Posted 1 year ago #
What are the chances of adding some kind of 'blocks' feature in future releases.
As WordPress becomes used more and more as CMS having this function without having to rely on unsupported plugins.
Meta-fields just don't cut the mustard when giving clients the ability to add content to a page/post that needs to be displayed in various places such as sidebars.
Posted 1 year ago #
@zactoff - If these features were added, how exactly would you envision they would work?
Posted 1 year ago #
Not entirely sure... perhaps the ability to add additional tabs when you're editing a page that you could name and then call in the template, maybe using the_content(tabName); or something?
This has become an issue for me because where I've been using some plugins that sort of create this functionality (templ33t, page.ly multiedit etc.), apart from being usupported, they all seem to use meta-fields to store the data and these do not get included in the page revisions, there is also a big problem with them mangling content when flicking between visual/html view.
I use WordPress more and more to create CMS' for clients this is highly desirable from their point of view - not having to think about hacking templates, however I'm not a hardcore programmer so may not realise the full implications of this request.
What I do know is that Drupal seems to support this functionality, but I really, really don't want to have to learn Drupal having invested so much time learning (what little) I know of WordPress.
Posted 1 year ago #
When you say "tabs", do you really want tabs, or would you really rather have "fields?"
For example, wouldn't you rather have this?
<?php the_field( 'full_name' ); ?>
<?php the_field( 'company' ); ?>
<?php the_field( 'address' ); ?>
<?php the_field( 'phone' ); ?>
<?php the_field( 'email' ); ?>Drupal? Don't go there.
Posted 1 year ago #
Haha, I *really* don't want to, but I know a lot of ex-WordPress developers who find Drupal a lot easier to use, not having to use 'the loop' being one reason among many.
Anyway, from a clients point of view, seeing this in the page editor is far less scary than maintaining a bunch of fields, especially if those fields aren't wysiwyg.
This is one of those problems that keeps coming up, which is why I have de-lurked and raised it here.
Posted 1 year ago #
Did you read my 17 point rant on Drupal?
What's wrong with the loop? It's super easy to simulate what Drupal does in WordPress, many of the theme frameworks for WordPress already do that but you can do it to in an afternoon.
Your clients find that less scary? Really? I hear the opposite; my clients want fields they can enter as defined. But it probably depends on page type. If you have data about 100+ similar things (like "products", "divisions", "locations", etc.) you don't want free-form for that! Maybe it's because it's what you've presented them in the past so it's what they know?
Anyway, my team has been working on something for ~1 year we plan to release to public beta in 3-6 months (fingers crossed) that will allow a professional site builder to easily create data entry screens like the following using register_form() and register_field() calls:
It's almost 100% programmer configurable meaning you can easily add your own "field types"; a multi-tabbed rich text box would not be too hard to build and then you could potentially access the content in your theme like this ('my_content' is a field name you would define and the subscripts would be the tabs you'd define):
<?php the_field( 'my_content[top_left]' ); ?>
<?php the_field( 'my_content[top_right]' ); ?>
<?php the_field( 'my_content[left_hand]' ); ?>We'll be calling it "Sunrise", we'll be releasing it as GPL open source and free to download/use, it will be fully modular and we'll be recruiting a community of developers and then assigning project leads to manage each of the modules, and we'll be building a consulting and a SaaS business around it to ensure it continues to be supported.
If you are interested in getting on the beta, send me an email.
Posted 1 year ago #
I scanned your rant :c) but you can't deny that WordPress started life as a blogging platform and has gradually become more a CMS like (for want of a better term).
The loop seems a more long winded way of accessing content compared to what I've seen of Drupal.
Your project looks interesting, but it's too complicated for what I need, my clients often want to create a page where they can enter content that gets presented in various areas of the page/sidebar/footer etc., but they need to see it all together while editing rather than having a load of custom content types that they have to navigate between, or a load of dynamically assigned text widgets.
I was rather hoping that something like the multi-edit plugins could be developed properly and added to the core. You may not like them but they're very popular and obviously fill a need.
Posted 1 year ago #
Does it really matter where WordPress started? I'm more concerned about it's fit for purpose today.
The strength of the loop is it's flexibility. You can use Drupal to get 85% done in almost no time and then spend an outrageous amount of time trying to get the last 15% done because it doesn't give you the control that WordPress does, and the loop is in large part why you get that control. I know, I used Drupal exclusively for 2 years until I switched to exclusive use of WordPress. That's one of the key points of my rant; the loop "feels" like it is less efficient but in practice ends up being a lot more developer time efficient, especially when clients want things to be "just so."
AND if you want to use WordPress without the loop, look at some of the theme frameworks like Hybrid, Thesis, Genesis, et. al.
If you think my project is too complicated it's ironic you mention Drupal. Our approach is much less complicated than Drupal, and it provides more flexibility too, except no admin user interface for create post types and fields like Drupal has for nodes and CCK.
And don't get me started on how much harder it is to deploy a Drupal project vs. a WordPress project. Try deploying a Drupal site with live data already online once, before you stare wistfully in Drupal's direction.
my clients often want to create a page where they can enter content that gets presented in various areas of the page/sidebar/footer etc., but they need to see it all together while editing rather than having a load of custom content types that they have to navigate between
Ironically, that's exactly what we designed Sunrise to enable, albeit not exactly as you currently envision. The idea behind Sunrise is to give pro site builders the ability to give their users a much more straightforward interface for editing what the user sees as a web page. The screenshot I linked above is literally the tiny tip of the iceberg. To show you more I'd really have to do a screencast and I don't have time for that right now.
Even more ironically, Drupal is much worse in forcing users to jump around the admin UI to affect a single functional changes!
And it's not that I "didn't like" what you are calling a "multi-edit" style of plugin, just that I recognize because of the level of complexity of the systems we've built with Sunrise that "multi-edit" pages are only useful in simplistic use-cases, i.e. a 10 page site where the owner wants a mostly blank canvas to write their own HTML. And I also said they would be pretty easy to implement in Sunrise, so how is that "not liking them?"
That said, my guess is that you'll be unlikely to see your requested functionality added to core, at least in the form you propose. I can't speak for certain, but it seems that planets typically must first align before the core team will consider adding any new features into core, especially features that affect the main post edit windows UI as much. Most of the core team would have to agree on a given core UI feature and from what I've seen over the past 3 years, chances of the core team all agreeing on adding "multi-edit" is closer to zero% than it is to 0.000001%.
A key reason we chose to build Sunrise is because the core team typically won't add features that professional site builders need if end-user bloggers don't also need them. So we decided to create a broad and stable extension to WordPress to meet the needs of professional site builder that can't currently be achieved by 17,000+ individual plugins, each doing it's own thing. We wanted to address the needs of ~80% of professional site builders vs. the needs of end-user bloggers which is what ~80% of WordPress users are and who the WordPress core team rightly focuses on.
I'm not really trying to sell you on Sunrise, I merely wanted to offer to you if you were interested. I belabored the point because I felt you dismissed it as "too complicated for your needs" without understanding it at all and I always get frustrated when people dismiss things before they understand them.
But if you are not interested, no worries; maybe I'm wrong and it will be added to core. Or maybe somebody will release a plugin that does exactly what you want and will fully support it so you can do client projects with it. Whatever the case, good luck in finding what you need.
-Mike
Posted 1 year ago #
Please don't get into a Drupal vs WordPress fight. Each CMS has its own passionate followers, and there's nothing wrong with using one or the other.
If you're HERE, it's because you want WordPress support. Let's keep it there, folks :)
Posted 1 year ago #
I just wanted to register my request here in the hope that whoever the wordpress team are might take notice as this is something I keep coming up against.
Wasn't looking for a fight :c)
Posted 1 year ago #
@zactoff - I didn't mean to make you feel like I was starting a fight. I guess my enthusiasm for what we are working on gets out of hand at times. Sorry, my bad.
Posted 1 year ago #
I didn't think anyone was, but passion leads to ... well, it gets out of hand.
What are the chances of adding some kind of 'blocks' feature in future releases.
As WordPress becomes used more and more as CMS having this function without having to rely on unsupported plugins.
Meta-fields just don't cut the mustard when giving clients the ability to add content to a page/post that needs to be displayed in various places such as sidebars.
That would really fall under Theme Implementation with WP, or Plugins. You can do that with meta-fields, and themes can tweak those fields with their own custom designed add-ons if needed.
Basically, WP can do it, it's just up to you to shove it in as you see fit.
Posted 1 year ago #
The problem with meta-fields is that they don't get included in the page revisions (one of my original points) thus rendering them useless where the client is updating content constantly with the need to revert if necessary.
I would argue that just because many people aren't asking for this, it's still desirable functionality in WordPress' constant evolution from blogging platform to website CMS.
Posted 5 months ago #
I agree some "block" elements that you can edit on each Page/Post would be lovely.
Perhaps until such time as this might be implemented, you might look at the "Content Parts" plugin, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/content-parts. It gives you a way to divide the content area into pieces, separated using something similar to the "more" tag. Each part thus separated can be used in a different block/area inside a template.
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