Twenty Seventeen: can't find 'Them options' button

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  thesacredpath · Member · May 30, 2017 at 3:14 am

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  @musicdoc1 wrote,

  However, it doesn’t address the issue that “Theme Options” itself appears or doesn’t appear depending upon what type of content is displayed in the Customize viewer.

  Actually it does. The Customizer is becoming more contextual. In other words, some things will appear in it and some will not depending on which page you have visible in the customizer. If you have your main page in Twenty Seventeen set to Static, Theme Options will appear in the customizer with Page Layout and Front Page Section 1 Content since both of those apply to the home page. If you go to another static page in the customizer Theme Options would be there, but all you would see would be the Page Layout section since the other section does not apply to static pages that are not set as a static front page.

  If you were to visit the blog page on a Twenty Seventeen site, the Theme Options would not appear at all since nothing in that section applies to the Blog (posts) page.

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  thesacredpath · Member · May 30, 2017 at 3:19 am

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  What I would have found less confusing as a new Twenty Seventeen user would have been:
  – Theme Options are always visible, always in the same place = below ‘Static Front Page’ in the Customizer.
  – On the pages where there are no Theme Options to choose from, I can still click on “Theme Options”, but then get to see a text ‘There are no theme options for the Blog page’
  [That I also think the Blog page should be available in the one column layout is another discussion ;-) ]

  @manuschwendener, all that you mention above are part of the discussions, and the decision has not yet been made whether to leave it as it is or change it to appear at all times, but have a bit of text there saying that nothing is available.

  On whether the blog posts on the blog page should have the option for one or two columns, it was a design decision to not have that option for the blog, category, tag or date archive pages.

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  manuschwendener · Member · May 30, 2017 at 6:25 am

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  > the decision has not yet been made

  Glad to hear Twenty Seventeen is still evolving :-)

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  musicdoc1 · Member · May 30, 2017 at 6:35 am

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  @thesacredpath,

  Thanks, again : -)
  I understand that essentially same process is at work in hiding a portion of the child options under a parent option such as “Theme Options,” or hiding the entire parent option, depending upon what is being displayed in the Customize viewer. Also, I understand what you mean by the Customizer becoming more contextual, and I can see how that might be a practical solution for an experienced blogger. However, I still think that, as presently applied, this contextuality of the Customizer may lead to as much confusion as it attempts to avoid.

  The first example I came across, some months ago, of this contextuality of the Customizer was a case where a member complained that “Widgets” did not appear in the Customizer. They had read documentation stating that “Widgets” could be added, removed, configured, etc. at Customize, but couldn’t find a trace of “Widgets” there. In test run after responding to the topic, I also found that “Widgets” didn’t display for me at Customize. Eventually, I figured out that it depended upon which page was displayed in the Customizer viewer, but I’d had much experience in creating and managing WordPress.com sites at that time. Many newcomers and “Sunday” bloggers aren’t going to be able to figure this out without some hints.

  Suggestions:
  1. A message could be displayed in the Customize menu in each case that an option, or multiple options, are hidden from the menu? A brief explanation as to why the option(s) are hidden might also be provided.

  2. As a simpler alternative to 1. above, there might a single message that displays in the customizer menu, regardless of which page is displayed in the viewer, that explains that only options that apply to the content viewed will be shown in the menu, and that all other options will be hidden when viewing the particular content type that is presently displayed in the viewer.

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  thesacredpath · Member · May 30, 2017 at 6:59 pm

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  The discussion is still ongoing at WordPress core development, as it is on that side of things. It is not really a theme thing, but a core Customizer thing. I’m not sure where it will all end up, but we really appreciate all the input. Although I’m sort of on the fence on this issue, I’m inclined to support keeping them visible but greying them out and including an explanation in the greyed out section.