Widgets on Classic Blog
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How do I restore classic widgets on my free WP Blog? I found a Classic Widgets plugin, but I can’t see that working.
I can’t access my widgets and I want to change something. I have no desire to switch to Blocks – it’s extremely clunky and not in the least bit dynamic.
Was it really necessary to force this upon us?
…and on the same subject, does the new “Sign Me Up!” widget button have to be so big?
I’ve been doing this 11 years and the way things are going I’ll stop blogging if Blocks are forced upon me. So far today I’ve had 131 views, so I am getting traffic.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hello there,
How do I restore classic widgets on my free WP Blog? I found a Classic Widgets plugin, but I can’t see that working.
In order to use the Classic widget plugin, the site would need to be on the business plan.
Please see this guide on how to access the classic editor here: https://wordpress.com/support/classic-editor-guide/
Many thanks in advance.
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Thanks aleone89,
As I thought – WP is deliberately hobbling people in order to force them into using Gutenberg.
It would have been polite to give people notice, so that they could edit their widgets before being locked out.
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WP is deliberately hobbling people in order to force them into using Gutenberg.
Thank you. That’s precisely what they’re doing. Too many people have resisted the change, so it’s being forced upon us. They have actually been devouring the WP-Admin interface bit by bit since about 2013, if I recall correctly. I believe that was the year that the WP-Admin Header and Background pages were demolished (actually hidden), forcing us to go to Customizer to manage those features. The full-page Header and Background features were, of course, far superior to the Customizer versions of them. The separate Theme Options page disappeared long ago, too.
This year the Widgets and Menus pages were torn away from the carcass of the once great WP-Admin body, leaving little remaining except it’s heart — the wonderful WP-Admin editor. And, oh, how they crave to hear the last beat of that mighty organ.
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Hello there, Legacy widgets are still available in the Widget section of the Customizer as blocks. To get to them, open the Customizer’s Widget section, click the PLUS sign for the Block Inserter, type Legacy in the search bar. You’ll see a list of the currently available Legacy widgets.
If you pick the Legacy widget at the top of the list, after you insert it you can then pick the widget you want to use from the drop down menu.
(temporary screenshots)Your current widgets should still be there for you to edit as well. However, you said,
I can’t access my widgets and I want to change something.
and later on you said,
…and on the same subject, does the new “Sign Me Up!” widget button have to be so big?
That sounds like you were able to access the widgets in the end or did you mean something else?
Just to add that if you are in the Customizer and you want to edit an existing widget, you can also click on the pencil icon in the circle next to the widget title in the Customizer’s Preview pane.
If you are looking for your “inactive widgets,” navigate to /wp-admin/widgets.php for your site and they should appear below the currently active widgets.
Lastly, the Classic Editor and WP Admin are still available to us. Just follow the guide that @aleone89 linked to.
I hope that helps but post back here if you have any other question on this.
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What really gets me, is that WP have made Gutenberg far too difficult for most ordinary users.
People used to be able to get a website designed in WP in order to access a simple back end to edit and change things when required. Now they have to rely on a third party to change a photo or small piece of text. I know this for a fact, because several people ask me to do it on a regular basis!
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far too difficult
Absolutely. It’s like being required to learn to fly an airliner now, while the perfectly efficient and economical car that you’ve been using for ten years is locked in the garage. -
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While I am able to access the Widgets to some degree, I wish to remove and replace some blog links that I have in a Widget called Interesting Blogs. That doesn’t seem to be possible, or can you suggest some way of doing that which doesn’t screw up and ruin my blog – i.e. turn it into a Gutenberg nightmare.
I remember that Apple refused to license the Mac OS to Microsoft, so since then, they have copied it badly. In the copyright case that ensued, a judge ruled that you can’t copyright an idea. As far as I can tell, WP have copied the ideas of Pagemaker, Quark and InDesign (not to mention the printing press) and implemented them badly, to the point that it makes WP extremely clunky and very difficult to use. It’s no wonder that blogging has fallen out of fashion – you’ve made it far too difficult for ordinary people!
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Oh, sorry @maddogtvdinners I didn’t see your question here. Are you using the old Links/Blogroll widget for that? If so, you should be able to change things in the Links dashboard on your site.
If you don’t see that dashboard, try this link:
https://maddogtvdinners.wordpress.com/wp-admin/link-manager.phpIf that’s not it, I don’t have any other suggestion.
Cheers!
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Thanks @justjennifer – that did the trick. I’d forgotten about the Links Manager Page and was looking for something in the new “features”.
I noticed a dead link recently and it needed removal.
I appreciate the help!
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