Both WP editors suck big time!

  • Hi,

    while I do like the overall WP package, I have to say that the editor is absolute garbage. It is offered in 2 modes: visual and text. At first sight this seems like a good idea, especially since some users may already be used to this split design layout from other packages like Dreamweaver for instance. Unfortunately, however, the editor is not really working as it should. Where to start?

    • When the editor is in text mode, it is not really a text editor in the traditional sense (i.e., the sense in which most normal people would expect a text editor to behave). It is also not a WYSIWYG editor but some rather bizarre hybrid of the two which makes working as difficult as possible. For instance, it will transform a carriage return into a single </p> which produces loads of html validation errors. It doesn’t always do that though, only sometimes (I yet have to discover the pattern). The only sure way to avoid it is to write everything into a single line, which basically renders your code illegible and makes for a FANTASTICALLY TIRING editing experience. Seriously guys … what were thinking when you coded up this piece of crap?!
    • I prefer working in “text” mode and set up a little html form with some javascript. When I naively changed to visual model for a quick check of the layout and switched back to text mode, this lovely editor had ERASED ALL HTML FORM INFORMATION, i.e. things like the “onsubmit” or “onchange” items or the form “name” and “id” tags … uhm … really ..again guys … what a piece of junk!
    • So in an effort to not have to use this life-shortening piece of §$%§!” WP editor, I went back to using my usual html text editor (UltraEdit) which is what the name implies: a real TEXT editor that doesn’t introduce arbitrary pieces of html code on its own. So I had coded the page as I wanted it, did a copy paste back into the WP text editor and ended up with a page that was entirely BLACK. It remains a mystery to me how that could possible happen but well … just another lovely experience when using the WP editor.

    So to cut a long story short:

    Please, please, pretty please … turn the text editor into a REAL TEXT EDITOR and don’t have it insert arbitrary pieces of html code.

    I can live with a faulty visual editor that destroys html forms (simply by not using it at all) as long as there is a real and reliable text editor where I can visually structure my code with indents, new lines, etc. so it remains legible and I can easily find my way around. But if you are forced to put items onto the same line that don’t really logically belong there, just to keep the stupid editor from inserting <br /> or </p>, then an editor starts to defeat its purpose. It is quite a feat to creat an editor that is less user friendly than a plain ascii txt editor … congratulations for that!

    You also cannot switch to the visual editor to make your life easier, since that one will destroy your HTML forms. Well what can I say .. if this is not fixed in future releases I will certainly stop using WP for any future projects as it is just too much of a time waster. Sorry.

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  • The reasoning behind the wya the editors work is that things like forms and more advanced HTML editing is realyl not something that 99.99% of users should ever be doing in teh editor area, and should be left to plugins and shortcodes to add that sort of functionality.

    As an example, in the standard editor just adding in a form won’t be any good because there’s no way to add the PHP code required to process the form on the back-end anyway.

    That’s why things like that are always recommended to be done outside of the editor.

    Thread Starter olliontheroad

    (@olliontheroad)

    Well it seems that I am not the only one who is bothered by the standard setup of the WP editor as there are dozens of plugins which turn the text editor exactly into what people seem to expect it to be … a plain text editor that does not alter the code you enter!
    For me the problems was solved by installing the “PS Disable Auto Formatting” plugin. You may get some surprises as content that previously looked good, now may require you to manually add all the <p> and
    tags in places, but once that’s done, you have an editor you can work with.

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