2.5 admin backend annoying

During the RC1 or RC2 of WP 2.5 I discovered a bug in the Media Manager/uploader. Posted to the trac and next day it has been fixed. BTW, that was my first trac post ever!

During the testing period (I can’t recall if it was 2.5 RC1 or 2.4-bleeding) I too found a bug, submitted it on the wp-testers mailing list and it was fixed right away.

wow. I’m completely dumbfounded by this thread!

WP is free software. Well. Yes of course it is. However, the main WP developers ARE MAKING A LIVING OFF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aka wordpress.com

I hate these stupid arguments that its free so quit bitching.

Let me put it this way. WP gained a lot of popularity pre 2.5 This was due largely because of how easy it was to use. It did a lot of things really well. It became so popular that wordpress.com was created to commercialize the development.

Now lets look post 2.5. If you guys are indeed going to ignore the outcry of how awful 2.5 is (ok certain features are.) then I guarantee the following. WP will lose popularity. Someone else will do better. WP will become a has been. WP.com will start losing people and its ability to continue to pay people.

I would also be very surprised if those contributors to the WP code base weren’t making a decent living off of WP. I doubt they are doing it just because. I’m sure that the majority are doing it because they are leveraging WP to their own clients. If not, then it is likely they are leveraging it to the commercial success of their own site. Maybe there are a couple devs who simply are in it because its fun.

I really hope there are indeed folks with direct influence on WP listening to the people who make WP what it is. You are only as successful as your users.

WP gained a lot of popularity pre 2.5 This was due largely because of how easy it was to use.

we have a winner!! , can i get my old admin back?

@gambit37:
Firstly, playing the “I’m hurt” card holds no bones with me. Sorry. I was stating the facts as I see them. You’re free to disagree with them as you see fit, I really don’t much care.

However, a few points in your post are worth expanding upon.

I thought open source software was made by the people, for the people? Your response suggests otherwise which leaves me rather confused.

Well, I’m not surprised that you’re confused, because you thought wrong in the first place.

Open Source Software starts by somebody needing to fill a need of their own. Eric S. Raymond pointed this out in the first few paragraphs of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and it’s a simple truth.

He goes on to point out that Open Source projects don’t actually have “users”. They really have “co-developers”. You’re as free to change the software as anybody else is. There’s a consequence of this too, if you don’t change the project to fit your needs, then it probably won’t get changed to fit your needs unless somebody else has the same needs or you get somebody to change it for you.

Open Source software is made by the people creating it for the people creating it. Not for anybody else. If you’re not one of the people actually assisting in its creation, then it’s really not being made for you. This is a general principle, not specific to any particular project.

It comes as a blow to discover we’ve been putting our efforts into a pointless activity, through no fault of our own.

Yes, well, now you know. I’m sorry that you were confused, but my goal was to end your confusion. Complaining to me about being confused really means nothing to me, does it? I don’t have any power to change things here. “Moderator” powers lie mostly in being capable of dealing with spam on these forums. That’s about it, really.

Why not take our issue to somebody who can actually change it and tell them that the Feedback forum is misleading and needs improving?

You’re perfectly welcome to take it up with somebody capable of making changes to that effect. I recommend the mailing lists, like I did earlier. There’s one in particular called “wp-forums” that would be a good one to start with.

However, the most likely change will simply be to remove the feedback forum. You cannot force people to read something that they’re not reading. When I said that the devs mostly don’t read these forums, it just an observation. Complaining that this forum exists and nobody’s reading it will probably not be particularly constructive.

If what you say is true about this area being user-to-user only…

Don’t get confused now. This forum is user-to-user only more or less by default. There’s no particular design goal of that fact, it’s just that the mailing lists tend to be more focused on actually improving the code and changing the code than these forums are.

The forums are intended for support purposes. The mailing lists are expressly not for support purposes, they are for development of the codebase and talk about the codebase.

The other avenues you mention are currently pretty well hidden and not easy for someone to find. Why is WordPress so keen on making it hard for people to voice their criticisims?

Because criticisms are, usually, useless. A suggestion of how to make a specific fix, or even better a patch to fix it, would be useful. Simply saying that some thing sucks is not particularly useful in any way at all unless you also have a helpful suggestion on a specific way to fix it.

Look, I sympathize, but looking through this thread, almost none of the posts here is either technical enough or contains enough useful suggestions on specifics to be worth putting on the development mailing lists. Software development is not simply about telling somebody what you want the software to do, because you’re not the only user and there’s a thousand other voices disagreeing with you…

This is open source software, not some global monopoly. You should be ENCOURAGING us to contribute, and in an open way, not through arcanely labelled systems hidden in the depths of the site.

You’re quite welcome to contribute. I’ve been trying to direct you to the right places to do so. Why do you think I posted in this thread in the first place?

If you guys are indeed going to ignore the outcry of how awful 2.5 is (ok certain features are.)

… I honestly do not understand where in the heck you are reading this from!

I mean, I TOLD you where to go to offer your valuable input. I specifically pointed to the correct places! Trac, the mailing lists… I said those in my very first post in the thread which started this argument…

What is so hard to understand here? Where in the heck are you getting the idea that you’re being ignored?

I’m right here. I hear you. But I’m only one person. I was TRYING to get you all to go somewhere USEFUL and contribute THERE. This is in order to have more people AGREEING WITH ME on what the problem areas are. Get it? Do you understand now?

I mean, for god’s sake, how difficult do you people have to be here? I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to get you to help me. How much more clear can I possibly make it?

Moshu, thanks for your thoughtful reply. So: can we submit suggestions and feedback to the Trac list? I thought it was for bugs only. None of the other mailing lists that Otto pointed us to seem quite appropriate for simple feedback and suggested alternatives. It all seems oriented toward people who are in a position to help with coding, not plain old users.

Otto, your attitude is not constructive. I know there’s been a very strong response through these forums and some people have been rather rude in their remarks about the developers, so I can understand your frustration. But I think maybe you need to take a break and leave the moderating to others and get some perspective because this thread has been very constructive, and here’s why:

Even if the moderators don’t read this thread, plugin writers might. This is why we love WP – because if the developers don’t make things like we want ’em, you can bet sooner or later some plugin writers will create workarounds. Then everyone can be happy.

Eric23 already wrote a beautiful edit-advanced-form php that puts the categories back in the sidebar. That alone was worth the whole thread to me – makes half my problems with 2.5 go away just like that. In fact, I got so inspired that I modified it further so the tags appear in the sidebar, too. Not terribly pretty (can’t figure out how to shrink the box for the tags), but it works for me. If anyone’s interested, right click here and “save link as.” (If I can scrape a few hours together this weekend, I am even going to try to learn plugin writing so I *can* contribute something more, and this thread provided the inspiration to do it.)

Second, I think a lot of the criticism in here has been constructive. I’ve been using WP for 4 years, and until now no upgrade has included so many changes that increase my workload instead of reducing it. I can’t fathom the logic behind some of them, so I came here to see if others were feeling the same way or I was the only one. Knowing a lot of people are annoyed by the same things reassures me that the issues WILL be addressed by either the developers or plugin writers.

Otherwise, I was about ready to seriously consider another blogging platform. It would not be an exaggeration to say this thread changed my mind.

We cross-posted, and in the interim Otto basically insinuated that we’re all morons:

A suggestion of how to make a specific fix, or even better a patch to fix it, would be useful. Simply saying that some thing sucks is not particularly useful in any way at all unless you also have a helpful suggestion on a specific way to fix it.

LOL. We’re not offering technical solutions because “go back to how it was in 2.3.3” does not require additional technical solutions to implement.

To borrow your tone, what’s so hard to understand about that? ??

Otto, your attitude is not constructive. I know there’s been a very strong response through these forums and some people have been rather rude in their remarks about the developers, so I can understand your frustration.

…

Wow. Okay, I’m sorry, but any “attitude” you’re reading is something that you are reading, not something I am putting there. I’m not frustrated at all, I’m annoyed that none of the people here are elsewhere where the real discussions are happening.

I’m honestly trying to help you guys here. Really. And I’m trying to do that by trying to get you to go to the places and help me by participating in meaningful discussions that actually have a chance of accomplishing something.

Is this really so difficult a concept to grasp? Is life outside of these forums too much to ask?

We cross-posted, and in the interim Otto basically insinuated that we’re all morons:

…
Again, where are you getting this crap?!?

LOL. We’re not offering technical solutions because “go back to how it was in 2.3.3” does not require additional technical solutions to implement.
To borrow your tone, what’s so hard to understand about that? ??

What’s so difficult to understand about it is that it’s not constructive. Mainly because a) it’s never going to happen and b) going backwards != going forwards.

Specific suggestions on how to improve the interface would be welcomed. But you’re not making any suggestions with the “go back to how it was” comment, because that’s a criticism without a useful and constructive idea attached to it.

For example, saying that the categories selection on the write page would be better if it was back up on the sidebar instead of below the fold is a useful suggestion. Saying that the fixed width of the write screen is annoying to users with wide screens would be a helpful suggestion. Suggesting ways to arrange the elements on the screen, even if not done in a technical way, would be a helpful suggestion.

Saying “2.5 sucks, 2.3.3 was better” is not a useful suggestion. It’s not specific. And it’s also likely to be met with a “well, then use 2.3.3 instead” response.

I also made some changes to the write panels (both post and page). There’s a screen print of the Write Post panel here, and one of the Write Page Panel here. You can see that menus like “Category,” “Comments & Pings,” and “Page Template” are moved back to the sides. They still use the twisty arrow to open the menu (all menus are closed in the pictures). I didn’t move Tags because I didn’t want to mess with the table and I sort of like the tags at the bottom. I made changes to three files, and you can download a zip of my changes here. Just upload to the indicated folder in your self-hosted WP.

I also use Fluency, and the changes I made that work with the plain WP panels do not work with Fluency. So if you use Fluency also, please download this version, which includes very minor Fluency CSS changes.

And where are YOU getting that we haven’t been making exactly the suggestions you’re saying would be constructive?

Read Sillybean’s summary of the thread on page 3.

The pre-fill on link insertions, for example, is something where we’re not offering technical suggestions because we know the developers know how to code it the way we’re requesting – because that’s how it was coded in 2.3.3. I wasn’t literally saying “go back to 2.3.3” (and that would be obvious if you’d read my other posts), I was referring to all the specific suggestions we’ve made that we didn’t offer code on because all we’re asking is to roll back that specific feature.

And look how you contradict yourself:

Mainly because a) it’s never going to happen and b) going backwards != going forwards.

…

For example, saying that the categories selection on the write page would be better if it was back up on the sidebar instead of below the fold is a useful suggestion. Saying that the fixed width of the write screen is annoying to users with wide screens would be a helpful suggestion. Suggesting ways to arrange the elements on the screen, even if not done in a technical way, would be a helpful suggestion.

Okay, so suggesting they put the categories back like they were is a “useful suggestion” even though it would also represent “going back” which you say doesn’t equal “going forward”?

You criticize us for not offering code, then you say it’s constructive to ask for certain features to be rolled back, as if that isn’t what 90% of this thread is saying.

And where do I get that you’re calling us morons?

Well, I’m not surprised that you’re confused, because you thought wrong in the first place.

You don’t think that sounds smug? Or how about this?

Get it? Do you understand now?

or

I mean, for god’s sake, how difficult do you people have to be here? I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to get you to help me. How much more clear can I possibly make it?

And this, the irony of which is that I’ve spent maybe 2 hours in four years in these forums:

Is this really so difficult a concept to grasp? Is life outside of these forums too much to ask?

Moshu said more that was useful in one post than you’ve said in the entire thread. I’m just hoping she or he will come back with clarification on whether non-programmers can really make use of those mailing lists you directed us to, because from the descriptions, it sure doesn’t sound like simple feedback about features is welcome. Only bug reports and code submittal.

You know, this really makes me sad because I love WordPress. And I do think this thread has had a lot of useful suggests beyond the “this sucks” variety of kvetching.

I’ve been using WordPress since May, 2004, and I’ve been participating in the forums (albeit to a lesser extent than many) since November, 2004. I, too, am no more special then anyone here. But I have used a lot of WP releases over the years.

With ever release there have been broken things and changes I didn’t like and things I did like. That’s OK. That’s how software releases are. With every release I’ve had a list of hacks and mods that I made to get it all working the way I wanted. I’m OK with that, too. I know this is free, open source software and I’m prepared to learn enough PHP, etc., to tweak. I’ve even made a suggestion that’s been incorporated (whether because of my suggestion or not). I’m comfortable putting in a Trac ticket if I find something broken.

But it seems quite strange that there’s no way for customers to let developers know that they’re off track other than to issue a bug ticket. Maybe I’m unusual, but when I was a developer, I wanted to know what my customers thought. And maybe developers do “code for themselves,” because after it’s human nature to want to do what’s fun. But it would be strange to think they didn’t care what users thought. In my experience, software companies that have the “if you don’t like it then leave” attitude find their customer base… leaving. Maybe open source projects start as coders helping coders. Considering that the major developers are now a commercial concern, I would think that they would want to pay attention regardless of the “open source” nature of the software.

Otto says,

The mailing lists are expressly not for support purposes, they are for development of the codebase and talk about the codebase.

I agree that mailing lists are not a place to say, “I don’t know any code but please make the admin panels usable again.” That could be why readers are not finding the suggestion to become involved in the mailing list not particularly helpful.

Ditto Trac. I’m betting that a lot of readers here are not comfortable with Trac. And do the developers really want Trac full of “I hate the new admin interface please move the stuff back to the sidebar” tickets? It could be that Trac is hard to find for a reason?

If this is the way that 2.5 was designed, and it is working according to that design, then it’s not a bug and shouldn’t be reported as a bug. Nor is it a testing issue. It’s the way it was designed.

It was designed badly.

If the developers see that statement as a “slap in the face,” then I suggest they get thicker skins. I am reminded of a past multi-year, multi-million-dollar project involving hundreds of people, including vendors, at the company I work for. The project failed in a quite spectacular way. At a meeting with multiple levels of employees, the CEO said that the company must never be involved in such a failure again. One person spoke up, “Please don’t call it a failure because everybody worked so hard and I don’t want them to feel bad.” The CEO said, “I don’t care how hard they worked. It failed and I’m not going to say otherwise.”

Otto also states:

Software development is not simply about telling somebody what you want the software to do, because you’re not the only user and there’s a thousand other voices disagreeing with you.

From the end user perspective, this is exactly what software development is: telling the person building the software what you want it to do. Users often can’t build the code. They have to rely on the coder to build it to their specifications. If the developers of any open source project are going to start wooing the general, non-coding public, then they need to take the needs of the general, non-coding public into consideration.

If I want to keep using WordPress, it seems like the only choices now are (1) move to wordpress.com where I will have some modicum of support but little control over my site; (2) use the www.remarpro.com software and be prepared to learn HTML, CSs, PHP, SQL and whatever else it takes to do my own support, and come to the non-support forums where I can be called an idiot by the moderators; (3) go to work for Automattic where I can be paid to ignore my customers.

How sad.

Jabecker, awesome post.

Am I doing something wrong? I clicked your download link, but it just redirected to P1 to this thread somehow(?). Then I tried to “save as” the link, but what got downloaded, Winzip reports as “not a valid archive” and won’t unzip. Your version looks awesome and I want to try the non-fluency version!

Mailing lists are not a place to say, “I don’t know any code but please make the admin panels usable again.”

True, however I would suggest that maybe there is no place to say that because it is not a useful thing to say. For one thing, you fail to define “usable”. For another, it’s non-specific.

I do realize that a few (but only a few) posts in this thread have been constructive. However, and I greatly disagree with Sapphire here, most of the ones I’ve read have not been. It’s just pointless kvetching.

If you have something specific and useful to discuss, then I’d suggest that the wp-hackers list would be a good place. We had this exact discussion about these exact problems 2 months ago on there, and that conversation only got 13 messages. Where were all the ideas then, eh?

What annoys me more than anything is to see people complaining here about the exact same thing I complained about 2 months ago, before 2.5 was released, but couldn’t make any headway on because very few people chimed in with their opinions.

You don’t think that sounds smug?

No, I don’t. I’m not smug… I’m at my wits end trying to communicate to you what I want you to do.

What I want is for participation. What I want is for some backup. What I want is for people to notice these things before they happen. What I want is more eyeballs looking and participating in the development process. And that doesn’t just mean coders!

My bad, Sapphire. The links should work now. Sorry about that.