The Full Site Editor is not in Beta any more. There are attempts at improvements. But will the new user understand the complex features?
This morning I saw that the FSE editor is out of the somewhat chaotic beta state. That’s great news.
The first impression is positive because the interface is more logical now. You don’t have to search for the styles in weird places any more. All design options are presented in the FSE editor environment.
- At last we have an easy to find navigation menu.
- The styles have a menu handle.
- The template and template parts are also available.
Navigation
The navigation was very hard to find in the Beta state. However, it’s still somewhat unclear what to do when you click the different menus.
They’ll send you to the page/post or template/template part, where the menu appears. There you’ll have to edit things.
Promising, but still a bit puzzling.
Styles
The styles will give access to the different style variations. That’s cool. Now they are more easy to find.
When you click edit you’ll get the actual styles of your site. That’s ok.
Templates and Template Parts
The template and template parts are listed as in the Beta version. At the + you can add another template.
For person beginning to use WP the template-concept is utterly confusing. At least I often meet users that don’t know the difference between content and a template.
FSE (full site editing) is of course cool, but we still need a very good introduction to questions like:
- What is the difference between a template and a page?
- What is the connection between a page and a template?
- What is the best time to edit a template or should I add my content in a page or post?
- Why do we need so many templates, and what are their functions in e.g. TT3?
Of course such questions show, that the person beginning to use WP does not know the basic concepts, like:
- What is a Page (static content)?
- What is a Post (blog, news rooll)?
- What is a template (Design the looks of pages and posts, categories etc.)?
Will this Confusion End?
For the experienced WP user questions like the ones above are trivial. However, the strength of WP was alway it’s unserfriendly approach.
The learning curve in CMS systems like Joomla, Drupal or Typ03 is very steep. When I made Joomla solutions, often the users had to have tutorials.
Personally I fear, that WordPress has become extremely complex. But the new additions to the FSE editor is indeed a positive development.
When I began to use WP the strength was it’s ease of use. You installed WP. Began to write blog posts or create pages. End of story.
The modern user of WP will have to come to terms with very abstract concepts. The relation between content and template can be very hard to explain to new WP users.
For WP teachers and consultants the future is bright. New users will need an introduction course.
And that’s a challenge for WordPress.
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