WordPress.com New Editor

Summary

WordPress.com is quietly rolling out a new editor in an effort to provide a simpler, more focused, and cleaner interface for content creation. The standard dashboard left column menu disappears so the writer can focus on only the necessary controls.

Feedback from WordPress

We received the following response from a Happiness Engineer at WordPress regarding this post.

25 August 2014 @ 12:30 PM

Thank you for the specific list of issues, and thank you for your patience and understanding as we transition to the new editor! A small number of our users have been frustrated with the transition, but we do expect that once we’ve worked out the kinks, the new editor will be a much better experience for everyone.

Anyway, I will pass your notes along to our team that is in charge of the new editor. In the meantime, if you haven’t already seen it, you can always check out our public support forum for the latest news (and gossip) on the transition. This announcement thread may be of interest to you, in particular.

I hope that helps, and let me know if you have any questions with anything else!

It’s nice to get personal feedback like this, and we look forward to the polished version of the editor being available soon.

Issues Being Addressed

The interface has a nice appearance, but there are a few problems with the new editor:

  1. The Heading Styles level 1 and 2 are the same size, and they aren’t much bigger than the standard paragraph text. So, they are hard to distinguish from bolded text. Heading 3 is actually smaller than the default font. Headings 4-6 appear to be all the same size, and they are the same size and weight as the default font. Samples are shown below. (Resolved on 22 August 2014)
  2. The Tags and Categories drop down no longer has the tag cloud. Some people will miss this feature.
  3. The Featured Image drop down only lets you upload a picture. You can’t choose from your media collection. (Resolved on 22 August 2014)
  4. For a Post marked as Featured, it may take several minutes for it to show up on the home page as a featured post. For some reason, when using the old editor, featured posts show up immediately on the home page.
  5. Sometimes there can be undesirable post duplication if you open an additional editing window to create a new post, the post you’re currently editing will show up. Here’s how to duplicate this issue. Create a post and start editing. Then create a new post. The post you’re editing in the other window will show up again in the new window.
  6. There is a problem with the ‘Text’ view Link feature. If you’re in the Text view editor, and you highlight text, then you click the ‘link’ button, a box will come up for you to enter the link in, but there won’t be any other options that would normally appear when creating a link.
  7. There is a problem with the Visual view Link feature. When you highlight text, and choose link, the classic editor provides easy access to site pages. However, the new editor only allows for a URL address to be entered.
  8. Sometimes tags and categories are selected but not active. In other words, even though tags and categories are selected, they won’t show up in the post header/title description as selected.
  9. When you first use the new editor, there’s an option to switch tot he classic version. However, once you start editing, and update a post, then the option to revert to the classic version goes away.
  10. The Uncategorized tag will/may still be selected even after you select another tag. It’s necessary to fix this in the classic mode. When selecting tags in the new editor, it initially appears that the check boxes are functioning like radio buttons with the ability to only select one option of many. If you keep clicking, then several categories become selectable.
  11. There is a problem with the tags listing while editing. This is shown below.
  12. When entering categories, the parent and sub-categories are all listed together alphabetically. So, the benefit of having categories organized in an outline or by groups isn’t available.
  13. One of the really nice features found in the Classic Mode editor is the ability to copy a previous post as a template for the current / new post. This is missing from the new editor.

Workaround

If you’ve run into any of the above problems, usually just switching to the classic mode will help until the problems get resolved. Let’s say you’ve created a new post, and marked it as a featured post to show up on the home page among featured items. It’s likely that it won’t show up. This is a bug in the system. So, just go to Dashboard and Posts to find the post. Choose Quick Edit, and then Update. Simply updating it will fix the problem of featured items not showing up properly on the home page.

Tag Listing Visual Problem

This problem has been reproduced several times. The tag listing for tags added will show a blank entry as seen below. See between Video Conferencing and Featured.

20140827we-wordpress-new-editor

Featured Image Problem

When you use the Featured Image button, and then click and drag a new image into your media collection, there will be an additional blank image box to the left of the new image. Below is an example.

20140823sa-wordpress-new-editor-featured-image

Heading Samples

The following Header Samples look fine in the old editor, and they look fine once published, but they don’t display properly in the new WordPress.com editor.

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6

Click the sample editing window screen shot below for a larger view.

20140817su-wordpress-dot-com-new-post-editor-interface

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