Removing the scrollbar from the post editor one of the worst "improvements" yet
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Yes, it’s the only purpose that would make at least a tiny bit of sense. :(
@monaeberhardt
http://opalkatze.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/neuer-post-editor-bullshit-wordpress-com/ (in German) and
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This new “improvement” is still so stupid I can’t believe it: scrolling down to the end of the post makes also all the stuff on the right column (save draft, publish, categories etc) disappear above: what if I want to edit something at the bottom, then I have to go back at the top to do everything. I want the double scrollbar back, mostly because I don’t understand what did we GAIN with this change
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It was all about the hipsters with the tablets. Real blogging can’t be done on tablets. Anyway, they tried to make it easier for the hipsters, but ruined it for those that use real computers and do real blogging. As for the trackball option… Hogwash. Why would we go looking for hard-to-find peripherals that we’re not even familiar with, in order to adapt to an idiotic idea some apes pretending to know about user experience (my arse) forced down our throats? Bring back the sodding scrollbar now and quit arsing about. I’m a paying customer and demand respect for me, my time and my MONEY.
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I just updated two very LONG pages on my blog, and I have to do it quite often (they’re a sort of index of my posts, so they’re regularly updated), and it was really uncomfortable
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It was all about the hipsters with the tablets. Real blogging can’t be done on tablets. Anyway, they tried to make it easier for the hipsters, but ruined it for those that use real computers and do real blogging. As for the trackball option… Hogwash. Why would we go looking for hard-to-find peripherals that we’re not even familiar with, in order to adapt to an idiotic idea some apes pretending to know about user experience (my arse) forced down our throats? Bring back the sodding scrollbar now and quit arsing about. I’m a paying customer and demand respect for me, my time and my MONEY.
Agreed. If people wanted to blog on their tablets, phones, etc., then they should use the WP app. The way WP forced this “update” on us shows the sad reality and perception that people actually do believe that PCs are a thing of the past. True to the heart blogging can not be done on a mobile device. I have had the uncomfortable and unfortunate experience of trying to do so and I hated it. The scrollbar needs a quick and speedy return. I am hoping that at least by Monday WP will return some sense of normalcy to my otherwise pleasant blogging experience.
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Imagine you have to edit a text like http://opalkatze.wordpress.com/to-be-continue/ttip-tafta/ and there is no scrollbar. Luckily this never gonna happen.
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And yet, you have delusional “developers” who think removing an important UI element. Devs like them wouldn’t last a second in the industry.
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Correction: who think removing an important UI element is an improvement. Hey gruesome, care giving us this spin again?
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I think it’s important to remember that individuals, businesses, and organizations use WordPress for a lot of different things. Web stores, membership sites, e-learning, news sites, you name it.
WordPress powers somewhere around 18% of all sites on the web, which is a huge amount of sites. The blogging community is but one portion of the overall demographic that WordPress serves.
My guess is that the changes in 4.0 were made in consideration of the needs of the broader demographic, and in response to the changing ways that people interact with WordPress.
The new changes haven’t made any impact on my use of WordPress, but I recognize that my needs are different than others, so that’s not meant to discount the very real frustration and valid concerns that folks here have.
On that note, I personally have no doubt that the needs of the blogging community are being heard and will be addressed. The developers working on WordPress core are extremely smart, talented people. I have the utmost respect for them – not just for the core team, but for every volunteer who contributes to WordPress.
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. . . completely agree . . . except, maybe, that regardless how many ‘bloggers’ there are, it would be nice to be accorded the same level of respect as the rest of the WP community which, you imply, may be much larger. Strange that, because WP touts ungodly number of blogs being added each and every month. Be that as it may.
Up to now I’ve not heard an official response (maybe some of the people who commented are WP representatives, but I’ve not noticed – I’m dense that way), and it seems to me it aggravates the situation.
The situation being that something changed and people are left to themselves to figure out what to do, how to do it, and where to do it.
However, even though I pay for a number of upgrades, I realize the Term of Use basically state they can do whatever they want.
WordPress has the right to disrespect any or all of its users, and conversely users can look elsewhere.The question then becomes whether all the incremental changes over the past years degrade the blogging experience enough to prompt someone (not saying who or how many) to pick up their stuff and go elsewhere.
I like WordPress, I like the community, and I’ve made friends in it. Even though I’m not married to it, I committed a fair amount of time and effort in the relationship.
The thing is that, much like a divorce, there can’t help but be feelings of betrayal, of broken trust, of promises not kept.
Right now, and I’m speaking strictly for myself, this is turning more like a bad marriage (not that I know what that means; I’m happily married) and I never saw the logic in waiting for things to get incrementally worse.
What bothers me the most is they don’t seem to care.
. . . maybe they are the strong (and apparently brilliant) silent types.
. . . or maybe they are (apparently brilliant) uncaring jerks.
From where I am standing, it’s difficult to tell the two option apart.
. . . I remember when I first read about the founders, and their vision for the company and their customers; they did not come across as the strong (but apparently brilliant) silent types, so I’m left with few alternatives.
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My guess is that the changes in 4.0 were made in consideration of the needs of the broader demographic, and in response to the changing ways that people interact with WordPress.
I pretty much believe the broader demographic of wordpress bloggers sit in front of a PC and they are grown to like the usability of a PC and it´s software. My guess is that the changes were made for a small amount of hipster, as some others here said. I can´t see any usability factors.
It also might be that the changes were made because it´s a recent trend to make changes even if there is no reason given. I see this everywhere at the moment. And I also see that the core people of communities are often not very impressed if developers do make big changes out of boredom. I can understand the people pretty much.
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@ 5mutek,
My guess is that the changes in 4.0 were made in consideration of the needs of the broader demographic, and in response to the changing ways that people interact with WordPress.
Problem is WP does not explain to us why modifications are made. The don’t tell us who, which classes of users, might be helped by the mod, and which types of user might experience detrimental effect due to the mod.
What they tell us:
1. The new mod is an “improvement,” one which we are very excited about.
2. (As hundreds of complaints pour in) We understand that the mod might take some getting used to, but we’re confident that if you’ll love it. It’s really wonderful. Give it a chance, you’ll see.What they don’t tell us:
1. What is the purpose of the mod?
2. Why is it an improvement?
3. Which types of user is it specifically aimed at? Which users might benefit from the mod? And how will it improve their experience?
4. Which types of user might find the mod disadvantageous, detrimental to their blogging experience? And how will it adversely affect their experience?How they try to cajole, coerce you into acceptance and compliance:
They always try to placate our complaints about numerous problems caused by a new mod with the blanket appeal that it’s “an improvement.” Don’t worry, be happy. We’re looking out for you, and though you might be a tiny bit uncomfortable for a while with the changes we’re sure that you will soon jump on board and congratulate us on another great WP improvement. Change is good. Just let it happen.
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Grrr, what a completely stupid move. A huge, ever-expanding wall of text, essentially unscrollable, and with all the functionality anchored to the top (can you imagine a word processor that did this?! “Sorry, you can’t click save on this giant contract unless you scroll back to line 1 of page 1. Trust me, it’ll better let you focus on your content when you’re actually editing it. Wait, why are you leaving? Give us money!”)
Have it as an option, sure. But an option we can TURN OFF if we’re not writing pithy notes on a smartphone or tablet.
Can you imagine how much fun it is to edit something like this:
…where all the changes are at the bottom of the screen, and all the button functionality is at the top, and you have to scroll back and forth between them (manually, of course, because pressing Home and End doesn’t do what it used to do any more)…?
Honestly, each time something stupid like this happens I just think it’s further evidence of WordPress acting like a university comp science lab trying things out with its user base of 25 other dev nerds, instead of realising they’re unilaterally breaking the usability for a huge number of users (what was the estimate given above? Like 15% of all blogs on the Web, or something?)…
I look forward to the day when the dashboard disappears altogether in favour of the “streamlined” My Little Pony interface, taking with it all of that tedious and messy stuff about adding tags, previewing content, editing old posts etc. At which point anyone who’s actually contributing anything, via upgrades, subscriptions or WordAds, will move elsewhere.
In the meantime, please fix this. Please just fix it.
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@ disperser,
WP touts ungodly number of blogs being added each and every month.
I come across an ungodly number of one page blogs every year where the latest of their one or two total posts was published in 2009.
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A lot of strong comments here and I agree with nearly all of them. The WP staff seem to have gone to ground so I guess that means we’re stuck with this mess.
Have a look at one of my blogs here: http://collectireland.com/ and I have to do a massive amount of editing every day or what I’m doing gets out of control but this latest nonsense is making my life a misery. I find now that when I post a picture the image seems to have set itself to Medium at default where it used to set itself at the last setting one used…I’m well peed off especially at the reaction of WP staff….
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Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and ya do it well— R. Zimmerman, 1974
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I find now that when I post a picture the image seems to have set itself to Medium at default where it used to set itself at the last setting one used
Hadn’t noticed that modification, but it doesn’t surprise me. Many such changes in the past several years. Wouldn’t it be nice if they provided a list of changes you could expect to encounter when these modifications are implemented? Nah…that would spoil the surprise.
Last September, there was mod which had the effect of causing the uploaded image size signifiers in HTML (size-thumbnail, size-medium, size-large), which are called “CSS classes” according to the staff member who finally helped my resolve the matter, to override the manual settings one might apply after uploading. This mod affected thousands of images on my large principal site, and thousands more on other WP blogs of mine. I estimated that there were perhaps as many as 6,000 images on the main blog alone which needed to have the CSS classes removed, one by one. Might have taken me a year. And there more than 20 other blogs of mine affected.
WP staff was telling me that mine was an unusual case. Hard to believe that the practice of setting your images manually as I did by dragging the corners of the images — a feature which has just been reintroduced after having been removed earlier this year — wasn’t a commonly used method of resizing embedded images. Miraculously though, the staff member who responded to my support request eventually came up with a tool which would rapidly remove all of the size identifiers from the HTML of posts and pages in affected blogs.
That was a big relief but I still had to remove the CSS class (size-medium, size-small,etc.) manually from every new uploaded image in order to be able to resize images manually and have the resized width and height settings be effective.
A few months later I noticed that I no longer had to remove the CSS classes. WP had finally eliminated the ridiculous mod which did nothing but cause more work, and all was back to normal.
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