David Scott Lynn

HELLO! Thank You Very Much!

I tried your suggestion, and TOC still jumps down to cover the heading, so the visitor has no idea if they are at the right place. So that is not UX Useable, if you ask me. … Any other suggestions?

ALSO, the Sticky TOC does the same thing. (Scrolls down a bit too far.)

AND, your short video on the Sticky TOC shows an “X” in upper right corner of the TOC to Close the menu. But there is NO “X” in MY Sticky TOC. And clicking outside the TOC does NOT close the menu. The only way I can close the menu is I have a Speed Contact Bar that can be at top or bottom of page, and clicking on THAT will close the page.

So there is no other way to close the menu, except, it WILL close when they click on a TOC item. But, if they do NOT click on a TOC item, the only way to close the TOC is to go all the way to the top or bottom of the page and click outside the page in the Speed Contact Bar, which is v3ry narrow. You can position the bar all the way at top OR bottom, but not both. Clicking on that to close the TOC is completely NOT intuitive.

So someone could click on the Sticky TOC just to see what’s there, decide NOT to click on anything, then try to close the TOC. But the ONLY way to close the TOC is click on a menu item or in the Speed Contact Bar. But given how some people just don’t figure stuff like that out intuitively, they just might give up click off the site.

AND, to add to all that, I cannot scroll the Sticky TOC, and it does not scroll with the page, as the in-page TOC does, so all that can see is the top half or so of the Sticky TOC items.

OKAY. I hope that made sense. I try to be succinct but fully accurate.

Thank You Very Much & Take Care,
Davide Scott Lynn

Thank You Very Much, Bruna! Very Sorry I’ve been distracted by a big legal issue I had to write a big document for. But I’m back! … I had a programmer at InMotion working on this MailPoet issue, and he said he tried everything he could think of. Yet I’ll send him the list you sent and see if he’s accounted for those. I do think I saw that list in your support docs and asked about those things, but some of it was over my head! Thank You Again, Bruna!

Well, as numerous and near-panicked WP Developers and high-end Users (many with a LOT of clients) pointed out in the pages of these Reviews, there is a high risk of the Classic Editor plugin causing its own problems. So I downloaded it and activated it to see what happens.

I then got a 500 Internal Server Error. … But that was EASY to fix.

I went into File Manager at the server and deleted the Classic Editor plugin. And now, it does not cause any trouble at all!

;-))

*Auto-Update Heard Around The World*

@magicroundabout

I had to look up “affordances.” Interesting word.

Your descriptions of working with Gutenberg confirm my fears. I could not get ANYWHERE with the new interface, for some reason. I write mostly text with an occasional image when necessary for the meaning of the article, or the obligatory SEO mandated image. But I cannot see AT ALL how this “block” thing is going to help ME produce better content, and will probably slow me down A LOT.

GOODBYE Productivity!

But your descriptions of what problems you found were instructive for me as far as what to look out for, should I need to use Gutenberg (which I do NOT want to do AT ALL).

@gonzaguegb

You’ve got some great comments on the various Review threads here. …

Above, you said, “That is pretty scary to read this, you guys are just discovering now that we all have our unique ways to work …”

I would say that, as a NOT very sophisticated user, at least HALF the many Reviews I’ve read here have me VERY scared. … Literally.

Trying to be “objective,” I’m starting to think that Gutenberg is actually, in some ways, more like a Theme than a Plugin. Or should be. Mainly because it just overwhelms the entire structure and content creation experience. It’s a complete makeover of the deepest kind, like a Theme is.

I’m not a Developer, so maybe I don’t know what the heck I’m doing or talking about? But Gutenberg, to me, FEELS more like a Theme. But so does Elementor. Probably because Gutenberg is on the way to being a page builder more than a writing platform.

But I was able to create exactly NO content in my several attempts to use Gutenberg. I just could NOT make it work.

But I am really confused as to why all this is so necessary? Or maybe I’m NOT confused but I just can’t believe it’s happening? Or don’t WANT to believe it. … I just do NOT have the time nor skill/experience levels to mess with things if the various disasters many Reviewers predict actually come to pass.

@magicroundabout and @gonzaguegb

Many Thanks For Posting Your Comments! It helps even less savvy people like ME not be taken by surprise (too much) if we forget to turn off the auto-update before 5.0 comes out.

But I cannot help thinking about the *Auto-Update Heard Around The World* when so many people wake up one morning to a WP site that isn’t quite, or at all, what it used to be.

DSL

[THIS IS AN ADDITION TO MY INITIAL COMMENTS … AFTER TRYING TO USE GUTENBERG AGAIN … UNSUCCESSFULLY.]

I tried on THREE DIFFERENT OCCASIONS to switch on the Gutenberg plugin and type in a Title then edit the font, color, line-break, etc. COULD NOT DO ANYTHING! Maybe it is because I have WP Edit Pro activated, which I paid for, and maybe it’s overriding the Guten Editor?

EXCEPT, there is NO SIGN of WP Edit Pro on the page. So if it is causing problems, it is doing it while hiding in the background. I want WP Edit Pro BACK on my editing screen. So of course, after half an hour of staring, messing around, clicking around, etc, I just go Deactivate the Guten plugin and HOPE this situation is going to change DRAMATICALLY before 5.0 comes out.

Otherwise, I am, it appears, soon to be dead in the water if I stay with WP.

Given that I’m more of an Advanced User than a Developer, I want the simple, straightforward, “‘Don’t Make Me Think’ about the technology” editing layout. I want to focus on my creative process, on words flowing onto the page with minimal resistance from my tools. If a carpenter has to THINK about his hammer when pounding nails, his speed and accuracy will drop dramatically. His hammer should be in “invisible extension” of his arm, not something he has to think about. (And yes, I’ve swung a LOT of hammers in my earlier life.)

I do NOT want to be constantly trying to figure out where things are, how to make them “appear,” and the other added steps apparently destined to be part of the WP “Experience.” WordPress should be “invisible” to me when I am trying to write, illustrate, and otherwise produce CONTENT because THAT is the name of the game.

And I am so SICK of seeing these websites with these big, huge blocks on the page with all these huge images adding NOTHING to the intellectual value of content on the page. YES, when it is appropriate, an illustration can be VERY valuable. Sometimes many of them. But MOST of the images I see on websites these days seem completely arbitrary and just “there” for no real reason except some graphics person told them they needed to have lots of Big Pretty Pictures on the page.

(I’ve been speculating that this whole “WP block editing” thing was the brainchild of some WP developer who’s infatuated with these big, pretty picture distractions.)

Yet STILL, today, some of THE most successful marketing pieces are the old-style, long-form marketing copy with FEW or NO images, just several, sometimes MANY, pages of text, with headings, sub-headings, bullet points, and some colored text here and there. Sometimes, there IS an image, or several if useful, if it CLEARLY adds to the intent of the copy, rather than be the huge distraction most of these images seem to be. (Unless, of course, you are an artist, photographer, bridal source, travel to beautiful destinations, and other such businesses or hobbies. Then the pretty picture web page makes total sense.)

But THAT should, in MY view, be part of the THEME selection, not have WP be dominated by the Core itself operating like a wanna-be theme. If I wanted all those “blocks,” well, that’s what I have Elementor for. (I tried SiteOrigin and did NOT like it very much.)

And Developers are always talking about how code should not be bloated and run as streamlined as possible. I cannot see, nor do I hear, that Gutenberg is streamlined as far as code goes.

Yes, I know there is a plugin that is supposed to override Guten. But that seems TOTALLY backward, with even MORE code to get glitchy, especially when the Comments in these Reviews appear to be running about two to one AGAINST using Guten as core to WP. And some say that override plugin IS glitchy. So it is not just MY imagination or lack of skill.

So I fear the worst, and rather than doing what I SHOULD be doing, producing more content & marketing pieces for the re-start of my business, I’m “Content Paralyzed,” wandering around the internet looking for replacements for WP JUST in case 5.0 turns out to be the disaster some VERY experienced and knowledgeable people here think it will. Because I do not want to get my business relaunch rolling then get sidetracked or delayed having to do damage control and get a whole new learning curve going to have a simple content production interface.

As I’ve said above and elsewhere, I prefer a Guten-Free Diet. If I want to experiment with a Guten Burger later on when I have time to kill, fine. I can switch on the plugin then. But right now, it is literally a scary situation from a business and sanity point of view.

Thank You for Your Response, @davidmcc3 !

Glad I’m not alone on all this! I hate being a “negative person,” but this is too important to not call it like we see it!

Best Regards to YOU, too!
DSL

@clorith

Thank You for the Invitation to contribute, Marius! But I have to say, I don’t know how much I can contribute. I’m just not that tech-savvy on the backend stuff. You asked:

“Are there any approaches you think we could take to improve upon this, to make the transition easier on those that are already familiar with how things are today? If so, we would love to hear them, as this is an important part of the transition!”

I’ll get to that below, but FYI …

The theme I’ve been using for a few years, Weaver Extreme, has already fully embraced Gutenberg for those who want to use it. They claim to have more fully integrated Gutenberg into the Weaver Extreme Theme than just about any other theme developer has. Yet even so, I cannot do ANYTHING except type words in the editing blocks. But I can find NO text editing tools AT ALL.

Weaver Extreme has a number of sample pages demoing Guten on their website:

https://weavertheme.com/gutenberg-with-weaver-xtreme-demo/

Yet I am getting VERY upset. I don’t know how representative their demo pages are, but they are ALL these pages with “full width,” HUGE image, Parallax monstrosities I find almost intolerable to look at. Now maybe I’m overreacting and will NOT have to do so, but the idea of even MAYBE having to PRODUCE a website looking like that, with those kinds of full width, etc., elements, makes my stomach turn.

I do NOT go to websites to sit in a mini-movie theatre and be “wowed” by huge images that are 90%+ WASTES of precious space and time. I go to get Information & Insight. Yet now-a-days, so often, I have to scroll down the page JUST to find out if there is any text on the page! So much for “don’t make me think” and “don’t make me scroll.” … It’s a Space / Time DISS-Continuum!

I’m getting VERY concerned I’ll have very little control over such things.

And THERE is another lesson from the marketing world. Some of THE most successful marketers ON EARTH use NO images at all, and just medium size headlines and subheadings, going right into long-form copy, using LOTS of text. They only use images when they are directly relevant to the message they’re writing about.

I think the whole web thing got taken over by a bunch of Wanna-Be Photographers and Bells & Whistle Web Designers who are forcing their personal love of Big (often barely relevant) Images and these weird & distracting “Parallax” scrolling actions and whatever onto us who want to consume, or deliver, INFORMATION … NOT Pretty Pictures!

As the great marketers tell us, a picture says a thousand words. They ALSO say, WHICH thousand words? You have to tell people which thousand by WRITING them. Sometimes, the pictures don’t tell you much. I find that to have become VERY true in recent years on the web.

It’s probably the same people who got rid of blue, underlined links for “aesthetic” purposes. I’ll refrain from getting more specific on how I really think about those who imposed THAT “innovation” on the web industry.

Now, maybe I can still — somehow — create the page-layout style I want with Gutenberg. But so far, I am NOT optimistic, and I have NO reason to believe it so. And after ANOTHER 30 minutes of mousing around on a New Page with Gutenberg turned on, I cannot find a way to edit the heading (title) of the page.

I clicked on EVERYTHING, including into dead white space thinking MAYBE there’s a hidden link somewhere. (I read in one issue on GitHub that sometimes the colors of elements were too close to the background colors, rendering them nearly invisible.) But I found NO way to change the color, size, style, or anything. I tried to split the Heading on to two lines with Shift-Return (which I do easily in Classic WP Editor), but it just removes the space between the two words and jumps down, creating a new block of text. (I tried that half a dozen times.)

ALL I can think of is WHY am I being required to waste precious time trying to reinvent web page editing? WHY am I going to have to be one of the guinea pigs?

I’ve got several books & video courses on HTML and CSS I bought not too long ago “just in case” I ran into something I could not fix. And my very first websites were HTML coded by myself. But maybe I should go back to building a site in HTML and not have to subject myself to this “innovation” stuff except when I actually NEED it?

It’s like when Apple killed the USB and Firewire ports on the MacBook Pro. *I* am still using a 2012 machine so I can still use my peripherals. (Works pretty well, so far.)

Now, Team WP keeps saying we can use a plugin to bring the old classic editor back. Yet several dev people on this forum who are a LOT more tech-savvy than I are saying that does not, so far, work all that well. They say it’s “buggy.” I didn’t even try it. I mean, right now, all I have to do is deactivate Gutenberg, why spend time trying something that would probably be a false environment anyway, given that, most likely, it will behave VERY differently once Gutenberg is core? So my experimenting would probably be a further waste of my time.

Right now, due to taking care of two sick, elderly parents FULL TIME, I have not worked in over a YEAR. Since my Dad passed away recently, I have a little more time now, and MUST get back to work ASAP as I ran out of money and would like to keep my hosting fees (and etc.) paid. But NOW I’m worried how much time I’m going to lose messing around with this “progress” thing Team WP has gotten so fixated on.

E.G., I’ve been trying to find a replacement plugin for a Form creation tool because the very good one I was using got deprecated, and I’m wondering, HOW many plugins are going to have indigestion on the new Guten-Diet? HOW much time am I (and everyone else) going to spend searching for replacement parts — themes & plugins — for the sake of someone’s bad dream? … Or nightmare?

(I still think Team WP got prematurely bored with Classic WP and got WAY ahead of themselves on this.)

Frankly, I’m Highly Offended I even have to worry about this. Even taking the time (MANY hours so far) to read about and write a few posts on this seems REALLY not a good use of my time. Someone like me does not want to say useless or misleading stuff, but we are less educated. So we have to take a lot more time to make sure what we are writing makes sense and is based as much as possible in facts. I for one do not want to be complaining about something without being sure of my experience.

But I have to think I’m not too far off the mark here. Especially when so many FAR more savvy people are saying Gutenberg IS a big problem, and it would be MORE than possible to have Gutenberg be the plugin and maintain the Classic Editor as Core.

OH WAIT! It does NOT take a tech-savvy person to know that because we HAVE that! Maybe THAT is the “approach” we could take to solve this transition problem?

We COULD just stay with what we have, and those who WANT the new system are free to switch to the Guten-Diet as a plugin and the rest of us can stay Guten-Free until we’re really convinced it’s NOT going to give us guten-induced indigestion, destroying our workflow, cash-flow or sanity-flow.

HMMM??? … Preserving our customers’ workflow, cashflow & sanity? … GEE, why didn’t someone think of THAT?

@pursuitforjustice

Well, I wish it wasn’t so. They DO sound sincere in their requests for input. But it seems Team WP Guten might be on the cusp of committing Professional Suicide. … Or Open-Source Suicide, anyway. … That way, they can openly share their demise mutually???

I went to GitHub, as you mentioned. Even though I probably only qualify as an Advanced Newbie, even *I* can see a DIP (disaster in progress) coming down the pike!

I only went through the titles of most of them, but I did read a few actual entries. This one was kind of fun:

“For example, I try to add a featured image and it goes through the motion of updating but it never actually does.

“To Reproduce
[skipping a bit]
4. WP Gutenburg says saving/updating, button does its fancy thing, and then it says done with a view post link
5. when clicked changes are not made. …”

I had to chuckle over “does its fancy thing” !!!

Then I had to wonder how much time Team WP Guten is putting into making “fancy things” happen? I mean, the GitBub (sorry, *GitHub*) open entries go all the way back to FEBRUARY of 2017! And I assume most of these entries are by people who are contributing their time to “helping out,” right? How much time is this going to take?

Although they ARE now down to 766 issues from 790!

Now, e.g., I’ve just spent about 10 or 12 hours searching for a new Form Builder plugin after my old one (Fast, Secure Contact Form) got bought then the new developer put some malicious code in. So that plugin has been deprecated (thankfully discovered by WP plugin team) before it did any damage). And I’m not done looking yet! (I had no idea form builders were so varied in their features.) If it takes me this long JUST to find a form replacement plugin, THEN learn the ins and outs of that, HOW much time and I going to spend trying to get used to the new Guten Diet, a complete rebuild of the system?

And how many of these many WP plugins I’ve got installed are going to have to be replaced or modified when Guten hits the bakery counter?

Makes my stomach and brain hurt just thinking about it. I just don’t have the time to be one of the WP 5.0 Crash Test Smarties! (I did not want to be offensive, so I changed to *Smarties* from *Dummies.*)

Anyway, Pursuit For (in)Justice, thank you for preparing me for what might be a trying time of poor digestion and injustices to all of us who just want to do our REAL work rather than be involuntary WP developers.

HELLO @pursuitforjustice!

Thank You Very Much for your Positive Comments … !!!

Very Sorry I disappeared. I’ve been doing Home Health Care for my two elderly parents the last solid YEAR (VERY time consuming & exhausting) and I’m just now getting back to my WP websites after a LONG absence. (Unfortunately, because my Dad just passed away, my time is freed up somewhat. He taught me a LOT about how to operate in life, even though he was not a techie.)

Anyway, to your question, somehow I’ve not in 13 years found much in the way of consolidated, large groups who are big on WP. Most of them are, apparently, right here in the www.ads-software.com website, WP Tavern, the WordCamp crowds, and such. Everone else is scattered about haphazardly. There are so many small groups that add up to a LOT, but just a few here & there. So I don’t know how much of an “Impact Group” I could help you find. There are a LOT of online, WP-focused MeetUp Groups, but only a few people in each group.

I think a Guten-Free Poem would be GREAT!

My Basic Thoughts about it all are from the world of Internet Marketing:

1. One of the principles of marketing is to make a REALLY big difference, you have to be willing to say the same old thing, over and over again, until you are bored stiff with it.

Too many marketers get bored with their message just about the time it starts to take hold. JUST when they’re about to hit critical mass (say, 25% of website creators), they say, “Let’s modernize our marketing!” “Let’s change our logo.” or “Let’s <whatever>.”. … And then, they LOSE their momentum because they changed their primary message JUST when it was starting to resonate with the mass market. …

The WP Team might be doing the SAME thing. JUST when the mass market is starting to catch on, WP is changing the game. Maybe because the WP Team has gotten bored with their own creation?

2. Another principle from marketing & user interface guidelines (and the name of a book from a few years ago) is “Don’t Make Me Think!” The idea is to make the technology as invisible as possible so the creative & innovative process is NOT interfered with any more than necessary. …

(Like when some Creative Genius decided to get rid of blue-underlining for links, and now you have to drag your cursor all over the screen to find whether anything is clickable or not.)

So when I went into the new Gutenberg system, I could NOT make it do basic things I do without any effort at all in the old WP Editor. (Or even in TextEdit on my Mac!) I got hung up RIGHT at the beginning of trying to write a new post. … And I’m no dope, and the guy many of my friends look to, to help solve their problems on Macs and WordPress. (I think it was formatting the Title block of the page. I have a particular style I use, and could not for the life of me figure out how to apply ANY formatting, let alone my preferred style.) …

SOOO … are The Gutenberg Dietitians making me think too hard and slowing down my creative process? MAYBE the editing solution is simple. But I could not find it. Maybe I’m just too dumb?

Is it good for the WP Guten Team to make me feel dumb? Will feeling chronically dumb give me IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)?

And YES, I see NO reason to try and be anything at all like WIX. I just helped a friend set up a WordPress site, from scratch, with no experience with C-Panel, in a matter of a few minutes, and she immediately saw NO reason to try and work with WIX, which she was already somewhat familiar with.

NOW, *IF* they keep WP Core same as we are used to, AND give us the option of dabbling in The Guten Diet WITH tutorials right there & easily accessible, I’m more than happy to explore here & there. But I am PRIMARILY a writer and content creator, NOT a WP Expert wanna-be. I do NOT want my primary focus to be on WP, but on my creative process. (Yes, I think WP is VERY interesting, and I want to know as much about it as possible. But NOT to the sacrifice of my other work.)

And I do not want to have to hire a WP Expert to help me. Never have in 13 years.

So right now, I’m VERY trepidatious (HUH? I’ve NEVER used that word in writing OR speaking before!) as to how well I will adapt to the new Guten-based system.

I wish I could help you get your word out to more people, @pursuitforjustice, and I will see what I can come up with. But Thank You Again, and Good Luck on dealing with the New Platform!

Thank You @markciotola for your input. It will help me going forward with WP as all this Gutenberg stuff unfolds.

Though I’ve been using WP since 2005, I’m really only an “Advanced Newbie.” And really, all I do is write some VERY long articles with some images embedded in the text, with LOTS of sub-headings and some links.

It sounds like what you’re describing is a REAL headache.

And, BTW, call me a throwback to newspaper days when important stuff was supposed to be “above the fold,” but I DETEST these new HUGE & full-width images people are putting at top of their posts. Having to scroll down just to see if there’s any text there is a big distraction and waste to me. So having a block JUST for those images seems like a BIG distraction & waste.

Anyway, your comment will help me decide what I should be doing if, for example, they take surveys to decide whether Gutenberg should be in Core or not, or whatever. I don’t think the WP Core Team will be too concerned about feedback from less-sophisticated users like me, so I doubt I’d have much influence.

But Thank You for taking your time & intelligence to post your experiences. It will be helpful!

David Scott Lynn

>It is like being locked into a flying car before it has wings that is then thrown off of a cliff.

THAT does not sound like a lot of fun??? … Is there a plugin to fix that?

(REALLY made me laugh, BTW, which I really needed, so Thank You!)

David Scott Lynn

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by David Scott Lynn.

Thank You Vey Much, @pursuitforjustice !!! … I hope I’m not wasting too much of your time here, but …

I was lucky enough that you are only my second WP.org Forum Post to read on Glutenberg (Oh, Sorry, that’s GUTEN-berg, I write a lot about health stuff, so easy mistake to make) on www.ads-software.com Forums. …

The FIRST Post was from @dividendninja and his AMAZING POEM, *A Visit from St. Gutenberg.* … (I wonder if he’s a full time poet and how long it took him to write that? Or id it just FLOW out in stream of consciousness?)

Anyway, your summary has saved me a LOT of time & trouble. Though I’ve been using WordPress since 2005, I’m only an Advanced Newbie compared to a LOT of you WP Users here. I actually only have a working knowledge of probably less than HALF of what you wrote about above.

So if YOU are having so many issues with Gutenberg, it will make my decision & implementation process more streamlined. I won’t stress near as much about whether I should be opting out of it, if it’s possible to do so.

I can only wonder how many New Users of WP after the Big Release will have a LOT of trouble adapting to what looks like a minefield coming up.

Hopefully, people like you can convince the WordPress Core Team to allow those of us who want to be on a Guten-Free Diet ;-} to do so without too much hassle.

So Thank You Very Much, Again, @pursuitforjustice,
Take Care!
David Scott Lynn

Thank You to the above contributors. I too had problem with Cloudflare plugin:

Blank Settings page.

Even though I had already on previous day installed Cloudflare and CloudFlare Flexible SSL on four different sites with NO problems.

But the latest install produced blank setting page.

Based on your above comments, I don’t really need the plugin that much, if at all. If there IS a good reason to keep and maintain it, I’d be happy to hear about it! … Although some might say I have too many plugins installed as it is!!!

So Thank You for the clarification.
Take Care,
David Scott Lynn

Hello!

Brand New User here. …

Same Issue: Blank white page to right of Settings menu with Cloudflare menu item highlighted.

I tried reinstalling plugin, logged out and in, went to other plugin pages then back to Cloudflare, and various other small attempts of fixes, with no improvement in situation.

Ironically, I have installed both the Cloudflare and CloudFlare Flexible SSL plugins on 4 different sites already, on two different host servers, with NO problems.

Any clues on how to clear this up?

And given the same complaint was voiced by @rusella 9 WEEKS ago, and others since then, I’m wondering if Support for this plugin is disappearing?

Thank You Very Much,
David Scott Lynn

Thank You Very Much. Will do as you say. …
BUMMER, though.

JUST what I needed to distract me from more important and productive work!
Take Care,
David