lelion

As a first step, why not post the URL of said webpage here? 🙂

2.2 is much better, thanks! 🙂

I have just installed it and testing… 🙂

Change always brings complaints. Always.

On the whole, I like the new interface. I dislike specific things about it. The widgets screen is a huge step backwards, the fixed width style on the write page sucks, having to scroll for categories and such is stupid when there’s all this sidebar space available, etc.

But still, arguing here won’t help, is my point. Argue it where it will help.

You’ve convinced me. I hope till the end of this week I’ll be arguing for the things I and you do not like about the new interface, in the lists;-)

Cheers, and thanks for all! (going to bed now, it’s quite late now…)

–M.

OK, I’ll try to join a mailing list or two, if I have a chance to improve things by doing this:-)

I know that you’re not trying to shut down the discussion, but I am also sure that you know there are problems with the new interface in WP 2.5 and some of the design decisions – like moving stuff from the sidebar to the bottom of the Write page (this topic is mentioned not only in this mega-thread, but in countless others small threads around!); the accessibility issue a blind user mentioned (come on! Jeffrey Zeldman makes WP 2.5 more inaccessible than 2.3?); and others. Developers do not read this, OK, but maybe you (or someone else?) could at least hint the serious issues mentioned in this (these) discussions?

I believe also, people do seek support here — not all are coders or are going to discuss technical topics in the lists — but they can say “Hey, I have problems, I must scroll a lot more in 2.5 than in 2.3.3, what’s wrong, can someone help?”, so this is the reason now WP Support is ‘flooded’ with so much ‘I don’t like the new interface!’ stuff 🙂

Also, I do not believe that a new major WP version should create a wave of complaints! Actually, quite the opposite! 🙂

I was first using WP 2.0.5 and I was very happy with it. I then upgraded to 2.1.x. I was happy with it, too. Then, I upgraded to 2.2.x. The same. And finally, I was using WP 2.3.3, and was quite happy with the Write page and all of my WP options as a user.

Now, I upgraded to 2.5, and I see that some of the main tasks which I used to perform almost daily (write a post, or write a page; edit a comment or post; etc.) take much longer time, because there’s something wrong in the design of 2.5! So, I went to the Forums and saw that lots of other people are complaining about the same… So I am not alone, and this is not a coincidence, or just fancy… Write a new post/page in 2.3.3 was much better… or all of us are mistaken, for sure:)

So, enough of my ranting around; I hope I will be able to contribute to a better WP through my modest HTML/CSS skills, if I can. Going check the lists now:)

Finally, let me tell you, that I do appreciate all of the work done by people contributing to this great project! And I believe, if people didn’t want to see a better and more usable and greater-than-ever WP, they would not have bothered to come here and say what they have to say on the new Admin back-end! 😉

Cheers, Michel

gambit37: I agree, it’s rather frustrating. It would be nice to get at least some kind of notice that we are being listened to: these problems in 2.5 aren’t just going to disappear and the problems and changes are making life much more difficult for those of us using WordPress in any great depth.

I’m convinced that this upgrade was aimed at more casual bloggers as long term WP users seem to have had a lot of control taken away.

WP might be free, but we are still ‘customers’.

Well, WordPress *is* free. I can’t blame anyone at WordPress, because they do this for free, they develop WP for free.

But I agree with you: The 2.5 is aimed for first-time bloggers, thus the decision to move almost everything to the bottom of the page, below the text area…

On the other hand, what about people who use and know WP for more than a year or two? The way things were in the ‘Write Post’ and ‘Write Page’ sections were almost perfect — all important info, related to the post/page you edit, to the right; and to the left, title and text area; below — Save & Publish buttons. Items in the sidebar were expandable/collapsible, and drag-n-droppable, and settings were remembered in the browser. Now settings are remember for the user (no matter where he/she logs in – which is great!), but drag and drop is gone (for now), and everything is in the left column, below the textarea, and I catch myself scrolling up and down all the time:-(

OK, what about make two options:

1) WP 2.5 style: everything at the bottom of page (categories, tags, etc.) – for new users.

2) WP 2.3 style: as in WP, sidebar with the panels for categories, etc., and…

…this setting to be set in the new ‘Settings’ section of WP?…

Thus, maybe everyone could be happy…? 🙂

Let me explain in a few words, why I do not like WP 2.5 Admin GUI (I even wrote a special blog-post, dedicated to my WP 2.5 Admin interface dislikes;-).

It’s not about Zeldman (which I like), or Matt (which I like even more). It’s about usability and accessibility.

* * *

I am using WordPress since WP 2.0.5. I liked 2.0.5 a lot, also I liked 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.3.3. But I don’t like so much 2.5. There are things which were done in a much better way in 2.3.3!

In WP 2.3.3, most of the settings for a particular post, in the ‘WRITE’ page, were located in the sidebar. This included ‘Edit category’, ‘Allow/disallow comments/pings’, ‘Time/Date of publishing’, ‘Post slug’, etc., and this was very useful. I could type my post title & text in the left side of the page, and I could instantly change my post slug, date of publishing, category, etc., in the right side. I could re-arrange the panels, and leave open or closed the ones I liked/used most. I could then (after a ‘Preview’ in new tab of my browser) instantly save or publish my post, by using the buttons located right below the post title & text. I could also tab to these buttons, which is also nice for people who prefer not to use the mouse so much.

— WP 2.5: it’s no longer possible to re-arrange the panels in the ‘Write’ page. Also, they are moved to the bottom of the page, which creates a lot of un-needed scrolling up and down. When they were in the sidebar, it was much easier to write a post (left), select category (right), type the post slug, lock/unlock comments and hit ‘Publish’. All of this was possible without any scrolling at all. Now, same thing requires: Type title & text of post (top left), scroll down to check category, tags, lock/unlock comments/pings, then scroll up; wait a bit, so the ‘post slug’ appears after the first autosave, click, change post slug (at the top); change or check date of posting (more clicks, as the field is hidden by default! – right side); scroll down again (if needed, for the other settings), scroll up, hit PUBLISH – in the right (why there and not under text of post?).

This is not usable or user-friendly! This requires a lot more scrolling up and down. And the location of SAVE & PUBLISH buttons is very strange. When you type a comment in a blog, you fill name, URL, comment text, and hit ‘SUBMIT’. Where is the Submit button? Below the text! When you write an e-mail online, you fill e-mail address, email subject & body and then hit ‘SEND’. Where is Send button? Below text of email! When you fill an online form (signup, etc.), you fill all the fields and then hit ‘SUBMIT FORM’. And the button is again below the fields!

Now in WP you create title & text (top left); assign category, tags, lock/unlock comments/pings (bottom of page); edit post slug (top left); edit date/time (top right); finally, hit ‘Publish’ (top right, instead of below main title & text). And this is not useful or usable at all!

If a certain task is done using more clicks and more scrolling than before, then something is not done in the best possible way, but quite the opposite!

So I believe, parts of the new WP 2.5 GUI should be re-thought.

1. Almost everything in the bottom of the ‘Write’ page should go back to the sidebar. It was there before, and it reduced scrolling, so it should be good!
2. Drag-n-drop should be possible again, for the panels in the Write page.
3. Save & Publish buttons should go back under the text field of the post, where they belong.

Apart from that, I can live with the new WP 2.5 🙂 And users can create new color admin schemes (which is nice), but they cannot place the panels back to the sidebar, as this would require hard-coding of the WP files… I would create an Admin Theme for 2.5 myself, with panels back in the sidebar, but this is not possible without editing the PHP files. 🙁

Finally, if WP is definitely going this way, at least provide users with an option: A) ‘Write’ page – almost all panels at the bottom (new 2.5 way), B) ‘Write’ page – almost all panels in the sidebar (so-called ‘Classic 2.3’ way). Then users will be able to choose, which way they like it more. I believe, more than a half of them will switch back to ‘everything in the sidebar’ 😉

I like WordPress. I use it for more than a year now. I hope it will continue developing as lightweight, handy, useful blogging software, and not a new kind of ‘bloatware’, with terrible interface and shiny trendy colors… Yes, it was simpler before 2.5. It used darker colors. It had less rounded corners than now. But you know what?

Good web software is not recognized by shiny colors or rounded edges or new sleek AJAX effects. It is recognized by ease of use, and by people loving it. WP is loved by a lot of people, and it was very easy to use (before 2.5 came out). Now I have to do a lot more clicking around and scrolling, to publish my texts. This means, something’s wrong in the interface. And I hope it can be/will be fixed. This is better than seeing people around you downgrading back to 2.3.3. And now I see some of my friends going back to 2.3.3 — which is not good sign at all…

Peace & love! 🙂

I’d suggest ‘change of hosting’ 🙂

Or, you can try over-ride their ‘hacking program’ with some .htaccess rules… (I hope someone with better knowledge of this will help…)

Cheers!

1. Has it ever worked? When did it stop working? Is this a new WordPress installation or an upgrade?
— Yes, it worked in WP 2.3.2. It stopped working right in the moment when I upgraded to 2.3.3. This is an upgrade, not new installation of WP.

2. Any email related WordPress plugins?
— No.

3. Who is your hosting provider? Have you contacted them to ask if the emails are successfully being sent? And if so, what is the error message for them being rejected by the recepient?
— DreamHost. I didn’t contact them, yet. As all worked fine with WP 2.3.2 and email notifications stopped working when I upgraded to 2.3.3, I thought it’s probably WP bug…

4. Does the email address wordpress@[blog domain] exist?
— No.

______
UDPATE: I fired up my e-mail client today and lo and behold! I received *some* of the e-mail notifications from WordPress! But not all! I mean, I have comments from yesterday and today. Yesterday I wasn’t notified of any comments. Today came 7 e-mails, notifying me of yesterday’s comments. For today’s comments, notifications didn’t come (yet?)… So, I’m more and more puzzled… :-/