The new editor
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I just created a personal blog (a diary) as a companion to another blog of mine, and discovered that Automattic has created a new post editor. I guess it hasn’t been rolled out for everybody, yet, because I don’t see it in use on my older blogs, but I find that I’m not allowed to opt out of its use on the new blog. So, as a user, I’m going to ask you guys a question and see if you’re mature enough to give a sensible answer, without enabling any cut and paste trolls along the way.
You know exactly who I mean when I say that. The woman has an entry of her own in the Urban Dictionary and no, I didn’t write it.
The question is why you have so much difficulty understanding the idea of not fixing things that aren’t broken. This new editor is a nightmare to use, because like a lot of things that have been worked on by the developers too much, about all it does is get in my way. I haven’t even finished the first post on my new blog, yet, and I’m already on the verge of walking off and abandoning the thing.
The old editor might not have looked as fancy, but it let one do everything that the new editor lets one do, and with a lot less effort. If I wanted to stick some code into a post using the old editor, cut and paste worked just fine, but now when I do that, where did the code go? It just sort of evaporates.
Is there a way of getting past that pointlessly introduced quirk of your system? Perhaps, but please try to process this – while you guys might live for the pleasure of programming this site, I do not live for the pleasure of working out the puzzles you’re leaving for us. I don’t have time to find a workaround for dealing with some strange thing you did to the system. As a user, like most users, what I want (and expect) from the system is ease of use. I have no use for pointlessly elaborate bells and whistles whose only real purpose seems to be giving the developers a chance to show off. What I want is to be able to come in, do my writing with a minimum of hassle, maybe respond to a few comments, and leave. What I do not want to do is stay in my apartment, all day, trying to work my way past some developer’s passive aggression.
Given that I’m not being paid to post, and the developers are being paid to develop the system, I’m going to firmly maintain that my comfort as a user should matter more than some developer’s desire to show off, that my expectation that the system should be used with user-friendliness in mind is a reasonable one. I am going to question the sanity of anybody who would argue to the contrary. I’m not sure I’d even bother to acknowledge that person’s existence, because this should be seen as being beyond debate. If the staff isn’t here to serve the users, then what use is it?
Seriously, guys, this new editor is deal-breakingly bad, so bad that if every host used something like it, I’d give up on blogging, and I’d be far from being alone in this. Get it together. This was THE WORST interface I’ve ever seen. Almost nobody is going to put up with this.
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Short form for the “tl;dr” crowd:
Are the developers actually trying to drive us up a wall? If so, is that a good thing?
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Hi @ booksandcaffeine,
Are the developers actually trying to drive us up a wall? If so, is that a good thing?
Nope.
The block editor is allowing many new features we haven’t been able to include before. So it’s not matter of something not being broke, but of old technology holding new features back.
You’re welcome to switch to classic as you’d like. Use the three dots in the upper right, pick classic, and you’re all set.
Cheers. :)
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“Use the three dots in the upper right, pick classic, and you’re all set.”
Not exactly obvious, but problem solved. Thank you.
“The block editor is allowing many new features we haven’t been able to include before.”
Interesting. Such as?
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Six days later, I guess I’m not going to get an answer to my last question, but that’s OK. The problem I was having, myself, has been resolved and that’s probably all that one can expect in a help forum.
If I really, really wanted to know about those new features, I suppose that I could ask a new question, but my needs are simple. Maybe the new system lets users embed videos from a wider variety of sites?
I don’t know.
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Six days later, I guess I’m not going to get an answer to my last question, but that’s OK. The problem I was having, myself, has been resolved and that’s probably all that one can expect in a help forum.
If I really, really wanted to know about those new features, I suppose that I could ask a new question, but my needs are simple. Maybe the new system lets users embed videos from a wider variety of sites?
I don’t know.
Hi!
I can definitely understand any confusion or frustration that may come with adapting to a new editor. As supernovia mentioned, this is precisely why the Classic Editor is still available to use. With that being said, I thoroughly believe that you might find that the Block Editor streamlines how content is created.
To answer your question about the new features, the Block Editor helps to negate the need to worry about text organization, images or alignment, because each element on a page or post has a discrete block of its own.
What this means in terms of real world application as well is that with the Block Editor, each block displays content just as you would see on the published site saving you the time that might be spent repeatedly previewing the work you’ve done. Additionally, with the Block Editor, various short codes, custom HTML, or embed codes are no longer require in order to add multiple media and visual elements.
In this way, the modular nature of the Block Editor will allow the developers to add features which will intuitively be accessible the way current blocks are. I’d highly recommend reviewing this article to get an idea of all the blocks available!
Finally, WordPress staff does review this forum, and although you may not receive a reply, please take comfort that your voice is absolutely being heard and is assuredly important to the developers.
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Yes, now without the ad copy, please. :)
What, specifically, can I do with the new editor that I couldn’t do with the old one?
“the Block Editor helps to negate the need to worry about text organization, images or alignment”
And what if I want to have control over those things? What you seem to be telling me is that the new editor empowers me, as a user, by taking choices away from me.
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Here’s another way of looking at it: let’s say some kid has just gotten his first bicycle, ever. Let’s say somebody, watching him ride, sees how much those training wheels on his bicycle are helping him out, and on that basis concludes that they should be on every bicycle, whether the people riding the bicycles want them or not.
That wouldn’t be very cool, would it? If the new editor were to become the only editor, in effect we’d all be forced to use training wheels, so to speak. That would not be an empowerment of the user, that would be an infantilization of him.
I’m hoping that won’t ever happen.
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Hey there @booksandcaffeine, I’m sorry I didn’t see this response earlier — normally it would show up in our to-dos automatically, and this one didn’t until today.
We’re just getting started with some of the new possibilities here, now that we’re not having to work around old limitations. Noting that in addition to new embed features, some themes support extra block settings as well, such as full-width images (not confined to the regular content area) and block background colors and what not.
We’ll be adding more blocks, and we’re also working on features that will make it easier to see the possibilities and easily implement them on your own site. And, the most popular options from the old editor should work now as well, so if you’re missing something let us know.
I’m pretty confident that most users will enjoy blocks in time. And the classic editor will be available as well.
@tonewheelz, thank you for your thoughtful reply here. -
Thanks for replying, Supernovia.
On the list of features, if it’s not already there, I hope you’ll be including the ability to embed code from a wide variety of video hosting services. At the time, there seems to be a growing exodus from Youtube to other providers, for a variety of reasons we needn’t get into here.
The days of almost all of the videos being hosted on Youtube are definitely over.
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We already support embedding from a variety of video hosting services, and on our Premium plan and up you can also host video directly in your site’s own media library.
The block editor should include blocks for each of the services listed there. Simply paste in the embed link for the video on a new line, and the correct embed block for that service should be selected automatically.
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