I’m usually pretty excited about new updates to technology. New website versions up and running? I’m willing to give them a chance. Of course, Facebook is driving me nuts (especially with the Messenger updates), but I’m typically happy with the new options most programs offer when advancing further into new designs and offerings.
WordPress has been one of those websites I really, really love. I love the simplicity, I love how I almost instantly figure out what I need to do to accomplish my websites’ goals. I love that it looks nice, and that my websites reflect that. I love that it stays up-to-date.
But I’m really, REALLY not enjoying the new “New Post” and “New States” pages they are unveiling. It’s much worse than the old pages for a variety of reasons. Most of these issues are things I’ve lost with the new layout – maybe I’m missing something, but if so then so are a lot of other people. I always liked how easy it was to find things, and now I feel like a lot of stuff is just gone. For example:
- You can’t Copy a Post anymore. Especially on World of Many Pages, I work a lot with duplicated pages. I have a format for the posts, and then I simply copy and replace the information with new links and facts the next time. It’s also how I do all of Cultured Muse “Coming Exhibitions” posts. Now, I’ve checked all of the options I could find on the side panel and I can’t find that option any more. If you can tell me how, please, let me know.
- You can’t see all your Categories anymore. I currently have probably 50 categories+ on World of Many Pages and tons on my other blogs as well. Tags aren’t that bad, because they are always changing and I don’t do much with a Tag Cloud. But Categories are really important to my website organization. I like being able to see the hierarchy of categories when I post and to verify that I’ve checked everything I need to. Now, I have to either run two pages concurrently, flipping back and forth between the post and a categories page or I just have to guess and hope I hit everything. It is even worse remembering what the exact name of the parent category was to add a new one. The process now sucks.
- The coloring is not Contrasting enough. This is probably my own fault, but I do a lot of typing and working at night or in the dark. I’m on layover or sharing a hotel room with other roommates, I end up doing a lot of work in dark or dim locations. And I liked the obvious contrast with dark letters and white spaces on the old layout. The new pale blue on pale blue doesn’t really stand out and is difficult to read. Okay, this is really picky, but still, as a frequent writer, it’s a change and I don’t like it.
- The “Add Media” keeps screwing up now. My pictures are coming out either really tiny (even when the original was huge) or the center adjust button won’t work or the edit button won’t show up. Pictures won’t copy and post. Ever since they changed over to this layout, I keep running into problems. Whenever I changed over to the old system, it cleared up.
- The words don’t show color or font changes. Has anyone else had this problem? You change the color or font of the text, and the changes won’t appear unless you look at “Preview” or post it. It’s annoying because I keep having to go back and change things that didn’t fix. Stupid thing.
- As for the new stat’s page. That actually isn’t too bad, mostly because I don’t see anything really different! The one big change that stands out to me though is that I can’t find my overall site count. It used to be right at the top beside the flag, but now, it’s gone unless I check out my front page widget. I liked having it on the state page.
I get it, you need to keep stuff new and shiny for the users. And it usually appeals to me – I like bright and shiny things. I don’t like these changes. Maybe I’m being petty, the losses aren’t all that massive in the grand scheme of life. But for a writer, a few of these have been pretty big for me. I was okay while they still gave me the chance to go back. The chance to to the “Classic” system. However, now I can’t even find that. And it’s frustrating me like ******* Blech. I have a lot of bad words in my head right now, and, attempting to be a good Christian teacher/role model I can’t say them.
Stupid thing.
And now, my weekly rant is over 🙂
Deceptively Blonde 
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