1. The new Block Editor has finally caught me in its sticky sand trap ways. My blogger people know what I’m talking about. I fought the good fight for as long as I could but we’ve definitely landed in serious Suck It Up time. Ugh.
2. I passed my six year milestone last week. Six years of throwing my ideas out into the universe on the WordPress platform and it’s been a good ride.
3. Okay, sure, there’ve been a few bumps here and there but mostly? Mostly Riddle from the Middle has been life changing for me and I’m grateful. With an itty bitty caveat.
4. You see, someone up there in corporation world decided they needed a reboot. At the risk of sounding like I’m 100 years old I just don’t get it, everything was working fine – you came on the platform, you created a post, you published said post and voilà! What’s not working about that? Nothing. Nothing’s not working about that.
5. So you can imagine how I felt when they rolled out something called the new Block Editor where everything looks just slightly funky and instead of typing stuff in and formatting it like, you know, people do you insert types of blocks that are particular styles. I guess? I dunno, short of unicorns popping up and dancing across my screen I’m just not seeing the appeal.
6. Which is why I scammed the system for almost a year. First that meant not selecting “switch to Block Editor” when prompted. They thought they’d shame me into it by calling the old system the “CLASSIC” Editor but I’m not falling for that. I’m happy to be a classy girl.
7. Then they started force dropping me into Block Editor screens. Click on a post title to edit it? Get dropped into the Block Editor. Click Add New to start a post? Get dropped into the Block Editor. Try to search the comment queue? Get dropped into the Block Editor. NOT TODAY SATAN.
8. I found the workaround by doing everything off my post list screen. There was a drop down choice for Add New via the Classic Editor, and when I needed to update a published post it had a Classic Editor option for opening it. Problem solved.
9. Turns out this week Satan took the wheel. Saturday came, I clicked my post list link, AND IT DROPPED ME INTO AN ENTIRELY REDESIGNED PLATFORM. Block Editor had taken over. There was no workaround, no cheatsheet shortcut to get me back to my happy place. I was stuck in the Block Editor with no way out.
10. I can tell you right off the bat that the fact there’s no drop down search field to find posts by date or category is a major bummer but it looks like I’m stuck learning a new system. No worries. We can do hard things.
Top ranting. I don’t need to rant now.
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Excellent. We can crowdsource ranting now. 🙂
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I feel your pain, but the workaround in John’s comment works to restore sanity in an otherwise insane world. Thank you, John.
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I tried it today and cried happy tears to see something familiar on my laptop. I owe him big time!
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👏
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Perhaps the change is really good for us, in that it will make us less complacent and require deeper thinking. Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s simply the work of the old change devil, the one who says “they’re looking awfully relaxed out there. Time to increase the stress level”.
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Can’t let us get too comfortable now, can they…sheesh.
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For your readers, here is the workaround. (You may want to use it too.
Open your WP, click on your face (or whatever image you use) in the circle at the top right in the black bar. Right beside the bell.
Once you have clicked there, it will bring you to your profile. On the left side, choose account settings.
Scroll down until you get to Interface settings, and there is a slide bar under Dashboard Settings. Click on that, go below the color options, and save.
Then, you will have the same admin page as before. Just like the last time when they pulled this nonsense! You can then click on posts and then add new and choose classic—courtesy of Dale Rogerson.
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Thanks for adding this here, John. I was getting ready to point Sadje back to yesterday’s post and this was simpler. Looking forward to trying the workaround!
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Be prepared to be wowed
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I gave up too and my refreshed posts will all be in block format. When you don’t use it, they find ways to mess with you. My images and line breaks were getting all messed up in classic format. My posts looked terrible on the app reader. I have learned a lot while redoing my blog!
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Sometimes there’s nothing to do but start swimming with the current, right? I’m trying to see it as an adventure.
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Congrats on six! Sorry about the Block Editor taking over. The editor is bad enough, but has some good features. The change to the Admin screens have no redeeming value thst I can see.
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Thanks, Dan. I don’t like to think of myself as stuck in my ways but these admin screens…not enjoying that change at all.
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congrats on your 6 first of all, and the wp happiness engineers are the most misnamed bunch ever. why change what makes people happy and already works for them, just offer the other as an option? no brainer in my book.
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It is!!!! I’m still trying to figure out what we weren’t able to do before that the Block Editor fixed. Surely they didn’t throw the whole system into disarray for nothing!!
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🤣 – great rant Laura! Do you feel better for that?
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I definitely feel better. 😆 usually rants clear my head enough to start fresh.
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When you’ve figured it out, let me know too. ☹️
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Check out John’s comment above. I’m planning to try today. 🙂
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Thanks Laura!
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Yeah… Suck It Up time comes when you least expect it. I believe this is the area of growth in one way or another
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True. Annoying how we never get to time these things.
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