widget content edits
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I just attempted to make a single-character edit to the contents of a text widget and discovered whoever wrote the block editor has run amok in the widget editing section.
The classic editor worked admirably; the classic widgets did too. Both have been altered beyond recognition and far beyond their prior functionality and ease of use.
Bluntly: both [classic] systems worked; their replacements do not and I see this as a ‘Broken As Designed’ issue.
This ‘block everything’ move is an abomination. WordPress’ classic toolset not only worked, it did so intuitively and transparently – and I truly miss both qualities.
I’ve said more than once here that if I couldn’t access the classic editor, I was gone. Must I amend that sentiment to include the actually-useful ‘classic widget’ system too? I’m tired of the ‘shibboleth du jour’ and ‘new improved [REDACTED]’, guys. :(
PS: I’ve discovered where WP interred the classic editor; what sub-basement has the classic widgets section been banished to and how do I access it?
Site: (email visible only to moderators and staff).
WP.com: Yes
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Hello there,
Sorry to see you feel this way about the improvements we’re rolling out – and granted, there is a learning curve involved here.
I’ll do my best to guide you, so can you tell me what in particular is the barrier with using the new blocks in the widget area? I can offer some insights to help clear that up.
PS: I’ve discovered where WP interred the classic editor; what sub-basement has the classic widgets section been banished to and how do I access it?
The classic widget plugin can be installed from here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-widgets/ – in order to use this plugin, the site would need to be on the business plan.
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So sanity is inaccessible unless I go ‘business class’? Enlightening but not useful, I’m afraid. :(
Improvements are in the eye of the beholder, aleone89 – and what I see with the ‘block’ stuff is a counter-intuitive, abstracted, genericized, and unduly complex way of doing what are ordinarily simple things.
I was well aware fifteen years ago that a full-blown CMS like WordPress is overkill for a technical microblog, but I liked the systems you guys had in place enough to recommend WP to others.
WP’s tools (at the time) were intuitive and beautiful and the people I knew were complete novices – and they could all use WP without a word of instruction.
(If you knew me better, you’d realize that’s high praise indeed. In my world, tools and technology are transparent or I consider them failures and re-do them from scratch.)
I am a minimalist and perhaps how I use WP is an edge case, but I am not – nor will I ever be – a ‘block’ head. These ‘improvements’ have done truly ugly things to my workflow and maintaining my productivity here has become a moving target since they were imposed.
I’ll let it go; this wasn’t intended to be a polemic. I realize none of these changes were your doing and I’ve almost always invariably found WP’s user-support staff to be competent and helpful.
I have the blog as I like it; the widgets are already where they need to be. *I just need to be able to vary the contents of a single text widget, nothing more.*
How do I do that The Party way?
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*I just need to be able to vary the contents of a single text widget, nothing more.*
Once you click into the “block” editor, your existing widgets will still show there – the only difference is you’ll see them exactly how they’re rendered on the front end of your site.
For the one you want to edit, click the widget and you should see it convert to the text editor where you can make your changes. Just make sure to save at the top of the Customizer to apply your changes.
I hope that helps!
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Hi @csonneck. The block editor is precisely what I’d hoped to sidestep and I finally managed the time to bumble my way through the widget fix without it.
The WP software helpfully offered to convert what I had (and wanted) to the block stuff (and didn’t) but at least it didn’t auto-covert things the way the block editor does with postings, so all is well. :)
@aleone89, I apologize for not getting back to you for this long, but mission finally accomplished.Thanks, guys.
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