Please Reinstate the Option of Choice to Use the Old Publishing Format
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My own, non technical contribution to the WP community’s lamentation of the end of the classic editor and a friend (WP management):
“Professional Scam Artists part 10” – http://bit.ly/1BLBf9Z
I will now investigate hosting my own blog using WP’s platform. I’ve no clue about that. I feel like a non soldier who has been conscripted, involuntarily, and given no training and weapons and told “The Taliban are over that hill. Go get ’em!”
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I don’t think this is off topic: it just shows an interesting parallel. Here is a comment on the BBC news website replying to a BBC summary of users’ criticisms of the site’s redesign. Of course, the sites are different, and I don’t know how much positive feedback WP has had on the new editor. Anyhow:
QUOTE
This is a highly disingenuous post. It chooses to focus on relatively tiny criticisms (ticker, colour, banner) and misses out the avalanche of informed, constructive, legitimate expressions of deep disappointment with the overall lack of coherent design.
And then it says “There has however been some positive feedback” – it is less than 1% of the HYS posts. This is clutching at straws – the vast majority of comments are strenuously negative.
And finally it says “we know it takes a while to get used to changes like this”. In other words, there is still absolutely no recognition that the criticisms carry any weight – we the majority of licence fee payers are simply an annoyance.
Let me summarise the feedback – the vast majority of it has been overwhelmingly negative for very good, very well argued reasons. It is not about the shock of the new, it is about the wilful destruction of one of the world’s most authoritative news websites.
UNQUOTE
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Here’s an interesting tidbit. There was a similar protest and outcry over the ghastly new stats page about a month ago.
This YouTube clip shows the Classic stats page and compares it with the “new” version at the time the clip was created.
Now what is interesting here is that there were changes made after that clip appeared. Several major changes. The scrolling was radically reduced, the wasted space on the left hand side was utilized, the stats columns were increased to show a month at a time and eventually the stats columns included both visitors and views. That’s a lot of changes. And they were ALL suggested in that Clip.
What this proves to me is that the WP administrators are indeed listening. And aren’t as intransigent as would seem. True the new stats page is ugly and cramped … but at least it is usable. The original “New” version was totally unworkable.
I would suggest that someone produce a similar You Tube clip regarding the new editing page … clearly showing the contrast between the two. I believe that WP will listen.
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What worries me about this is that WP are not against making changes to the new editor – they are against allowing us to use the Classic Editor to update old posts. It will be a loooong time until the new editor is useable – probably never if certain key features are omitted.
In the meantime users (not just the cognoscenti on the Forum) need a convenient route back to the CE
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It seems to me that the juvenile developers have no idea about how serious bloggers use the site. Their sole intention is to transform it into a teenager one sentence, single mobile phone picture upload site. What the development team needs is some age, some experience and some maturity.
Clearly no one is listening – there is no WP response or interaction on this forum! -
@ Knashermac
What worries me about this is that WP are not against making changes to the new editor – they are against allowing us to use the Classic Editor to update old posts. It will be a loooong time until the new editor is useable – probably never if certain key features are omitted.Good point! That’s probably true. And there’s no question but the original Stats page was MUCH more usable and attractive than the present “tweaked” one. The point is that we need to be able to CHOOSE thee version we want. We still can access the classic version if we scroll to the bottom of the page. But the “Sword of Damocles” is over our heads.
and @apetcher
Their sole intention is to transform it into a teenager one sentence, single mobile phone picture upload site. What the development team needs is some age, some experience and some maturity.And this is so frustrating. Because the point of a Blog is entirely different from the point of a Tweet. And we need a venue for serious blogging much more than just another bit of social network fluff for kids.
Again. Just give us the CHOICE. Is that so difficult? Choice won’t scare away teenagers …. but NO choice WILL scare away serious bloggers.
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@apetcher
Just to be fair to him, jeremeylduvall has been keeping up with this thread and has he’s posted 12 long responses (it seems that whenever something like this comes up, one Happiness Engineer is assigned to it as our point of contact). He has also said that the feedback from this thread, often verbatim, have been forwarded to other staff.Here’s a list of his posts as of now:
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@tpenguinltg but to be honest about those posts, he doesn’t really address the big burning issue here.
It is more about trying to discount the classic editor and his attitude is so bewildered when people complain about the lack of features – why do you need that? Gee, I never had that problem. And making the members here beta test for WP. Sorry, but that isn’t helpful. At least to me.
The one thing, and the ONLY one thing, that would be helpful and it would cause this thread to gracefully end, is for WP to just reinstate the damn link back to the classic editor. What would be BETTER is allow us to have an area in our admin control panel to SET what editor default we want.
but hey, I am one of the non-paying, unwashed masses who isn’t hip enough to post a pithy one liner and a selfie on my blog – cause that seems to be the audience WP wants now with their childish and horrible “beep beep boop” editor.
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Whoops, I forgot to quote the text I was responding to:
there is no WP response or interaction on this forum!
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Just to be fair to him, jeremeylduvall has been keeping up with this thread and has he’s posted 12 long responses (it seems that whenever something like this comes up, one Happiness Engineer is assigned to it as our point of contact). He has also said that the feedback from this thread, often verbatim, have been forwarded to other staff.
No, jeremeylduvall has cherry-picked and has been gleaning bug reports for BBB from some people and responding to those. He has not, to my knowledge, addressed the one basic issue other than to say “we’re not doing what you ask for”.
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For your edification, this was one of the last posts back in Aug 2014 from rootjosh (staff)
We have no plans to permanently remove the classic editor from the dashboard, but our goal is to improve the new editor in a way that users will prefer it over the classic one.
@jeremeylduvall
Question 1 :
After 6 or 7 months of work, have you achieved your goal?Question 2 :
How can you tell? -
Hi,
Could someone tell me the way to go back to the old editor sinice the disappearing of the button?
I confess I don’t want the read the 21 pages for that… -
Hi,
Could someone tell me the way to go back to the old editor since the disappearing of the button?
I confess I don’t want the read the 21 pages for that… -
@christophefouchet
Go to the dashboard, there on “admin”, then “posts”, then “add new”. I’ve bookmarked that then so I don’t have to do all the klicks.
If you want to edit an existing post, you can do that with the old editor via the dashboard, too. “all posts” and then choose the post you want to edit. This, I’m afraid, can’t be bookmarked.
Other than this workaround, there’s the script by tpenguinltg, which many here like a lot. But for that you’ll have to look back a few pages. -
Maybe I shouldn’t say this, for fear of bringing it to fruition, but my biggest fear is that WP will eliminate the Classic Editor altogether.
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This tyranny of the “mobile user” has got to stop. The BBC is doing (as I pointed out above) exactly the same thing as WP, but with even worse consequences. For news, people access from mobile devices TO READ HEADLINES. That is not where the serious use goes on. For blogging, no long form writer works from a phone.
Has WP not noticed that iPad use is declining? Notebooks, never mind desktops, are here to stay.
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@thewallpaperlady
My exact sentiments/fears, too. See also my answer(s) to timethief. I’m past trusting the demigods at WP. -
@christophefouchet
You can find the script here with instructions on how to install it:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/please-reinstate-the-option-of-choice-to-use-the-old-publishing-format/page/17#post-2322624@thewallpaperlady
That sentiment has been expressed many times in this thread, and jeremeylduvall has stated that they have no plans to remove the classic editor. Also, to make this point again, the classic editor is a part of core WordPress, and they haven’t revoked access to the core stats page, even after two newer versions -
Some time ago someone said that enterprise users and vip users still have the old editor. If this is true, this thing won’t disappear. I guess WordPress is aware of the fact that the classic editor is basically the editor for pro users. I assume they do just draw a line…
free plan = baby mode
paid plan = pro mode
But this is just my theory. If this is true, the classic editor will always be available as link.
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I agree. The new version is very poor. For starters can I copy a post so I can use a template? Can I set a time for my post to be issued? I can’t find either of these options.
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