Very disappointing

“Rocking”?! No, it’s hideous!

And if you are using CPTs, why aren’t you using the standard WP way of listing units in the back-end?

Don’t tell me you think that’s boring too, because it’s a great deal more efficient than your design. The only way it can be reached at the moment is by selecting CoursePress -> Courses -> Specific Course -> Unit.

That’s several clicks and screens more. And if I can’t remember which Course the unit is in, I just have to keep searching. A simple, standard WP listing of posts avoids all that hassle.

You have certainly chosen a rum way of implementing CPTs.

Dave,

You’re welcome. I actually use one of your plugins.

Unfortunately, though, I am not really reassured by what you say about this plugin. I think the difference between us here is more than taste — though I do absolutely abhor the WPMUDEv corporate color scheme (which is what is used here).

I write tons of courses. The organization of this plugin makes it utterly inefficient to edit anything unless I can be completely sure where everything is. The interface doesn’t help me there. In fact, it utterly prevents me from knowing until I click on the right place.

And, in fact, the CPTs don’t work as they should. Try using another plugin to reorganize their order, for example, and you’ll see what I mean.

Timothy,

The tone and content of your response is appreciated. Let me address your points.

I am not some ideologue about custom post types. I want developers to use them because they are usually the best way to ensure that (a) the plugin is efficient and straightforward to use, and (b) content is never locked into a specific plugin.

Taking (b) first, what you say about the requirements of transferability to another plugin are true, but in my experience it’s actually pretty straightforward to transfer CPTs from one plugin to another. I have done so with portfolio and Q&A plugins, for example. That’s the beauty of keeping it modular.

Anyway, on that point, CoursePress is, it turns out, doing what I want, so I will upgrade my rating by a star.

On (a), however, the fact that you are using CPTs has not achieved the desired effect of making use of the plugin simple and efficient. This is because you have chosen to implement CPTs in a manner that is, I’m afraid, just silly.

I would love to know who your testers were, because they clearly have to take some responsibility here. I very much doubt that they write anything like as many course modules as I do, and your implementation of CPTs is as problematic for efficiency as if you had not done so at all.

Your way means taking several more steps, which I might well have to re-trace, when the standard WP way gets me there in one, and without mistakes. When you write as many course units as I do, this is just hopeless.

If you implemented CPTs properly, I would also be able to use another plugin to re-order my course units. This is an absolutely vital tool for me. But — currently, at least — you don’t. So I can’t (and neither can any other user). I have to take all those steps again just to get to the units I want to re-order.

And your Visual Composer-lite implementation of the writing field means that, even on my large, widescreen desktop monitor, when I get to the unit’s page, the content field for writing/editing each unit is not actually visible! That is just crazy. You have gunked up the screen with so much above it that I have to scroll down even to find the place in which to write or edit anything.

So while the color scheme is hideous, the impediments to usability are far worse. I don’t want to have to keep scrolling down a whole screen just to get to where I can write or edit something! (Apparently a colleague of yours thinks that this is “rocking,” but I think they meant “scrolling”).

I appreciate that you have made this available for free, and you have no obligation to me or anyone else. I actually would really like to use it, which is why I gave it a long review. But there’s just no way I can do so at the moment.

Finally, thanks for the offer to work with the CSS. But, unless you are going to change the way of accessing each unit (or provide the standard method as an alternative) and move the unit writing/editing area to the top of the window, where it belongs, I won’t be using the plugin anyway. So that would be wasting your time. Thanks again for the offer, though.

You’re right it isn’t about CPTs themselves. I just thought that, because the plugin doesn’t play nicely with standard plugins that re-order content, and because you have made the writing/editing area awkward to use — both characteristics typical of plugins that don’t use CPTs — that you weren’t using them either.

I had never seen anyone implement CPTs like this and, frankly, I really don’t understand why you’d want to complicate things like this. If you’re using the right bricks and mortar, why build that?

But no, I don’t want a search function. I just want the ability to see a full list of all units in one place, with information provided as to the author of each unit and the course to which each unit belongs.

That’s the beauty of the standard WP posts (or custom posts) list. All the info (with categories or taxonomies replacing courses) at my fingertips in one click. I can also choose for myself how many should be visible.

Not only that, but I can even re-order them all, in one click, by title, order, course, date etc. And, of course, I can set a custom menu order by using one of a whole host of other plugins available for the job.

You may have large institutions using your stuff, but did the WPMUDev devs actually ask them how their content-producers write, particularly the order in which they write? When you write a ton of stuff, it’s often not done sequentially. So the ability to see in one view what’s where is vital, and a search capability can’t do that.

Really, it’s the same with the individual unit page. I need to be able to see what is where immediately I navigate to the page. Currently, it’s all out of sight.

I know your colleague thought the standard WP approach is boring, but it really is highly functional.