Stop forcing admins to use the simple interface
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For people like me, add back the things like Edit Page as a link in the top black admin bar that will take the user to the dashboard version of page editing. If you don’t want it there for everyone have a user parameter that would allow an administrator be able to stay in the dashboard view, and not be forced to use your simplified interface.
As it now stands, I would not recommend you for people wanting to build a site. Why two interfaces where an administrator has to switch back and forth between the two?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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The long term plan is to eliminate the classic interface and classic editor and that’s why I no longer blog here.
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I certainly would not do any new website here. To hard. Too much being controlled by the people who think they know best.
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I don’t want to appear ungrateful. I love WordPress, and I have several WordPress.com blogs as well as a self hosted WordPress blog. I used to use Blogger and I appreciate how much better WordPress is.
But I too really dislike intensely the supposedly “improved editor”. I don’t like the look of it. I don’t think it is easy to use. It doesn’t suit the way I work. And I dislike being pushed to use it.
When it was first introduced, I learnt the ways to get into the old editor, and although it was mildly inconvenient, I got used to it. Now I find the link at the top of the page is gone and I have to use another work-around to get into it.
Please WordPress, reconsider. At least give us an option to choose which we prefer, is that too hard?
If there is supposed to be some significant advantage in this “improved editor”, can you please explain what it is? I can’t see it, but perhaps I can learn to like it. Perhaps.
I won’t be making any threats to depart WordPress.com any time soon, although I will be tempted, at least for one site where I pay for extra design features and could put that money towards a self hosted site instead.
But could you please reconsider? Thanks
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Hi @unklee and @muddyhubcap,
Our team is currently focused on building and improving the newer dashboard you see at https://wordpress.com/ (including the new editor). There are currently no plans to remove WP Admin and the editor there so you can continue to use that dashboard. If you would rather use WP Admin, you can add a link to your bookmark bar. Two interfaces exist; use whichever you prefer :)
If you wouldn’t mind sharing your thoughts, I’d like to understand why you dislike the new editing experience. Is there a particular area you find hard to use? Is there a feature you feel worked well in WP Admin, but less so in the newer dashboard?
add back the things like Edit Page as a link in the top black admin bar that will take the user to the dashboard version of page editing.
Thanks, I’ll make a note of this point.
I’ll make sure I feed your feedback onto our designers.
Let me know your thoughts!
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Hi Gemma,
Thanks for your reply. I think there are four reasons I don’t like the new editor.
1. I don’t like being “forced” into it, and the way I end up there unless I take very particular efforts to use the old editor.
2. I don’t like the look of it. This is obviously a personal taste thing, but it looks like it is set up to try to be pretty rather than be easy to use. I like functional design. I don’t know if it still has the old “beep beep boop” bubbles, but I thought that was embarrassingly trivial.
3. It is much harder to use – this is really my serious reason. The old screen has everything I need all there. Sure, the buttons and boxes can look a bit messy, but it is functional. But on the new screen, I don’t know where everything is, and when I try out the menu on the left it doesn’t seem to include most of what I need. I suppose all the useful things are there somewhere, but I don’t know where they are and I don’t really want to go searching for them and digging into lower levels of menus to find them
4. I think it is useful to have the whole sidebar there, which allows direct links to media, menus, widgets, etc, and that is all gone with the new editor.
In the end, it makes my work slower for the sake of a less cluttered screen. I like minimal design for a blog, but for a working screen that is totally the wrong philosophy for me.
But I don’t want to criticise it too much, other people may well like it. I’d just like to see the two editors to both be easily available. The best way would be a simple toggle setting, probably under Settings, which allows us to choose between the two, so I don’t have to go back when I forget there’s only one way to get to the editor I like.
Thanks. WordPress really is a fabulous product, and being able to have a free blog is amazing. I am very appreciative, but just hope this issue may be able to be fixed.
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Without getting into the nitty gritty, there are two things I do not like.
First, the new interface does not provide access to things that an administrator needs like changing themes, looking at users, setting up categories, Menus, etc. So if I, as the administrator am going to need to be in that interface, where I know where to find things, let me be there to edit pages and posts. This is particularly true for people who use both wordpress.com for some sites and self-hosted wordpress.org sites. The new interface does not have Categories but has renamed them as Attributes. Bad choice. Attributes would be like “does it have a picture”, “does it use the header”. The add media no longer has the drag and drop feature. When trying to look at all the pages, the wp-admin display has lots more information available than the new one. I have to click to see some of that information. I did not see where to work on widgets.
I do not like being forced to use something that I do not like. I think this is your best opportunity to get what you want. Just make an option for a user they select if they want to use the wp-admin interface or the Posts interface. Then do not force going to the posts interface just because you think it is better. The Posts interface might be good for some sites that are set up once and then someone who is not the administrator is just adding posts. If you put all your energies into thinking that the user of the Posts interface is not an administrator, it will be better and you will not be frustrating administrators who don’t like it.
If not, you will lose all of the developers and administrator’s who develop on .org ad well as .com.
Thanks for asking for the feedback.
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Hi @unklee,
Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts down for me. They were all useful but I wanted to ask you more about one point in particular.
I think it is useful to have the whole sidebar there, which allows direct links to media, menus, widgets, etc, and that is all gone with the new editor.
When you say this, do you mean you prefer the pop-outs on certain sections in WP Admin? For example, when you hover over ‘Settings’, you see a list of all the Setting sections like General, Writing etc.
WordPress really is a fabulous product, and being able to have a free blog is amazing. I am very appreciative, but just hope this issue may be able to be fixed.
I’m pleased you think so :) And I hope you will stick with us. As I mentioned before, you can continue to use the WP Admin dashboard and I’m going to submit your thoughts as feedback as the team.
Thank you!
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Hi @muddyhubcap,
Thanks for your feedback. I just want to highlight a couple points in your reply.
The new interface does not have Categories but has renamed them as Attributes.
A feature we’ve launched fairly recently is the ability to manage categories and tags from the new dashboard in the Writing settings:
https://wordpress.com/settings/writing/
Previously, managing categories and tags was done in the post itself of via the WP Admin dashboard. But now you can do it from the new dashboard.
The add media no longer has the drag and drop feature.
Drag and drop upload is a feature of both WP Admin and new dashboards. On the new dashboard, there isn’t a message instructing you to do so, but you can drag a file onto the grid.
Thanks for your comments. As I said to @unklee, I will pass them on to the team so they can read your thoughts too.
Many thanks!
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I spent a little more time in the new interface. A little better than I thought but still lacking features and you have made it difficult to figure out where things are. I would have never found the Categories Settings. So I would still request that some provision be made to allow Admins to be able to select which interface they want to use.
I did not look all it over, but the specific missing items that will have me wanting to stay with wp-admin include:
Why is the Pages listing not sorted in the hierarchy rather than the time since updated, and with no way to sort it differently. Otherwise how do I get the overall view of how the pages are arranged? Must have.
What happened to Quick Edit, to change some of the characteristics of a page or a post.
When looking at the Posts, I like the quick infinite scroll, but What if I just want a listing of titles and other key columns like appear in wp-admin. I need a more compact view.
Thanks a bunch for listening.
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Hi again,
I just wanted to add that there is a link to WP Admin at the bottom of My Sites, on the newer dashboard.
I’m not sure whether you have already spotted it, but thought I’d mention it in case you hadn’t :)
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Yes, I had found it. Thanks. I tried to use the new interface for a new blog post, and got too frustrated and gave up and went back to the wp-admin interface
Hubbs
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I just came upon another frustration.
I went to gadoliniumtoxicity.com for which I am the admin. Looking at a page and wondering about which widgets I was using. But up in the black bar, there is no place to go to the dashboard for the site. There is a link to My Sites, which I presume is a link to all of my sites so I am not inclined to click. In desperation I click My Sites, and it goes directly to your new interface for the site management. Great, I thought, them I can’t find where the widgets are. One of the things I use a lot.
So I guess I am back to wp-admin.
What is really frustrating is that it seems like the people designing this new interface have not ever managed a site and do not know what gets used a lot. And that there must not be any usability testing.
Hubbs
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Hi Hubbs,
Great, I thought, them I can’t find where the widgets are. One of the things I use a lot.
In the new dashboard, the widgets are located in your Customizer:
https://wordpress.com/customize
All on the non-content customization options are located there including: header images, colours and backgrounds, menus and fonts.
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I really appreciate you responding to me.
Providing feedback, In this case, I now see that I have lost
· The ability to open multiple widgets at the Same time so I can copy various settings
· Drag and drop a widget from one widget area to another
· Be able to open multiple widget areas at the same time to compare the actual widgets in them – especially across different page types.
I get the idea that now when I look at a particular page or post, I will only see the applicable widget areas and the widgets that are not visible on the page are grayed out. Nice touch, but does not work for me.
Seems to come back to how administrators work compared to how bloggers work.
Hubbs
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Seems to come back to how administrators work compared to how bloggers work.
One percent correct…it’s sad.
*ManFromMars*
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When you say this, do you mean you prefer the pop-outs on certain sections in WP Admin? For example, when you hover over ‘Settings’, you see a list of all the Setting sections like General, Writing etc.
Hi Gemma, sorry to take so long to reply but I was away from home with limited internet access for a while.
And sorry again, but I don’t understand this question. In my summary of things I didn’t like with the new editor, my #3 referred to how I cannot find some of the normal features I would use when writing a blog post, e.g. italics and quote buttons, while other features are there somewhere if I click several times on the few sidebar items.
My #4, which you have quoted, referred to the fact that in the old editor, the full black Site Admin dashboard was available to me to quickly jump to widgets, media, etc, but this isn’t there in the new editor. I don’t see “Settings” at all when I am editing a post, though it is there when I am in the “Blog Posts” screen. Now it may be that there is a setting to put that dashboard back, but I haven’t found it.
So to summarise again, the new editor is very messy looking, things don’t seem to be in any logical pattern, lots of things aren’t there (or don’t appear to be there) and some other things are hidden and require several clicks to get to them. It may be good visual design (though not to my taste) but it seems to me to be very poor functional design, which is surely more important.
I hope this hasn’t been your work and I am criticising it, for I don’t want to disparage anybody. But that is how I see things. I hope than answers your question.
Thanks again.
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Hi @unklee,
I don’t see “Settings” at all when I am editing a post, though it is there when I am in the “Blog Posts” screen.
Yes that’s correct. When you are editing a post, the My Sites options on the left are replaced with options directly related to editing a post, which includes: categories, tags and featured images. Although you can get back to them any time by clicking My Sites.
Thanks again for your thoughts, I will relay them to the team.
Have a great day!
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