The Test Team helps manage testing and triage across the WordPress ecosystem. They focus on user testing of the editing experience and WordPress dashboard, replicating and documenting bug reports, and supporting a culture of review and triage across the project.
If you’d like to help test Full Site Editing, please join the FSE Outreach Program. You can find current calls for testing for this program here and you can join the fun in #fse-outreach-experiment.
This post is a summary of the twelfth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. As always, I want to highlight those who helped to bring others along with them in this latest effort:
Shout out to @itsjustdj as the sole first-time contributor for this call for testing. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!
High-level summary
The feedback this time around focused on the edges of the experience, especially in terms of design tools, and on some key problem areas that have repeatedly come up around navigating the entirety of the experience, like knowing what templates are used where. On the whole though, there were no deal breakers, big crashes, or show stopping problems found. Here’s what a few people had to say about the experience that can help frame the following more specific feedback:
On the whole, this went surprisingly well. In a year, the site editor has become far more powerful…Without responsive controls on layout-type containers like the Columns blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience., designing anything complex with the site editor can sometimes feel like one giant hack…There are tons of improvements with block design tools in comparison to last year…I hit no spacing-related problems in this experiment. That feels gratifying to say after over a year of testing FSE features. The experience of designing from within the site and template editors feels pretty smooth these days. The holdups are more about missing capabilities than anything.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern post.
The Typography settings are particularly satisfying to play around with. It’s nice to have lots of design options before having to use custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site..
@itsjustdj in this comment.
Most of these things are editable in FSE, but it feels like it is up to the creator to explore and it feels a little like a scavenger hunt. I wish there was a way to surface the most important decisions in a linear way. Some kind of “Start Here” guided walkthrough that pros would ignore, but help casual users understand the capabilities of Full Site Editor.
@beckej in this comment.
The ease of laying out the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. with rows/columns and dropping in site elements (logo/site title/navigation) was awesome.
@cdils in this comment.
Here’s an example of what @greenshady created in his write up on this call for testing:
Of note, since most feedback fell into the usability and feature request categories, the format of this post breaks down by feature more than recent ones that tend to stick with Bugs, Feature Requests, and General Usability headings to make it easier for those working on specific features to follow.
Potential bug
For the first time in this program’s history, zero bugs were found that could be replicated. However, there was one report that I was unable to replicate or find similar reports for that I’ll share below in case someone else can:
I added a spacer block below the navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. and later went to delete it. It moved the content of my site around and my navigation menu was gone, so I reloaded which lost anything that wasn’t saved. It also crashed when I was adding Header Dark Small to the Blank template.
@courane01 in this comment. Check out the comment for more details.
Templates and template parts
With more options available for templates and template parts, there’s an increasing need for better organization and more clarity in the interface to understand the impact of changes, big or small (adding a new template vs editing a template part). This is compounded by the fact that most folks don’t have a strong grasp on the template hierarchy built into WordPress. With newer modes like the focus template part mode, there was also some confusion around why this should be used. This is partially due to lack of awareness around how it can be used in the future as a gradual adoption pathway and due to those pathways not yet existing visually in the editor.
The subtle differences between the FSE screen and the “Focus Mode” screen are a little confusing. Specifically, I really LOVE the new “Replace” button to choose between an existing template or a Pattern. But I wish I could “Replace” with a Pattern even in focus mode. If I came to this screen to really work on my header, why would I have less options here than I have when looking at the full site?
@beckej in this comment.
I really do not know which template affects which pages/posts. So I assume that a Page template affects all the pages.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
Trying to select the correct group, row, or block in the layout can be hit or miss. When I think I’ve selected the correct one, I accidentally edit something else.
@itsjustdj in this comment.
Isolated mode. I do not see a purpose why I should use it. As I can instead just edit the template directly in the site editor.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
There was a small dot in an accent color under the “Added by” column on the Template Parts screen that (I think) indicated the original template part had been edited. Something a little more obvious there would be nice (for instance, under “Added by” maybe it says [Theme Name], edited by [user]).
@cdils in this comment.
Design tools
Since this test focused specifically on using the Navigation block, various missing customization options came up, particularly for anyone trying to do anything more complex than the average menu. The feedback here echoed previous rounds and underscores the importance of the work that’s underway to expand what’s currently available.
The Navigation block may be my least favorite thing about the site editor. I have yet to see how it will offer a universal system that plays well with the 1,000s of design variations that theme authors will want to employ. Classic nav menus are still vastly superior for custom design.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern post.
Patterns
With patterns being increasingly integrated into the site building experience, new pieces of feedback are arising around pattern management. This includes everything from naming best practices to when options should appear to swap between patterns and more.
Since I had changed the default color scheme on my site, I was confused at first looking at the pattern names. For example, I had set my primary color as Blue, so “Text-only header with green background” was confusing to me at first because it was blue.
@beckej in this comment.
General Usability Feedback
Cutting across the entire experience, familiar feedback came in that touches on some key pain points in the current version of site editing. All of these items have been previously reported:
Of note, it feels important to call out recent work in progress in the dedicated UI for navigation structure, since this both improves the information architecture by grouping site wide tools and implements a form of browse mode many have asked for to make it easier to see more parts of your site as you create.
Clicking Header or any template section is somewhat difficult, as it easily selects blocks inside of it.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
I miss some of the common controls that were part of every WordPress Customize screen. I wanted to edit my site to have a static homepage and a blogroll elsewhere. I feel like homepage settings, custom css, menus should be somewhere in the FSE experience.
@beckej in this comment.
This post is a summary of the All Things Media exploration for the FSE Outreach Program. Coming out of a pause from 5.9, it was so encouraging and wonderful to see the wider community help out with this exploration in the following ways:
Shout out to the following folks as first-time contributors to a call for testing: @patrick-b, @ndiego, @beckej, @lidialab. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!
High-level summary
While normally, there are some overall sentiments to share, this exploration was so wide ranging it’s hard to pull out a few quotes to ground the following feedback in. Instead, here are some patterns seen across the varying areas below that help bring together the feedback more cohesively:
In each section, the items are divided when appropriate into previously reported vs new categories in order to better understand what was underscored as part of this exploration compared to what was found.
Confirmed bugs
Listed below are confirmed bugs that break expected functionality or the experience of different features.
Previously reported:
New issues:
The default dimension is highlighted as 100% but in-fact if clicking on 100% again usually modifies the image size on the editor. It is a bit confusing.
@alanjacobmathew in this comment.
Feature Requests
Throughout each of these feature requests, there’s a clear desire for better and more consistent tooling, from background support in Group blocks to having a focal point picker for a featured imageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts.. It’s obvious there’s a dance to get right in adding more features while also creating a more consistent and intuitive experience in handling media in the Site Editor.
Previously reported:
New:
Where one can define specifics on upload. Is it a bmp or other none web format have it be converted to a jpg. Have larger images downscaled to a kind of max image size. Etc.
@paaljoachim in this comment
A uniform way to import images from external sources. There’s some inconsistency here that can be very confusing.
@trynet in this comment.
Having a way to include Featured images in a variety of blocks, such as Cover, would be amazing. This is in scope for 6.0, but it’s the biggest thing I would like to see regarding media and would enable a lot of interesting patterns.
@ndiego in this comment.
However, I would like to see a range of filters available to users. If this is too much for coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., perhaps a standard filter-registration system for developers might be in order.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern post.
General Usability Feedback
As seen in other calls for testing, the experience of easily manipulating a Header proved difficult, whether trying to add a background image, trying to get alignments exactly right with your Site Logo, or in using various aspects of duotone. Tied to this, confusion continues around Layout controls with simple tasks like making a Cover block full width proving to be frustrating and further underscoring the need to simplify these concepts.
Previously reported:
New:
I went down a weird rabbit hole where I couldn’t figure out why we had the header block and the header template parts. I mean, what if I wanted to have two different headers with wildly different information in them? Whenever I changed the main header block (anything living inside it), it changed it in all the header template parts, and I found that very confusing and frustrating. I ended up removing the header block inside the header templates and keeping things just in groups. That made way more sense to me.
@aurooba in this comment.
I had trouble making my cover image full width. It’s still a bit odd to me that some controls only show up in certain situations, and in this case, because my cover was part of a group, I couldn’t make the cover full width. I’ve been teaching people to use that list view to try to get around that.
@beckej in this comment.
This is tricky and I bet is the hardest step. “Header” is not clearly defined. I bet most folks would go into the Site Editor and try to add a background image to the Header template part block. Also most block-themes have a Group block wrapping the inner content of the Header part, and Group blocks also do not support image backgrounds (yet). So you have to modify the content in your Header by placing it inside of a Cover block and then add a background image to the Cover block. This takes a LOT of in depth knowledge of the Site Editor to accomplish.
@ndiego in this comment.
Say I’m editing the padding dimension, then goes to modify the duotone, the entire right sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. goes to the top(back to media settings) and opens all the closed settings, which affects the user workflow. This also happens when changing the ‘alignment’ to ‘none’ or ‘full width’.
@alanjacobmathew in this comment.
If I insert 2 headers, applying changes to one affects both the header. Don’t know why it is happening.
@alanjacobmathew in this comment.
Thoughts on attribution
We chatted about this on the hallway hangout for this exploration (starting at 16:00 and again around 26:58) with thoughts on how to learn from tools like Pressbooks, how to make attributions more magical by reusing theme styles when adding them, and how to encourage best practices for folks. In general, folks were not keen to use images that required attribution as one can see in the quotes below.
This question evoked a strong negative reaction for me. I don’t know it means that attribution info wouldn’t be removable? Would it be watermarked on the image? Are we talking about metadata. Either way, if you can’t remove attribution from an image visually, I would never use such an image or images from such a resource.
@aurooba in this comment.
As long as we gave end users a few options, I really like the idea of making it easy for others to utilize the open-licensed images, and help guide them to do best practices.
@beckej in this comment.
I understand why this would be necessary in some circumstances, but I personally would not use such an image on my site.
@ndiego in this comment.
It’d be great to have a way from the media library or block settings to append any attribution required AND define where that displayed in templates. I’d like to display the attribution before post comments and after post content.
@courane01 in this comment.
General insights/questions on other photo libraries
We chatted about this on the hallway hangout for this exploration (starting around 24:41) mainly discussing how important it is that an open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. solution rivals a paid one. Generally speaking, folks mentioned the following external image libraries outside of Openverse: Unsplash, Rawpixel, Pexels. Some questions remain as you can see in the quote below:
How might this work for other media types, such as audio and video? Would we want to hotlink it/embed from the source? What’s the risk if the media later is no longer hosted there? But also: hosting many audio and video files within most hosting environments is not ideal. If we make it easier to move mixed media from Openverse to the Media Library, what are the trade-offs?
@courane01 in this comment.
Desire for improved media management
A longstanding conversation in the WordPress project is around having better media management from folders to better filtering and more. This desire held up with a discussion around whether Openverse might be able to solve some of these issues as a media hub. Here’s a video from @paaljoachim expanding on the idea:
This has been a longstanding request in the WordPress community, but better media management in the Media Library (i.e. folders) would be extremely helpful, especially for site with 100s of images.
@ndiego in this comment.
Watch feedback videos
Folks were kind enough to record videos of themselves walking through the experience that I wanted to reshare below as it’s neat to see folks in a great bandwidth medium share their thoughts:
This post is a summary of the eleventh call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Once again, I want to highlight the fantastic broader contributions surrounding this call for testing that enabled even more people to be a part of this work:
Shout out to the following folks as first-time contributors to a call for testing: @colorful-tones @anjchang @mburridge @paulbigai @luminuu. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile! Thank you too to @piyopiyofox for kindly reviewing this post.
High-level summary
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the experience that can help frame the following more specific feedback. Overall, folks found the exploration to be easy enough to use with some minor enhancements and a few surprises. However, once most folks got beyond the basics, they found pitfalls in understanding how things might work together and how to accomplish different, slightly more complex tasks. This included everything from wanting more granular control of different link states with the Styles system (hover, active, etc) to confusion around how to change the width settings for new templates. This was the first time the Styles system was explored in a call for testing as well and, beyond a UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. issue mentioned by four folks and some feature requests, the feedback was generally uneventful and positive.
This very much feels like where the state of the blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. and site editing is overall. Many pieces are exceptional, but after digging beneath the surface, you find that you need workarounds for some essential design needs.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
As usual, with WordPress, also with bleeding edge experiments, it seems there is almost always a way to achieve the same result using different paths…Not had any crash or unattended interruption, so the current developing stage is showing a robust application. The improvements on each area done so far are impressive, sure we have tons of things and features to come.
@paulbigai in this comment.
Confirmed bugs
Listed below are confirmed bugs that break expected functionality or the experience of different features. Thanks to this test running during the betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. cycle for 5.9, many of these are already fixed.
Fixed
New Reports or previously reported
This resulted in the entire background of the posts list to change the background color. I was expecting that only the actual lists blocks would change when adjusting this setting, instead the entire page background of the query block changed.
@luminuu in this comment.
The biggest, ahem, hiccup that I ran into wiped all of my progress when editing my headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes.. I tried to transform one of the outer Group blocks into a Cover to give it a background. It wiped everything in the header area clean, and the “undo” button did not seem to work. I just started over.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
Feature Requests
As folks dug in, there were numerous enhancements that quickly came to mind as awesome nice to haves. These desired enhancements not only underscores the potential of various full site editing pieces when put together, but also highlights the frustration around the current limitations:
I started by removing the Page List block from the Navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. in the header. I have 90+ pages on my install, and it is always irritating when themes list them all by default.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern post.
Post Featured Image selected I expected to see to see similar options as the Image block. Example Image size: Full Size, Large, Medium or Thumbnail.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
I miss a way for Global Styles to have more granular control over the links states, for color and the style in general. We have only one setting for link color, nothing for hover, active and visited state, neither the possibility to change the style applied, with TT1 Blocks we have the theme default text-decoration-style: dotted; for instance.
@paulbigai in this comment.
General Usability Feedback
Thanks to videos from a few folks as part of this call for testing, I’m including less issues and quotes and more descriptions in order to capture the great feedback that was shared.
In @courane01‘s wonderful testing session, the Navigation block placeholder proved to be quite confusing when it comes to WYSIWG (what you see is what you getWhat You See Is What You Get What You See Is What You Get. Most commonly used in relation to editors, where changes made in edit mode reflect exactly as they will translate to the published page.), especially if you haven’t yet set a menu. There are improvements to this placeholder setup that are being iterated upon as I write this. Tied to this, switching which menu is shown after selecting one also felt tricky, likely because there were a number of empty menus. Thankfully, this is a likely rare occurrence with a limited number of likely switches. Regardless of the rarity, an issue was opened to refine the language from “Select Menu” to “Switch Menu” or “Replace”.
In @paaljoachim’s video, he touched on confusion around Styles and how best to both communicate global changes as you’re editing and when you’re saving with multi-entity saving lacking granular options. While there is a welcome guide to help with explaining Styles customization, it very much brings to the forefront how these new concepts will take some getting used to for WordPress users and how much needs to be done in the UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. to clearly communicate what is happening.
Beyond these high level themes, there were some specific issues raised:
I actually missed that I needed to add a name to the color at all. Since there’s no placeholder text in the area where the color name should be added, I completely overlooked it and assumed I would just add the color, click Done, and voilà! However, it looks like not adding a color name at all means the colors won’t get saved. Adding some directive placeholder text next to the colors – or even an error message after clicking Done – might have helped me move past that.
@evarlese in this comment.
After applying the template to my post, it didn’t look like those changes or settings were applied, since everything appeared at max width, and I wasn’t really sure of how or where to fix that.
@evarlese in this comment.
I found it a bit strange adding a featured image block and a duotone filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. without seeing what the result would look like.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
Adding a suggest a second button, is showing it is not using the format of the already present one, which should be more logical. The differences are in the “Border Radius: 50%”” and “Width settings: 50%”” not applied on the new one. Of course this is not an issue, and if you need the same button its easy to achieve this duplicating the existing one.
@paulbigai in this comment.
The biggest issue I hit was with the Group block. By default, the Twenty Twenty-Two theme adds an 8rem (that’s pretty big) bottom margin to one of the Groups within the header area.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern post.
This post is a summary of the tenth (!) call for testing for the FSE outreach program. Per usual, I love an excuse to celebrate so here are some fun stats to continue the party:
Thank you to every single person who has come along for the first ten calls for testing. Here’s to at least ten more (Twenty more? Thirty more?).
For this specific release, I want to offer special thanks to @piermario for the Italian translation, Yoast for focusing attention on this call for testing for their latest contributor dayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/., and @sparklingrobots for bravely walking through their experience for the call for testing on a hallway hangout.
Finally, shout out to the following folks as first time contributors to a call for testing: @evarlese, @oksankaa, @nynkedeblaauw, @suascat_wp, @mikes41720, @iamyvonne, @adetolah, @josevarghese, @ankurchauhan126. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!
High level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that can help frame the following more specific feedback. Generally speaking, most folks found problems with more of the details of the experience rather than running into any major blockers with UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it., crashing, bugs, etc that prevented them from doing what they wanted to do. Tied to this, much of the feedback centered around the desire to be able to go even further than what’s currently possible, which is reflected in the robust Feature Requests section.
While some things are still not totally intuitive to new users, I feel that GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ made more big steps ahead in just a few months. I enjoy creating content in it and some of the things I have in mind are easier to achieve.
@piermario
It’s been fun testing out the ‘query loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop.’ blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. in FSE. No crashes or bugs. The saving worked properly.
@mikes41720
Confirmed bugs
What follows are confirmed bugs that break expected functionality or the experience of different features. Thankfully, there were only a few of these items!
General Usability Feedback
Overall, most of the feedback for this section surrounded taking very specific actions or insights around how pieces fit together rather than a massive gap in the experience or a blocker to accomplishing a task. As a result, I’ve included more quotes than usual below to help give more context to what was shared. Of note, some are repeat items from previous tests and are labeled as such below.
W menu item proves to be a point of confusion, especially when trying to go back to the dashboard. This was brought up by four folks very recently if you include the comments on this additional design post (repeat). For the Query Block specifically, I’m not sure if this is expected, but I didn’t find a way to get back to the initial layout options if I wanted to change.
@evarlese
I had to open a new tab and go to Posts -> Categories and check out the names of the categories. It would be very useful with the multi select so that we can easily choose various categories from a drop down.
@paaljoachim
It makes sense that ‘Post Categories’ and ‘Post Tags’ blocks can only work within the Query Loop block and when editing a Post and each would display categories and tags associated with that post. However, when someone tries to insert those blocks on the Page outside the Query loop block would just drop the spinning icon. Probably, because as we know Page has no categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. and outside the Query Loop, it can’t query the category. ‘Categories’ block would however work.
@suascat_wp
Query Loop – the anchor link of ‘create a new post’ leads to creating a new post or page (depending on the post type chosen in the settings), but I felt like it would break interaction with full site editing since it leads you to create a totally new post or page using the block editor.
@mikes41720
Post ExcerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox. – there’s a section to ‘add “read more” link text‘ (which I’m not sure what it means?) that if you click on, it doesn’t show the blinking “|” which signifies that you can add text to it (although it does work and you can add text). If you click directly right after it, it’ll then show the blinking “|” and that acts as more of a sign that you can modify and add text. It might be a bit confusing for some users from a visual cue standpoint.
@mikes41720
I’m having a hard time adding the columns within the Query Loop block unless have to do it via the help of list view.
@iamyvonne
I was playing with the theme.json and added under the styles section on the file a font size for coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress./post-title for the page, that syle is applyed at the root level so every nested core/post-title will inherit this stile and it’s ok abviously, it’s a css behavior, this is something to pay attention because now with blocks we must take into account much more kind of indentation of blocks than before where we had well-defined structures.
@overclokk
I’m still misled by the WordPress button in the top left corner of the Site Editor. I know that its function toggles a menu open/close, but being the WordPress logo such a familiar affordance, I often click on it in auto-mode expecting to come back to the dashboard…way too many clicks if I just want to “escape” to the dashboard or the live site.
@piermario
I often feel the “double” saving step slows me down and in 99% of the cases, the options provided in “Select the changes you want to save” are something I don’t want to check off.
@piermario
Feature Requests
Generally speaking, at a high level, most feature requests in this section come down to two things: more design tool options and more settings for blocks. As with the previous section, some are repeat items from previous tests and are labeled as such below.
I was also initially surprised by 1 item per page as the default, and it took me a moment to find the settings again to change it.
@evarlese
When selecting ‘Display settings’ one can set the number of items per page. But actually you pick the number of items in the column if you choose a layout with multiple columns. May be easier to understand if ‘items per page’ would be renamed to ‘items per column’ or something similar.
@nynkedeblaauw
Site Logo – has a Rounded style but no border radius control. It would be helpful to add the various new controls also to the Site Logo block. Dimensions panel etc.
@paaljoachim
I wish I had a margin and padding setting on the Columns block level.
@piermario
This post is a summary of blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. theme switching exploration for the FSE outreach program. This was the first of its kind, enabling folks to share very early feedback on something that has yet to be robustly defined. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through sharing feedback directly or sharing the exploration with others.
Shout out to @richtabor @elmastudio @anariel-design who officially got badges for responding, despite having engaged with surveys the program has done in the past.
Big thank you to @piermario for the Italian translation and @greenshady for the WP Tavern article, which both help bring the exploration to even more folks.
High level summary
Overall, the current experience proves to be frustrating and inconsistent, especially when taking into account custom block styles, keeping customized templates, etc. Thinking long term about what folks would want to be able to have across themes, there was mass consensus around being able to retain templates, template parts, and menus. There was somewhat mixed feedback around whether Global Styles should persist as some saw those as differentiating a theme. When it came to ideas for how to best manage the switching process, it quickly became clear that there’s a balance to strike between not adding too much friction to the process while also offering users options to pick and choose what can come with them when they switch. Ideally, there can be a simple and visual way to intuitively guide users and help them take advantage of the power of what block themes unlock without discouraging them with too many options.
On templates and template parts
There was mass agreement around the desire to keep customized templates and template parts across themes, with many expressing surprise and frustration at the current experience. This was previously documented and discussed here as part of an earlier call for testing.
I’m very surprised that any templates I’ve created are tied to the theme that was active when I created them. I’d expect that my custom templates should remain applied to pages when the new theme is active, instead of being disregarded. I’m not sure why templates are omitted when a theme is changed.
@richtabor in this comment.
I would like to be able to use templates and templates that I have created and saved, no matter which theme that is active. I know that I can view them under appearance templates/template parts, open them, copy the code and paste it into a new template, but I don’t think that is a good experience. It should be easier.
@poena in this comment.
On menus
Similar to templates and template parts, this was another area that folks inherently expected would persist across changing block themes.
An issue I’ve ran into now a few times when trying out different Full Site Editing themes is that losing menu data is frustrating. I think as a non-technical user it would be confusing, because you are prompted to “Add an existing menu”, which I would think would be my menu from the last theme I was using.
@timothyblynjacobs in this comment
I think it is important that navigation blocks that I have set up remains. The “Add existing menu” feature in the navigation block assumes that I have already created a menu in the navigation screen. If I only setup the navigation block as part of a headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. template part in the previous theme, then I can’t re-apply or reuse that navigation block. Perhaps navigation blocks should also work the other way around? I mean why can’t I select a name for my navigation block as I create it in the editor, save that in isolation like I can save the site blocks in isolation, and have that navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. present on the navigation screen?
@poena in this comment.
Keeping any menus created in the Site Editor available would be important, I think this is one of the biggest issues right now.
@elmastudio in this comment.
On Global Styles
Global Styles left folks a bit split with some seeing them as being theme dependent and others wanting the option to carry settings/styles across themes. There’s currently a discussion around what can and can’t be standardized which will impact how this could be implemented.
I see Global Styles tied to the theme, but it could be helpful if some common settings are taken from one theme to the next.
@elmastudio in this comment.
Understandably global styles settings would adapt when a theme is changed (just like the customizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings.) – and I like how my custom GS settings persist when I change back to a theme (just like the customizer as well).
@richtabor in this comment.
When you export the demo and import it to the other installation, theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. file styles are not imported. As a theme developer, I would love to develop one theme with different demos for example. When I export the demo file I would love that global and block type styles are exported too and imported to other installations.
@anariel-design in this comment
Have the option to keep Global styles modifications. Perhaps a kind of dialog box that shows up when entering the Site Editor listing adjustments I made to the previous theme, asking if I wanted to keep these adjustments or to start anew.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
One question that keeps me up at night is how cross-theme compatibility will work on the content level. Default block output should translate from one theme to the next with little or no issues. However, custom block styles, font sizes, colors, and the full range of presets are already a problem area.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
On ideas for how to manage the process
Outside of a desire for the experience to be overall easier and more seamless, the following ideas were shared with a split in terms of folks who wanted decisions upfront vs after switching:
I have experimented with one theme but figured out along the way that it does not have the patterns or finished templates or something else I had hoped for. Instead of creating the patterns and templates myself I switch themes. When I click to switch a theme I get a warning message saying that switching themes will remove the adjustments I made to the current active theme, but I have an option to save these adjustments in a kind of twilight zone between one theme and another. I select to save changes I made, and notice that these carry over to the new theme that I activate. I check and notice that the changes do carry over. I am relieved that I am able to create adjustments in one theme and have these with me to the next time…In the Site Editor I can check out what the new theme offers and when I feel ready for it I can either say yes to bringing over the changes or no because I notice that the new theme has what I need.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
I actually don’t want to be prompted with having to make several decisions as soon as I activate a new theme. I would find that stressful. I want to take my time. I want to understand what the differences are between the themes, and what changes I need to make. Perhaps there would be a side-by-side comparison of common page templates like page, single post, home? Like a revision?
@poena in this comment.
It needs to be easier for the users. They already needed to deal with the domain, hosting, choosing a theme etc.
@anariel-design in this comment
It could also be awesome to pull a color palette and drop it into an existing theme. Sort of like having a Colour Lovers directory to pick color schemes from but keep all the other bits. This could be fun for people who can recognize a palette that they like but would never be able to handpick all those colors. I’ve often seen color schemes that I’d love to use from other themes but didn’t like other things about them.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
On reasons for switching and the experience
Of the various questions folks could answer, some touched on both reasons for switching and the current experience. I’ve listed each response below since only a few folks addressed this area specifically. I’m also including images from @greenshady’s post where he took a simple blog post with some custom block styles, gradient colors, and font sizes and compared the output across three different themes highlighting current problems with theme switching.
To see prebuilt template layouts (could be done in a template mosaic view to where I can choose various prebuilt layouts instead of switching themes). To have a base that I want to start from. A design that I would like to use and modify.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
I think the most common scenario is a missing functionality in one theme like WooCommerce support. Next would be outdated design and lack of updates and support from the theme author.
@elmastudio in this comment.
When I switched to the Quadrat I mostly lost everything that I set up in the Clove theme. That means, About page doesn’t look anything similar, colors, fonts are now from the Quadrat theme and button style too. From the user’s side, this is very confusing. If u ever used Elementor for example, and many are using it they are used to the similar overflow. If I create a template and change the look and styles and switch to any other theme this template will look the same and it will remain available.
@anariel-design in this comment
I am not one for switching themes. Since I learned how to design for WordPress well over a decade ago, I have never moved from one theme to the next. At least not in the same way that the average user would. Instead, every time I have added a new coat of paint on my websites, I have simply switched over the foundation to whatever I had been working on at the given moment. WordPress themes, for me, were always just an iteration upon the last project…The first thing I do when testing any theme is to load a demo post. Lately, this has been the “Welcome to the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ Editor” test post. The primary question: Can I read the content comfortably? If I do not get past this stage, I simply deactivate the theme.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
What’s next?
@critterverse is exploring how to approach these flows from a design perspective and has been following along as feedback has come in. You can expect to see a more in depth design exploration shared soon enough with some of these pieces of feedback and ideas integrated in! I’ll flag this in the outreach program channel when the time comes and will see how we can explore these experiences in future calls for testing.
This post is a summary of the ninth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. During this call for testing, we surpassed 400 members in the channel! I love an excuse to celebrate so please pat yourselves on the back, treat yourself to a favorite dessert, listen to your favorite song, etc to celebrate this neat milestone of community contributions. While we reached this milestone, I do want to note that contributions were lower for this last round than usual so, if you’re sitting back thinking that others have it covered, please instead jump into the next round if you can!
Special thanks to both @mimitips for the Japanese translation and @piermario for the Italian translation.
Shout out to @utz119 @wazeter @alanjacobmathew as first time contributors to a call for testing. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!
How far can one go?
Check out @greenshady’s approach (keep in mind he self admittedly “cheated” to get the final look):
@richtabor took on trying to replicate UNG’s header with the following outcome:
High Level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that can help frame the following detail oriented feedback. Across all of the feedback, the desire for a lighter navigation experience as well as more advanced tools around spacing, bulk adding items, etc. stood out.
I didn’t run into too many issues getting the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. to display decently, but I also know a bunch of tricks to get the editor to do what I need it to do. The end result is ok — but the experience getting there needs a lot of refining yet.
– @richtabor in this comment.
Creating the menu was quite a hassle. Too many clicks especially when creating submenu.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
This was an interesting challenge…I didn’t make anything “beautiful,” however I did find a couple of things while I was trying to do most of this via keyboard-only navigation.
– @bjturner in this comment.
Using the Navigation blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. still seems the most troublesome area of site editing. I know how much work the development team has put behind the user experience for this feature but cannot help but wonder if there is a point where users can opt into managing its content (the links) via the traditional Nav Menus screen in WordPress. The site editor works fine for the design aspect, but I have yet to feel comfortable using it to manage links.
– @greenshady in this WPTavern post.
After delving deeply into the ins and outs of the navbar – the primary issues all revolve around responsiveness. The coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. issue came down to the navigation bar operating as a separate element (which makes sense for a block) than the rest of what you’d normally consider a complete header. This means that in order to properly size and place the navbar, you have to use a container block like group or columns – which is where alignment starts to get into trouble.
– @wazeter in this comment.
Confirmed bugs
Thanks to clear patterns in feedback due to a larger focus on the navigation block, this is a dedication section to just bugs that were found or confirmed in this test. Those that have been resolved thanks to a release mid-test have been noted below.
General Usability Feedback
At the core of this test, the feedback centered around a combination of small, specific issues and larger problems with the overall settings of different blocks. This made the experience feel less refined and intuitive leading to general confusion when trying to accomplish sometimes simple things, like changing the width of the Search block. In some cases, work is underway actively to address these concerns, as is the case with adding a gap block feature to make it easier to manage the spacing between navigation block items. Some were repeat items and are noted as such below.
I am not able to see any visual difference between Wide width or Full width. Because my browser screen is not wide enough to see the difference. When I widen the browser window then I am able to see the difference. Should the Wide width alignment be response in relation to the browser size window? So the user will be able to see a visual difference in the backend when testing Wide or Full width.
– @paaljoachim in this comment.
I wish there was some way to reduce the default spacing between blocks. For example I want to reduce the space above the 2nd Nav block.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
To add an actual link, users must first add the Page Link block. Then, they can search for a specific page. This two-step process gets me every time.
– @greenshady in this WPTavern post.
For example, adding search to the navbar, and then wanting the search bar to display differently (larger, smaller) with a potentially different background doesn’t work. Individual menu items can’t easily change the background color of a link (e.g. an active color) to align properly with the container element and there are no hover effects (extremely common use cases) without diving into CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. code.
– @wazeter in this comment.
Not quite a bug, but it doesn’t feel polished when the Block hover menu extends past the viewport.
– @bjturner in this comment.
When the first block is extremely near to the editor header, some parts of the block content gets hidden, while the viewport adjusts automatically on both left and right side, the top part remains fixed.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) feedback
Thanks to some folks focusing in on what could be done with this test using just keyboard controls, there’s a lovely list of accessibility focused items:
Trying to do keyboard only navigation for working with the navigation block. It’s pretty good, but there’s so many tabs!
– @bjturner in this comment.
Feature requests
While the experience was generally easy enough to follow, a few clear feature requests were raised to streamline the process further:
As mentioned above, an overview issue was shared during this test that explores a more scaled down version of the navigation block to make it easier for simple menus to be created. This will better cover the more common use case for most sites. Since this test explored both a simpler and more complex menu structure, the feature requests reflect each experience.
It just feels too cumbersome to add a custom link today.
– @paaljoachim in this comment.
Creating the menu was quite a hassle. Too many clicks especially when creating submenu.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
This post is a summary of the seventh call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through testing directly or sharing the call for testing with others.
On a more personal note, it’s so neat to see the various ways people engaged and to really feel the power of the WordPress community in these calls for testing — WordCamp Japan used the seventh call for group testing this week, a meetup in Philadelphia used it as part of their event (shoutout to @accessamy and @itsjusteileen), the call for testing was translated into Italian and Japanese (shout out to @piermario and the folks from WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Japan) and three folks did write ups encouraging others to test alongside their feedback (@greenshady, @bgturner, and @bobbingwide). Plus, I had some of my coworkers go through the test for good measure! I am super stoked to see a diverse set of ways folks are exploring this program and deeply appreciate you all making it happen.
Teamwork makes the dream work. Anything I can do to make participation easier and more fun, let me know!
How far can one go?
It’s hard to compete with @greenshady’s awesome explorations at this point! Check it out below:
High Level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that can help frame the following detail oriented feedback. Since this was a more open ended test compared to the prior one, it was interesting to hear about the ways in which people explored things on their own and the resulting joys/frustrations that caused.
Compared to the earlier tests, the overall experience is way more stable and polished. My biggest issue with the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ and FSE is still the same: lack of visual references while designing, unless I do some hovering dance on the blocks and – this time – I didn’t have a clear picture of how exactly changing some elements (site title, navigation) on the portfolio template would affect other pages, so I got a little lost between pages.
@piermario in this comment.
Generally I love the query blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. though. Really cool that you can do that now without coding! I am looking forward to using it in projects.
@michaelsndr in this comment.
I had a lot of fun with this. And frustration. Some more fun. And…you guessed it…some more frustration….I enjoyed the process — yes, I revel in both the fun and frustration. Aside from everything that I think is broken, the overall system is pretty dang sweet. There are far more things that the development team has nailed down than there are that feel janky.
@greenshady in this post.
Repeated Feedback: Switching between editing modes (template vs page/post) & various block improvements
This section is dedicated to repeated items from previous calls for testing. Once more, despite the three ways to visually distinguish the editing modes, there remains confusion around when one is in each mode. The deeper into these calls for testing we go, the more it becomes clear how valuable it will be to do things like view a template while editing content and have some good friction in place while interacting with post blocks in template editing mode.
Across a few blocks, some repeat items came up that are worth mentioning considering they were each mentioned at least two times:
Today I got lost quite often. I didn’t always know if I was editing the Portfolio Template or the Portfolio page.
@piermario in this comment.
However, once I was in the Template Editor it wasn’t clear when I was editing the template or the content itself. When I used the block navigator – I could see the post content block (which made sense) but only because I was already looking.
Automattic employee feedback.
Some general usability feedback of the column block: I’d love a way to make the vertical margins disappear so that full-width sections that have background colors don’t show any space between them.
@bjturner in this post.
Post Title Block – no way to style text (bold, italics etc), and no way to have a totally custom colour. Do these color options come from the theme itself?
Automattic employee feedback.
As a user, template editing is a great tool when you have a good visual understanding of what your post or page content will look like in the context of the full site. The issue is, when in the post editor I don’t know that, unless I am checking “Preview” as I create/edit my content. Has any thought been given to how we could improve this experience so users are more aware, as they’re editing, of how their content will be displayed on the site (depending on the template used)?
Automattic employee feedback.
Query LoopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. Block & Related Improvements
Since the Query Loop Block featured heavily in this call for testing, it’s no surprise it was also an area of both great praise and criticism. On the whole, there was loads of excitement around this powerful block with folks keen to have access to it with WordPress 5.8. Outside of that though, the following items were raised for the Query Block itself and some of the related blocks used within it:
Tied to the above issues, there was repeated frustration around deeper customization and limits of the nested blocks within the Query Loop, especially if someone wanted to go well beyond what the current patterns offer. It’s also important to note that this test was done without this PR merged for the Query Loop block, which makes the Post Blocks uneditable within the Query Loop block itself ahead of WordPress 5.8.
The next section of template testing consisted of adding a Query pattern and customizing it. I have a love/hate relationship with queries in Gutenberg right now. The Query block itself works well. It has a solid balance between advanced usage and simplicity for the most part. I am amazed at what the development team has done over months upon months of iteration.The downfall is that the Query block is merely a wrapper. It is only as good as its weakest sub-block.
@greenshady in this post.
There’s a bit of a confusion point in the Query Block with Items per Page. Despite having multiple published posts only one appeared by default. I found the controls in the Block Toolbar to increase, but also found it a bit cumbersome to toggle between the Block Toolbar and Block SidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. to refine the underlying query.
@dryanpress in this comment.
Query Block: Block outputs nothing on the frontend when there are no posts to show. Generally, it requires to show something that tells visitors that there are no posts or some custom message.
@sagarnasit in this comment
General Usability Enhancements
As people explored template editing mode, the following items came up as areas that would make the experience more intuitive going forward. Many of these were repeat items but it felt important to call these out separately, in particular the quotes describing the current experience. While some of these areas have design explorations in place for potential inclusion in the future, this section captures the current pain points:
Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context.
It appears that I didn’t save the template since it’s showing a 404, even though the title says “portfolio.” I think what confused me was the “Publish” button in the upper right corner. Coming from a WP background I think I understand that “Publish” meant to publish the page template I was editing, but on initial use, I was hesitant to push the button because my context was the original page that I had created, not the page template I was editing.
@bjturner in this post.
While in Template Editing Mode, I clicked the Preview button, clicked Preview in new tab and didn’t see the addition of the navigation block or other template changes. If this could work that’d be great, but if these won’t be available to preview outside Gutenberg due to how Templates are saved and stored, that preview dropdown item probably shouldn’t be available inside Template Editing Mode.
@dryanpress in this comment.
If I create a new template, the new template is not available in the drop-down selector until I refresh.
Automattic employee feedback.
When saving the template change, if I uncheck all the items that appear, the Save button gets defunct. If we are allowed to uncheck one of those, I think we should be allowed to uncheck all items too.
Automattic employee feedback.
The Update option isn’t available once I’ve switched alignments on the block. I needed to alter the post title to trigger the Update option.
Automattic employee feedback.
When you’re creating a new template, for each existing template part that you insert, you have to remember to set the same attributes for the template part as used in other templates. Attributes that will need setting include the Width and Colours.
@bobbingwide in this comment.
This post is a summary of the sixth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through testing directly or sharing the call for testing with others. It all helps! Special thanks to @piermario for translating the call for testing into Italian once more. Translations are such a big help as they really help bring the wider community along.
As a reminder, the seventh call for testing is currently underway and you’re welcome to join!
How far can one go?
Once more, I’m excited to share @greenshady’s creative take on this call for testing that utilizes some awesome custom colors and reuses a logo from the WC Birmingham team:
High Level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that’s helpful to keep in mind as it’s easy to get into the themes or details without seeing the big picture of how using template editing mode felt. For most, they felt it was smoother than expected but that the outcome still was lacking in terms of creating a truly refined template.
It was fun! I liked testing the new features and feeling like I was contributing to WP. I didn’t realize you could drag and drop blocks! What a cool idea to place the Page Title in the Cover blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.! Always learning new things.
@askdesign in this comment.
In the very broadest sense, yes. Someone in an earlier call-for-testing made a simple but eloquent comment where they described the overall output of the editor as a “website-shaped object”. I’m not sure what this means in terms of specific missing features, but, without an awful amount of work on the part of both theme developer and content editor, this still best sums up the resulting output for me.
@chthnc in this comment.
The problem is that custom templates are tied to the theme. I see the logic in this. Certain aspects could be specific to the active theme (colors, fonts, etc.), and it is always how custom templates have worked. However, the block template system is different. From a user viewpoint, I feel like my custom-created templates belong to me rather than the theme. I can see a user switching themes after a couple of years and building a dozen or so templates having a poor experience in this situation. If the feature remains the same, there should be more clarity.
@greenshady in this post.
Repeated Feedback: Settings Improvement and switching between editing modes (template vs page/post)
This section is dedicated to repeated items from previous calls for testing and solely focuses on new items that have come up in these same groupings. As has been noted across various tests, the placement of settings is not always intuitive with some options feeling hidden in the Block Settings under “Advanced” sections and others named/placed in a way that makes it hard to know what the option controls.
While lots of work has been done to improve the experience of switching between modes, this was still mentioned a few times as an experience that remains a bit confusing. As noted here, there are three ways that visually help indicate when you’ve switched into template editing mode:
At this point though, work remains to make the experience more seamless, including some updates to the Welcome Guide and some explorations around being able to view a template while editing content.
The “settings cog” is not actually a settings cog, it’s the show/hide for the main editor details side bar. The main Side-bar holds the very important Block and Page controls, including “publish”. These controls are not really the “cog type” broad ranging “settings” we might see in the main Settings section of WP-admin we see true settings. The sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. contents are more like “Edit controls” and we might more usually expect a pen icon, or a sidebar show./hide icon for this sidebar show/hide. The actual “settings” for the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ editor are under 3 vertical dots. Titled (invisibly) “Options”. This terminology and labelling or lack of it is confusing.
@steve-pheriche in this comment.
When I’m in “Template Editing Mode” there’s this large black space around the canvas area of the editor. I think this is supposed to help me understand that I’m not editing a single document, but rather that I’m editing something more.
@shaunandrews in this post.
After taking care of the Advanced section, it took me several minutes to find the “Layout” area. I think it would be better to begin with the Layout and work our way down to the Advanced settings. With something as important as Title and Area, why don’t we move those 2 items up to the top of the Block section?
@askdesign in this comment.
It took me a while to find out where the Full Width settings were. I forgot it was under “Change alignment”, next to the block icon, but I didn’t even open it as I thought it had to do with text alignment (Left, Center, Right). This seems weird, is that the best button label we can have?
@piermario in this comment.
Crash Reports
There were multiple crashing reports including one due to an issue with Duotone, which has already been reported and fixed. For the other crashing reports, they were difficult to replicate and issues were not created but it’s worth noting that four people reported various crashes, the most of any call for testing.
Not until the very end, after I was finished. I went back to edit the template and got this error message a couple of times: “The editor has encountered an unexpected error.”
@askdesign in this comment.
Trying again I was not able to trigger the crash. So that suggests there needs to be some very specific order of events, or item selected. My main browser which I experienced the crash on is the FF Developer Browser, 89.0b13.
@steve-pheriche in this comment.
Initial Template Setup Improvements
Because this test involved setting up a brand new template rather than editing an existing one, there were a few items of feedback around the experience, including around just how “blank” the blank template is. The intention is for it to be fairly empty with basic blocks in place so a user can both get a sense of what can be done there and can easily make it their own without having to delete too many items. In time, this is where Patterns should be very advantageous to quickly build up desired content in a template.
When I first created a new custom template I was surprised by its content. I’d become used to the Site editor copying the index template.
@bobbingwide in this comment.
Usability feedback
Outside of the new items listed below, it’s important to note that having consistent dimension controls was mentioned repeatedly for a variety of blocks including the Columns Block and Template Part Block. The work to bring these controls is thankfully underway!
If you want to add a paragraph block to the Cover and that block includes a longer text, there seems to be no way to make that block of text narrow.
@agabu in this comment.
Confusing: adding the pages to Navigation. I wouldn’t have known I needed to use the Page Link block if you hadn’t instructed me to do so.
@agabu in this comment.
I think it would be good to add padding and margin options to the columns block.
@askdesign in this comment.
My initial impulse when attempting to rename the template part was to click on the block heading text “Untitled Template Part”. Instead of making the title editable, I was offered the option to transform the block.
@chthnc in this comment.
One part that was somewhat unclear is the alignment options aren’t reflected in the editor vs how they display on the site. Specifically for the custom footer section, when selecting full width I see it is applied when I view on the front-end, but in editor it was not full-width. I figured out that I needed to set the footer to full width as well as the columns within to full width to see it reflected in editor.
@circlecube in this comment.
Collection of Miscellaneous Bugs & Enhancements
As with every call for testing, it’s not just for finding bugs! It’s also important to hear about features that people reach for and find are missing. This section is a “catch-all” to cover all additional features and bugs that were reported that didn’t nicely correspond with a particular block or categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging..
When viewing the page on the front-end, it would be great to have the ability to open its template directly from the top admin bar.
@agabu in this comment.
While performing this test I thought, “Why can’t I pick the template upon which my new template should be modelled?” It makes sense to be able to use a template as a template. This would be a nice feature.
@bobbingwide in this comment.
Choosing the pages in the nav was strange. The search is essential of course but it feels it could have a scroll to show all the pages (lazyload if many?)
@ridesirat in this comment.
This post is a summary of the fifth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through testing directly or sharing the call for testing with others. It all helps! Special thanks to the following people:
A few reminders:
What’s next for the Query BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.?
For anyone interested in the future of this powerful block, check out this overview issue tracking future improvements planned for 5.8.
How far can one go?
Since this was a more open ended call for testing with options to go further in the Query Quest if one chose to do so, it’s neat to see the directions people went. In particular, the following from @webmandesign shows a lovely take on the call for testing both in terms of the design and because @webmandesign went beyond the initial scope of the instructions:
High-Level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that’s helpful to keep in mind. In general, there was both a sense of wonder in what the Query Block is capable of combined with a sense of being overwhelmed for the same reason:
It is kind of stressful customizing the Query block layout. It makes me wonder if the placeholder when starting up should contain checkboxes suggesting additional blocks that should by default be added when a user begins to customize the design. I also find it difficult to move up and down the hierarchy of blocks. I have to look at the breadcrumbs to see where I am, and then guess which block I have to select to make specific changes.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
Loved the whole query block concept and I want more query controls for other data!
@suhayse in this comment.
I was blown away that I could change the date on posts within the editor, change featured imageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts., and make new posts. Wow!
@kristengunther in this comment.
This was my first time using the Query block and it is very cool to be able to build a list of posts and customise them without having to write WP_Query. What a revelation! Thank you to everyone who has put so much work into this block.
@getdave in this comment.
I really like this block! This will give users lots of options in customizing their post layouts!
@synorae in this comment.
What I constantly find confusing and frustrating, especially if I put myself in the shoes of new users or somebody finally switching from the Classic editor to GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ is the lack of visual references in the layout. Having to hover on elements to figure out what’s what, where things are nested, or simply try to insert a new block is still confusing when dealing with layouts. I’ve been recommending Gutenberg as default editor for blog posts to all my customers, and some are eventually getting used to it, but when it comes to creating more complex layouts things can get complicated very quickly.
@piermario in this comment.
Repeated Feedback: Control over spacing & placeholder confusion
This test, in particular, led to two main repeated points of feedback that touch on the wider themes from prior calls for testing around specific placeholders being confusing to interact with and the desire for more control over spacing/alignment of blocks. For this call for testing, the feedback centered around both how confusing the “read more” placeholder text was in the Post Excerpt Block and on desire for more control over spacing with the Columns Block.
We need margins UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. controls! So that we ourselves can control the visible gaps, and not have default gaps here and there that the theme happens to have inserted.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
I missed the ability to style the columns individually – increase the gap between the columns, but that’s not part of the current coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. column block.
@suhayse in this comment.
Content widths are very confusing. I’d expect default to be inherited from theme. For example, adding Columns block directly into “index” area content will render the block fullwidth. To control the width then, I need to wrap it in Group block, which is set to custom width while I’d prefer it to default to “Inherit default layout”.
@webmandesign in this comment.
Editing the read more text definitely works. I didn’t even know you could change it. I probably assumed you couldn’t because the cursor is a pointer when hovering/clicking it. It’s definitely not clear that it’s a placeholder. For consistency with traditional more-links, I would make “Read more…” the default text and not just a placeholder. Users could still delete it if they didn’t want it to appear.
@greenshady in this comment.
Spacing is very off and inconsistent. But this is actually very common issue with block editor and very difficult to tackle 100% in themes, probably even impossible due to different HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. in editor and website front-end. Margins (+ padding) control for every block would be very beneficial.
@webmandesign in this comment.
Configuration Improvements
The Query Block is a complex, powerful block that makes the configuration step both tricky and crucial. In the long run, the plan is still for this to be more of a theme author tool rather than something an end user will interact with. Regardless, the current setup is worth evolving even if only to benefit theme authors and, later, end users when more block variations are explored!
Of the items in this section, the most prominent and recurring piece of feedback was the desire to make it easier to switch the initial pattern since, if you want to switch the pattern you’re using mid way through, you essentially have to start over completely. Addressing this is currently under discussion and should improve with updates like this coming to 10.6 that make the initial setup exploration more intuitive.
I wanted to go back and change the size selection to the query loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop.. I think there was large, medium, small. Is there a way to change that layout after you’ve customized that query block? Seems like it should be part of “Display Settings” in the block controls.
@suhayse in this comment.
Is there a way to change the layout of the query after you choose it? For example, if I chose one and then customized some things – can I can change layouts later on or do I have re-make the whole query block? I couldn’t figure this out.
@kristengunther in this comment.
When adding a dark background color I tried to set the text color to a light color and was surprised when changing it had no effect. Only after thinking this through did I realise I needed to alter the Link Color in order to have the text color change.
@getdave in this comment.
I expected the Query Block to have the ability to make all the featured images within the block the same size, but that didn’t happen.
@synorae in this comment.
Settings Improvements
Outside of the initial configuration steps of the Query Block, the options are endless for deeper customizations. This section of feedback seeks to focus on that experience, whether that’s altering the Query settings or the problems that came up around adding various blocks into the loop itself.
At a high level, a major point of feedback centered around general confusion for why certain settings existed in one place and not another. In many ways, the various settings one might interact with to create what you want with the Query B,lock felt split across too many places in an unpredictable and counterintuitive way. For example, you might want the block to display a certain categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. but only 3 posts from that category. To do that, you have to interact with the block sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. settings first to set the category before using the block toolbar to select the number of visible posts. While people were ultimately able to find what they needed, it leaves lots of room for improvement in streamlining the creation workflow.
When selecting the category of the Query block, it would be nice to be able to select from a list of existing categories instead of suggestions from input. Because I do not remember all the categories.
From a member of the Japanese WordPress community.
Having some query controls in the block toolbar and others in the block’s sidebar seemed confusing. Colocating them would seem more logical. I appreciate we’ve probably placed the “most common” controls in the toolbar for convenience but having to jump between locations when customising the query didn’t make for a smooth experience. Perhaps duplicate the toolbar controls into the sidebar?
@get_dave in this comment.
Can I make the date italics? I didn’t see many text styling options for the post date.
@kristengunther in this comment.
Collection of Miscellaneous Bugs & Enhancements
As in the past, there are sometimes bugs that don’t fit nicely into a specific category, but that are still worth mentioning. To make it easier for those working on full site editing to get a sense of bugs at a glance, they have all been shared here:
When I added a “Login/out” block, I was able to click on it, and the outer part of the admin panel were displayed twice.
From a member of the Japanese WordPress community.
Some of the patterns don’t respond well as the screen gets smaller.
@getdave in this comment.
I wanted to try using keyboard and tried to look for shortcuts from the “Keyboard Shortcuts” menu in the toolbar, but it showed nothing. I’m still looking for a cheat sheet or something to try editing with keyboard only, but I still haven’t found it, and it doesn’t feel like something quite discoverable yet.
@piermario in this comment.