Am I getting old, or is WordPress making things harder?
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Hi, I just want to add my voice to those who don’t like some of the new changes to WordPress.
I think WordPress is an amazingly good product, I love using it, and I appreciate it is free. Most times when it is altered, the changes are good. But there are two that I find absolutely frustrating.
1. I hate the blue edit screen. I don’t like the look of it, I don’t know where to find all the commands I need, and I find it crazy that I can enter text with tags in the HTML screen, flick over to Visual, and when I flick back the tags have all gone.
I know I can get to the old edit screen by going to WP Admin in the dropdown menu, but I still get the awful blue screen if I use “edit” when looking at a blog post.
2. I also dislike the new icon-based dashboard. I find it difficult to remember what is what (I’m getting old!) and I have plenty of screen width to show the old text based menu that I still have in my WordPress.org blog.
Is there any way to set preferences to ALWAYS get the old edit screen and the old text based dashboard menu?
If not, I wonder if a WordPress person who might read this could please note this request – when making significant changes like this, couldn’t there be a toggle switch on the dashboard to choose old or new?
Please?
Thanks. It’s a great piece of software, I wouldn’t dream of using anything else, but these two matters are so highly frustrating, apparently not only to me. Thanks.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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1. Unless you feel comfortable using GreaseMonkey scripts with FireFox which redirects every link back to the WP Admin Dashboard, there really isn’t much else you can do to avoid the Calypso Dashboard. You can bookmark yoursite.wordpress.com/wp-admin/ and log in and work from there. You’ll need to remember to have two tabs open (one the post; two the WP Admin dashboard) if you want to edit a post. Regardless, there are some features where you won’t be able to avoid using the Calypso dashboard, but you can keep that interaction minimal.
2. Is it possible you’ve collapsed the WP Admin dashboard to only icons? If so, you can expand it again using the (sorry!) icon at the very bottom of the list. (Screenshot-Circle arrow right)
Let me know how that goes.
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The good news first. Yes, that expanded the menu jut as I wanted thanks. I didn’t realise, I must have collapsed it accidentally, and I just assumed it was part of an update.
No, I don’t think I really want to use Firefox thanks. I can get to the WP Admin easily enough at the start, the problem is when I see something in the normal page view and want to edit the page – then the Edit button takes me to the dreaded blue edit screen, and I don’t know where all the commands are.
Thanks for your help, solving one out of two is a big help. For the other, I note many, many people feel the same as I do, so perhaps WP will relent and give us the option of either edit screen as default. I can only hope!
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I think the only mistake you’re making is clicking on the “edit” button whilst viewing a post. That takes you back to the “new” dash. I always edit my posts/pages directly from the wp-admin post/page area to experience the full retro feel of the year 2012!
Saying that, I do sometimes compile new posts using the “new” dash just to experience what a good portion of WordPress.com users now accept as the default system.
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Yes, I agree that is a mistake. But it is so convenient, and I sometimes do it without thinking.
The alternative is to open the WP admin in a separate tab, go to pages or posts, find the page or post I want, chose it to edit, which is about 4 or 5 clicks instead of one. But that’s what I have to do. I was hoping there would be a way to make the old edit screen the default when I choose edit while viewing a post or page, but it seems I can’t.
I am totally unable to use the new edit page because I don’t know how to find anything I want to use. :( I suppose I should spend some time and work it out, but I’ve never felt like spending the time.
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@unklee – you’re welcome. Glad to help.
If you have the energy and time, working your way through the revamped https://learn.wordpress.com will give you an intro to the Calypso dashboard. Calypso was also released as an app for desktop, so it tries to unify the experience across devices.
I’m old school myself, which is why I keep two tabs open in Chrome or Firefox; one in the WP Admin and the second on the front page of my site or the page I want to edit. As you said, it’s more clicks, but it works for me (until they redid the Admin bar/My Sites last week so that it is not as easy to view the site as it was). /sigh
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