editor.
You can see from all the requests in the forum for help on getting Classic Editor back that many, many people feel the same.
Yes, and the list is growing fast! See the following relevant forum tag archives:
- Block Editor criticism — 151 topics, last 7 months; 28 topics in the last week
- prefers classic editor — 168 topics, last 7 months; 44 topics in the last week
- switch to classic — 168 topics, last 8 months; 50 topics in last week
The 6 and 7 month totals would have been higher had I not stopped adding the tags for about almost 4 months.
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Oddly enough, the people who love the new editor generally don’t post about it in the support forums.
But, if you’ll let us know which specific areas of the editor are difficult for you, we can get issues filed and hopefully resolved before the classic editor is gone.
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the people who love the new editor generally don’t post about it in the support forums.
10x
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the WordPress core development team do plan to phase this editor out in the future
That’ll be treating the user base with contempt.
Don’t phase something out that works and people are happy with.If they want an idea to “develop” something that would be welcome then allow free users to use their own scripts in their webpages.
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It’s an absolute nightmare, whereas Classic Editor is just straightforward.
I realize that the Block Editor has become the thing people love to hate. But frankly you don’t need to do anything out of the ordinary to write in it.
The default block is the paragraph block, so place your cursor in the editing area and just start writing without selecting any block. If you need a new paragraph, click ENTER/RETURN like you’ve always done and in the background a new paragraph block will be added for you, so just keep writing. You don’t need to first add a Paragraph block and then continue writing.
All the formatting tools you need (Bold, Italic, justification, links, text color, etc.) are available in the toolbar above the paragraph you are writing in. If that toolbar gets in your way, you can pin it to the top bar by clicking on the three dots at the top right and then clicking on “Top toolbar.”
WordPress.com published a guide on working with the Block Editor specifically for Writers and Bloggers that don’t want or need all the bells and whistles at:
https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor-for-writers-bloggers/I realize I’m not going to convince anyone to love the Block Editor. However, after writing in the Block Editor now for more than 2 years now, I can say that the more you use it, the easier it becomes.
I will add one more thing.
If you’ve developed a particular way of writing/working in your WordPress.com website over the years that you don’t see how you can translate to the Block Editor, please open a new forum thread at https://wordpress.com/forums?new=1 and let us know the details on your writing process.
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