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Another WordPress Gripe: Why Did You Change This?

There are a few ways to get to the Daily Prompt. One way is to start a new post, hit the “+” button, and select “Writing Prompt.” Easy enough.

The other way is from your dashboard, where the new prompt is listed by day. You can click the button, or Control-click it, and it opens a new page.

I actually had a similar gripe with WordPress some time ago. Back then, clicking the prompt opened a completely new page for the writing and left the dashboard unchained. WordPress eventually modified that so the page opened over your dashboard instead.

Much worse, at least in my opinion.

Now when you were finished, you had to open your dashboard page again.

That made me a little scratchy.

Well, apparently WordPress wasn’t finished.

This is a new gripe.

Using the dashboard method I just mentioned, the Daily Prompt now opens in a page that looks suspiciously like a Substack page rather than the WordPress block editor I’ve been using.

And here’s where I start scratching my head.

There is no obvious place for tags, excerpt, scheduling, or the other things I normally have available when creating a post. It basically says, Here you go. Write something and post it.

That’s it.

So I did what any reasonable person would do. I started hunting around and clicking on everything I could find.

Eventually, I discovered an option to “Revert to block post.”

And wouldn’t you know it?

Click that, and suddenly all the things I was looking for are back. Tags, excerpt, scheduling, and all the other tools I’ve been using.

Great.

But now I have a question for WordPress.

Why?

Why change the default in the first place?

The block editor is the standard WordPress has been promoting for years. It’s what I was using. It has all the tools I need. It works.

If WordPress wants to offer a new, simplified writing experience that looks more like Substack, fine. I’m sure somebody likes it.

But why make that the default and then make me go hunting for the option to get back to the editor I was already using?

Why not make the new writing experience an option?

Let me choose it if I want it.

Instead, WordPress seems to have decided that I needed a new writing experience whether I wanted one or not.

And apparently, I also needed a small scavenger hunt to find my old one.

WordPress, I wasn’t asking you to fix this.

It was working just fine. However if you feel you must make this change and obviously you do then for the love of god keep all the functionality intact!

Apparently Someone at WordPress Was Listening, Partially…

Seriously?

WordPress put back the functionality for Control-click, which opens the prompt in a new page, months after changing it and claiming it did not work that way in the past. That made me more scratchy than usual.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find something else to complain about.