Wayback Machine
Dec JAN Feb
Previous capture 29 Next capture
2020 2021 2022
0 captures
14 Jan 21 - 29 Jan 21
Close Minimize Help

WordPress.org

The Test Team helps manage testing and triage across the WordPress ecosystem. They focus on user testing of the editing experience and WordPress dashboard, replicating and documenting bug reports, and supporting a culture of review and triage across the project.

The team gathers in #core-test. Please drop by any time with questions or to help out.

Make WordPress Test

Keyboard Shortcuts | Hide comment threads

FSE Program Template Editing Testing Summary

More calls for testing are on their way so join #fse-outreach-experiment in slack and/or subscribe to this Make blog to stay tuned. 

This post is a summary of the first call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through testing directly or sharing the call for testing with others. It all helps! While this call for testing is over, feedback is always needed and welcomed in GitHub.

Related feedback is grouped under high-level headings. As you read through it, please remember that feedback is welcome on the format of this post too as the program is still in the early stages of determining what works best. 

Distinction between editing modes (template vs page/post)

The need for the distinction between modes appeared in a number of responses.  Thankfully, this was already identified as an area to improve before this call for testing in open issues like this one that reveal just how similar the two modes currently, and the resulting confusion.

Have a clear defined area for post editing and well defined area for Full Site Editing. Do not mix Publish and saving. As they are very different things. One is for post editing and one for FSE editing.

– @paaljoachim in this comment.

I believe it was not clear enough how those changes could impact the site. If you don’t already know how templates, template parts, and global blocks like Site Title work, you might not understand how your editing will affect the rest of the site. 

– @priethor in this comment.

The fact that I had to spend a considerable amount of time to understand the differences for a few arbitrary terms and what they mean in a UI is going to be a significant barrier to migrating existing clients to FSE and training them to understand. It simply won’t be worth it.

– @pointydrip in this comment.

Switching between editing modes (template vs page/post)

The actual act of switching back and forth between modes brought up a few different issues. What does the cancel button do? Why does applying changes for a template take me from template editing back into post editing? Some of this overlaps with the previous section as well. Thanks to the feedback shared, multiple issues were opened related to this particular part of the experience: 

Most feedback indicated that by increasing clarity in the interface (ie: a clearer, stickier notice) and making the switching process more predictable, the experience can be greatly improved from the current iteration. 

Switching to Template Editing – Editing the template from the post, while logically I knew what that meant, felt surprising – the switch was kind of a jolt because a bunch of things changed on the screen yet the overall layout stayed the same – so it felt like “Whoa, what just happened?”. Felt disorienting.

– @brentjettgmailcom in this comment.

I found it confusing that clicking Save brought me out of the FSE template mode. I saved. I did not ask to go out of the FSE mode.

– @paaljoachim in this comment.

It took me a while to find how to get back to the original post. I eventually found the Cancel button.

– @bobbingwide in this comment.

Saving Process

Generally speaking, the saving experience was reliable technically and, at the highest level, intuitive enough. The main sticking points came when trying to dismiss changes, save changes as a draft, and understanding what each “sub” item to save meant. The following issues were created to address each piece of feedback: 

I found this part to be kind of difficult. I think the labels on the different things being saved confused me. I didn’t really understand right away what was being saved for each checkmark…If I wanted to not save the template and left it unselected, but wanted to save the post, it would want to keep publishing the post.

– @geheren in this comment.

The saving process is intuitive, and it’s very helpful to clearly list what elements are going to be updated when saving. However, as said before, it might not be clear enough how each edited element will impact the rest of the site. It could be helpful to add a tooltip to the different elements that are going to be saved (post/site/template/template part) to provide users a quick, last-minute reference.

– @priethor in this comment.

Create a new template

While this call for testing didn’t focus on creating a new template, it feels like a natural extension to wonder how a new template could be created after making changes to a current one. While there isn’t currently a mapped-out plan for this experience, it is under discussion in this issue as there are quite a few scenarios to consider.  

What if I want to Save As? To create a new single template. As I might want the original single template and just want to create a new template that modifies the original template. Kind of like a default template and a modified template.

– @paaljoachim in this comment.

How would I go about creating a new template for a selected post/page?

– @bobbingwide in this comment.

Preview changes

Previewing changes is a workflow people rely upon, and this showed up in testing. While explicitly including ways to preview content hasn’t yet been discussed, there is an open issue to explore how best to view the template while editing a post that touches on this experience. In response, a new issue was opened around offering the option to preview the template in the same way one can with the Site Editor. 

My trust is always in the published page, and I’m looking everywhere in FSE for a preview page link while I’m editing to basically see if it worked. I feel like just being able to open the page in a new tab would give me confidence in what i’m doing in FSE. The other issue is that since you don’t see the header or footer in the post editing context, as soon as you do apply changes to a template and you land back on the post, you immediately think “Did it work?”.

– @brentjettgmailcom in this comment.

I found it confusing that clicking Save brought me out of the FSE template mode. I saved I did not ask to go out of the FSE mode. I want to see what it looks like on the frontend. Meaning clicking Save and then previewing the template on the frontend.

– @paaljoachim in this comment.

Undo/Revert Template Changes

This was originally brought up in this issue and is currently being worked on in this PR.

There’s no place that I have found within FSE to revert a template/part back to the theme’s default setup.

– @brentjettgmailcom in this comment.

Bug with template parts

As part of this testing, a few people (myself included) ran into a strange bug related to themes located in a sub-directory not properly loading template parts. This was reported and should help ensure future block themes work with this experience. 


Where is template editing work headed?

While this post goes deep into the pain points of the current experience of switching between template and post editing, it’s important to show where this work is headed. Currently, the best place to follow along is in this organizational issue focused on the remaining interface and infrastructure issues. This includes everything from issues on how to better distinguish the editing experiences to a welcome guide to introduce people to template mode! Follow along there as the work continues. 

#fse-outreach-program #full-site-editing #gutenberg #core-editor #fse-testing-summary

[…] to give feedback on the upcoming Full Site Editing feature. While the initial testing call has wrapped up, please join the #fse-outreach-experiment Slack channel to join upcoming testing […]

[…] McCarthy published the summary of the first call for testing from the FSE-program. It’s an interesting read of what non-developers found when working from within the new Site […]

[…] McCarthy published the summary of the first call for testing from the FSE-program. It’s an interesting read of what non-developers found when working from within the new Site […]

Thanks for the recap, Anne! 👏

🤗 Thank you for all of your help with this first round of testing!

FSE Program Testing Call #1: Template Editing

This is the first call for testing as part of the Full Site Editing Outreach Program. For more information about this experimental program, please review this FAQ for helpful details. To properly join the fun, please head to #fse-outreach-experiment in Make Slack for future testing announcements, helpful posts, and more will be shared there. 

Feature Overview

To help frame what we’re going to be testing (and ideally build some excitement!), I wanted to give a brief context on the feature at the center of this call for testing. With Full Site Editing, people are able to edit both an individual post’s content and, with the release of Gutenberg 9.6, the template that an individual post uses. This call for testing is designed to explore the interaction between the two editing experiences (post vs. template editing) to make sure it’s clear when you’re editing each, granular saving works properly, etc. Ultimately, being able to edit templates like index, single, or archive directly is a huge leap forward compared to what’s been possible in the past! Unlocking this level of customization gives you far more control to build the site you want and this call for testing is to help ensure it’s as intuitive as possible. 

You can read more about the terms templates, template parts, and more here

Testing Environment 

While there’s more information below to ensure you get everything setup properly, here are the key aspects to have in place with your testing environment: 

Testing Flow

Here’s a basic flow to follow when testing this specific feature. If anything doesn’t make sense, just comment below!

Important Note: 

While this call for testing is focused on testing a specific feature, it’s extremely likely you’ll find other bugs in the process of testing with such a beta feature! Please know any bugs you find are welcome in your report for testing, even if they aren’t directly applicable to the tested feature. 

Setup Instructions: 

  1. Have a test site using WordPress 5.6. It’s important this is not a production/live site. 
  2. Install the TT1 Blocks Theme (formerly called Twenty Twenty-One Block Based Theme) by following these instructions and activate it under Appearances > Themes. 
  3. Go to the website’s admin.
  4. Install and activate the Gutenberg plugin from Plugins > Add New. If you already have it installed, make sure you are using at least Gutenberg 9.6.
  5. You should now see a navigation item titled “Site Editor (beta)”. If you don’t see that in your sidebar, you aren’t properly using the Site Editing experiment. 


Testing Instructions:

  1. Create a new post by going to Posts > Add New.
  2. Add in a post title and brief content before hitting “Save Draft” or “Publish”. Either way, saving of some sort needs to happen.
  3. While in the editor for the post, navigate to the Post Tab of the Settings Sidebar (previously called Document). Under “Status & visibility,” you should see “Template” with the template name and the option to edit. 
  4. Click on “edit” to move into template editing mode. You should see a notice indicating you’ve switched to editing the template. 
  5. Make a few changes to the template wherever you like. For example, you can try out the “Site Title,” “Site Logo,” Site Tagline,” and “Navigation” blocks or changing font sizes and color settings for different blocks. Here’s a screenshot of a simple header for inspiration. 
  6. When you’re done making the changes you want, select “Apply” and go through the saving flow by selecting “Save”. This will return you to editing the post itself. 
  7. Once saved, try editing the post once more before following steps 7 & 8 to edit the template specifically. 
  8. Make changes to the template. This might mean making minor editorial changes to the content or adding in new blocks.
  9. When you’re done making the changes you want, select “Apply” and go through the saving flow this time opting to not save the template changes. This is a way to test the saving functionality. 
  10. Share your experience in the comments below or in GitHub directly. You’re welcome to run through the experience multiple times to capture any additional feedback!

What to notice:

  • Did it crash at any point?
  • Was it clear that when you were editing blocks in the Template that it would impact every page/post using that same Template? 
  • Was it intuitive for you to switch between editing a Template for all posts vs. an individual post?
  • Was the saving process intuitive? Meaning, did you easily know what each option was saving? 
  • Did the right content save when you selected saving the template part vs. when you left it unselected?
  • Did you get stuck at any point in the testing process?
  • What did you especially enjoy or appreciate about the experience? 
  • Did it work using Keyboard only?
  • Did it work using a screen reader?

Leave Feedback by January 13th, 2021

Please leave feedback in the comments of this post. If you’d prefer, you’re always welcome to create issues in this GitHub repo directly for Gutenberg and in this GitHub repo for TT1 Blocks Theme (formerly called Twenty Twenty-One Block Based Theme). If you leave feedback in GitHub, please do still comment below with the link. If you see that someone else has already reported a problem, please still note your experience with it below, as it’ll help give those working on this experience more well-rounded insight into what to improve. 

#fse-outreach-program #full-site-editing #gutenberg #core-editor #fse-testing-call

The theme Twenty Twenty-One Blocks has been renamed to TT1 Blocks to avoid confusion with Twenty Twenty-One once both themes are in the theme directory.

Thank you for this! I’ll update this in the post above to include the new name.

Did some testing today and filed two reports related to the saving process as I found aspects pretty confusing:

I also filed two issues related to switching back and forth between modes:

Overall, everything felt fairly intuitive otherwise particularly when switching between editing the template vs post partially due to the post content being embedded within the template. Nothing crashed and the saving worked as expected. I was excited to see this issue already open as I do think long term there needs to be a more obvious distinction between the modes: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27849

Here’s my thoughts on the FSE Template Editor. First of all, this will be such a game-changer for WP users. I am very excited to see how this develops.

I found the testing process to work fairly well, but I did run into some issues in the process. I found the process of saving the post, but not the template challenging. I could also have been understanding these instructions incorrectly:

6. Make changes to the template. This might mean making minor editorial changes to the content or adding in new blocks.
7. When you’re done making the changes you want, select “Apply” and go through the saving flow

Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context

this time opting to not save the template changes. This is a way to test the saving functionality.

Whenever I tried to go back to the post and save the post, but not saving the template, I would run into challenges.

Did it crash at any point? No. There was, however, a loading graphic most of the time when I went into the template to edit.

Was it clear that when you were editing blocks in the Template that it would impact every page/post using that same Template? Yes, I think the warnings were very helpful. I did get confused that it didn’t change the entire site, but then I realized I would need to put that template onto the page.

Was it intuitive for you to switch between editing a Template for all posts vs. an individual post? Yes, it was very intuitive.

Was the saving process intuitive? Meaning, did you easily know what each option was saving? I found this part to be kind of difficult. I think the labels on the different things being saved confused me. I didn’t really understand right away what was being saved for each checkmark.

Did the right content save when you selected saving the template part vs. when you left it unselected? No. If I wanted to not save the template and left it unselected, but wanted to save the post, it would want to keep publishing the post.

Did you get stuck at any point in the testing process? Yes, see above. Had trouble with steps 6 & 7.

What did you especially enjoy or appreciate about the experience? I found that it opens up a ton of opportunities. The idea that I can customize so much, is really quite appealing. Having it feel like the Block Editor and Gutenberg experience was very helpful to me and I can only see how many opportunities this will bring.

I may file some reports in GitHub (first time) and I am happy to answer any questions or try other things out. Thank you for making this so easy to test things out!

Michael! Thanks so much for this detailed response, filing an issue, and for helping to test.

Whenever I tried to go back to the post and save the post, but not saving the template, I would run into challenges.

Based on the issue you opened, sounds like you ran into a similar experience I did where it was tricky to switch back and forth between editing the post vs editing the template. I commented there but agree with you completely on that aspect of this feature still feeling confusing.

[…] of Gutenberg Phase 2. Your feedback will go a long way in improving FSE user flows. To participate, check out the initial testing call on the Make/Test blog and join the #fse-outreach-experiment Slack channel.Want to follow updates on […]

Was it intuitive for you to switch between editing a Template for all posts vs. an individual post?

When editing the site I found the Cancel text next to the Apply button confusing.
I thought it would cancel the changes I had just made to the site templates and restore the previous state. Instead I was taken back to the single post editing.

When I was in the site editing mode I also repeatedly went to click on the link next to the template name under Status & visibility to return to the single post, but there was no link.

Thanks for testing this!

When editing the site I found the Cancel text next to the Apply button confusing.

Two others found this as well with a comment coming soon. I’ll create a GitHub issue when that comment arrives and include your feedback!

When I was in the site editing mode I also repeatedly went to click on the link next to the template name under Status & visibility to return to the single post, but there was no link.

Agreed completely. I opened this issue as a result of my testing and experience with the same concern: “Make it clearer how to get back into post/page editing mode”: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27899

I was inspired by @cdils and @brentjett Zoom video. (Saw almost half of it before I went through the above test steps.)
I used Carrie’s Local site zip and based my test on that.

Step 10. In the template editing mode.

If I happen to click the Post settings. Then clicking various blocks in the layout will not switch over from Post settings to Block settings. I will have to manually click the Block settings.

Hmm I expected when adjusting the Site title that it would NOT give me all capital letters. I thought we would get the option to use capital letters or not. There is no option here.

Btw removing the Site title shows this: WRITE SITE TITLE… in all capital letters. I expected to see Write site title…

Ahhh the above is not the top Site Title but this is in the Footer Site title. I did not notice that at first….

I added a pinkish color to the letters. Then added a grey background color. It seems it contained a padding for the Site Title: “ALL CAPITAL LETTERS…” suddenly moved from one line to two lines. “ALL CAPITAL” then line two “LETTERS…”

I selected the Columns inside the Footer. Changed the color to blue.

Selected the column surrounding the footer Site title. Width % is empty. I tried various widths. Max width was 70 (anything above it I saw no change.)

Clicked the column surrounding “Proudly powered by WordPress” Added a width of 20%. (As in default might have been 30%.)

Went back to Footer Site title to change from 70% to 80%. Saw no change in the width.

I clicked Apply.

Noticed The Site and icon. Did not know what it was at first. It could instead say Site Title and the icon. I kinda expected that when unchecking the checkbox that I would see all the site title changes be reverted in the layout screen to before I made any change (back to original layout). Unchecking = shows original Site Title. Checking = seeing the changes I made.

Template.

Unchecking Template would revert everything so that I could see the original layout before I did any change.

Template Part

Unchecking Footer would show original Footer layout.

What if I want to Save As? To create a new single template. As I might want the original single template and just want to create a new template that modifies the original template. Kind of like a default template and a modified template.

I found it confusing that clicking Save brought me out of the FSE template mode. I saved I did not ask to go out of the FSE mode. I want to see what it looks like on the frontend. Meaning clicking Save and then previewing the template on the frontend.

I am now back in the post. A moment ago I was just saving a template. I would like to choose to go between FSE and post mode.

I clicked Edit Single template again to see if there is a way to preview the template on the frontend. But I could not see any.

I clicked cancel.

Back in post mode. Block settings is selected. I click around in the layout trying to select the Post settings. But am having a hard time having it switch over to Post settings. I have to manually click the Post setting tab to switch over to it.

Step 12/13. Go back into template to make some minor changes, but this time do not save.

I added in Hello world! post link to the navigation. Clicked Cancel. Saw a dot in the Publish button in Post mode. Did not know what to do with it. I felt that there was something I did not understand. Worried about clicking the Publish button that something might happen that I did not know about.
Clicked Publish anyway — it went from Publish to Save. Meaning now I am not publishing the post but suddenly am Saving the template. Found it confusing that Publish went to Save mixing post and template in one. I noticed that I could now Save template Single and Template Part Header area. Unchecked Template Part Header. Layout shows post and not the template. Clicked Save. It jumped back to Publish, and the dot is still there. Clicked Publish again and noticed that Save was now greyed out. -> Confusing.
I could see the checkmark and the word Save lined up against the edge of the settings area. Clicked the X and it went back to seeing a dot in the Publish button. I am now very confused.

—> Decided to move on and just leave the dot in the Publish button alone.

I think that was it.

We need a post FSE switcher button/link
A way to preview templates on the frontend similar to previewing a post on the frontend.
A way to Save as the template as a new template.
A better way to keep publish for post separate from Saving a template. The way it is now they become intertwined causing confusion. Have a clear defined area for post editing and well defined area for Full Site Editing. Do not mix Publish and saving. As they are very different things. One is for post editing and one for FSE editing.

Thank you for this lovely feedback summary — the stream of consciousness helps me see how you got from a to b and the summary at the end helps me make sure we’re on the same page!

We need a post FSE switcher button/link

I agree. Issue opened here: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27899

A way to preview templates on the frontend similar to previewing a post on the frontend.

Hmm. I’m torn on this. Ideally because it is FSE, preview isn’t necessary. You see what’s being changed right in the editor. I’m not going to open an issue at this time. Please do comment back if that seems off based!

A way to Save as the template as a new template.

Boom! This is already open too: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27851

Have a clear defined area for post editing and well defined area for Full Site Editing. Do not mix Publish and saving. As they are very different things. One is for post editing and one for FSE editing.

Well said. I am going to quote you on this in the write up 🙂 For now, this issue covers this nicely: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27849

Here are my notes from testing:

Did it crash at any point?
• No it didn’t crash, but on my local host I got loading symbols when I was in the editing mode. I did not see the editing symbols when I tested using Docker.

Was it clear that when you were editing blocks in the Template that it would impact every page/post using that same Template? 
• Yes it was clear.

Was it intuitive for you to switch between editing a Template for all posts vs. an individual post?
• No. It was not intuitive. I didn’t realize that in order to create a new template for an individual post, I would have to go to Appearance -> Templates. Once I got the help on that, I was able to create a template for an individual post. I was also confused on whether I was editing the template or the actual post.

Was the saving process intuitive? Meaning, did you easily know what each option was saving? 
• Yes. This was intuitive and was straight forward.

After I edited the single post template from the post edit screen, I went to edit the single template from Appearance -> Templates. The single template did not correctly reflect the changes I had made. I was able to see the change on the front end. This is not consistent though.

It was also not clear about which part of the template I was editing. The header part or the actual post content part. I was able to select the header or footer parts from the block outline, edit and save the template parts, but I think it will be nice to see which part of the page we are editing.

Thanks so much for testing and for writing up your feedback!

No. It was not intuitive. I didn’t realize that in order to create a new template for an individual post, I would have to go to Appearance -> Templates.

That’s odd. Did you not have any templates come with the TT1 theme? There should have been templates in place that would allow you to simply edit them directly.

I was also confused on whether I was editing the template or the actual post.

To be clear, does the confusion match what you shared later on about wanting to be able to see which part of the page you’re editing? I just want to be sure when I share my writeup that I have this right 🙂

I was also confused on whether I was editing the template or the actual post.

As a follow up, this issue seems to capture what you were saying 🙂

http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27849

Let me know if that’s wrong though!

This is all I could think of while testing. Most of it is minor details since the experience is very good overall!

  • Did it crash at any point?
    • No, everything went smooth.
  • Was it clear that when you were editing blocks in the Template that it would impact every page/post using that same Template?
    • I believe it was not clear enough how those changes could impact the site. If you don’t already know how templates, template parts, and global blocks like Site Title work, you might not understand how your editing will affect the rest of the site.
  • Was it intuitive for you to switch between editing a Template for all posts vs. an individual post?
    • It was intuitive because of the instructions provided in this blog post, otherwise, I would have found it somewhat hard to access the Template editor (or displaying the full list of templates and template parts by clicking on the template name at the top followed by “Browse all templates” for that matter).
    • Also, when switching from the Post editor to the Template Editor, the “Editing template” notification at the bottom was easy to miss on bigger screens.
    • As a side note, when there is a block selected when switching from the post editor to the template editor, the vertical scroll stays anchored to the block itself, so you don’t see the header at the top unless you scroll up, which might not seem obvious (the only visible differences are the vertical scroll size/position and the discrete “Editing template: single” on top). This behavior makes sense given that the block is selected indeed, although if you are switching to the site editor, you might want to get a site context rather than to keep your focus on the post content block.
  • Was the saving process intuitive? Meaning, did you easily know what each option was saving?
    • The saving process is intuitive, and it’s very helpful to clearly list what elements are going to be updated when saving. However, as said before, it might not be clear enough how each edited element will impact the rest of the site. It could be helpful to add a tooltip to the different elements that are going to be saved (post/site/template/template part) to provide users a quick, last-minute reference.
  • Did the right content save when you selected saving the template part vs. when you left it unselected?
    • Yes, absolutely.
  • Did you get stuck at any point in the testing process?
    • Not at all.
  • What did you especially enjoy or appreciate about the experience?
    • It is a really smooth and integrated experience, so much that you can end up losing the context of what you are editing if are not careful enough.
    • The global styles feature is absolutely amazing!
  • Did it work using Keyboard only?
    • Yes. Navigating between options and blocks takes some time, but it worked fine.
  • Did it work using a screen reader?
    • N/A

Thanks so much for testing and for even including a very helpful GIF!

I believe it was not clear enough how those changes could impact the site. If you don’t already know how templates, template parts, and global blocks like Site Title work, you might not understand how your editing will affect the rest of the site.

I agree. Good friction here becomes super important. There are other issues that address this but I’m going to quote you here in the writeup as I like how you put this 🙂

Also, when switching from the Post editor to the Template Editor, the “Editing template” notification at the bottom was easy to miss on bigger screens.

Opened an issue for this as it came up previously too:

http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/28175

I noted on the issue itself too but restating here: this might be bandaiding a root issue that, when the root issue is addressed (making post vs template editing clearer), this issue then becomes irrelevant 🙂

As a side note, when there is a block selected when switching from the post editor to the template editor, the vertical scroll stays anchored to the block itself, so you don’t see the header at the top unless you scroll up, which might not seem obvious (the only visible differences are the vertical scroll size/position and the discrete “Editing template: single” on top).

I weirdly couldn’t replicate this (GIF in return, thank you for yours) but I think this is nicely covered by this issue: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27849

It could be helpful to add a tooltip to the different elements that are going to be saved (post/site/template/template part) to provide users a quick, last-minute reference.

Great idea! I added this as a comment on a related issue around this selecting, saving flow

Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context

: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27898#issuecomment-759707684

Here are the things I noticed:

  • Switching to Template Editing – Editing the template from the post, while logically I knew what that meant, felt surprising – the switch was kind of a jolt because a bunch of things changed on the screen yet the overall layout stayed the same – so it felt like “Whoa, what just happened?”. Felt disorienting.
  • Its not clear to me when you edit the template if “Cancel” means “Discard my changes” or “Keep these changes drafted but don’t publish them yet”. There’s also some confusing about leaving when you haven’t actually made any changes. The “Apply” button doesn’t make much sense when you haven’t made any changes. “Cancel” could maybe be “Return to Post” or something when there’s nothing to actually cancel out of.
  • I have trust issues – My trust is always in the published page, and I’m looking everywhere in FSE for a preview page link while I’m editing to basically see if it worked. I feel like just being able to open the page in a new tab would give me confidence in what i’m doing in FSE. The other issue is that since you don’t see the header or footer in the post editing context, as soon as you do apply changes to a template and you land back on the post, you immediately think “Did it work?”.
  • There’s no place that I have found within FSE to revert a template/part back to the theme’s default setup. You can if you find Appearance -> templates and delete the CPT, but I felt myself wanting to start over and “reset” back to the theme several times.

In general seems like the basic nuts and bolts are there and the bigger issues for me are around being aware of what I’m looking at at all times and confidence that what I intended to do actually happened.

Was it clear that when you were editing blocks in the Template that it would impact every page/post using that same Template?

No. If had not read this I would not have known where to find it an what the implications were.
The popup dissappeared much too quickly I had to reload the page to read it.

Was it intuitive for you to switch between editing a Template for all posts vs. an individual post?

It was not intuitive to get to the template editor…clicking apply was. This is likely only meant for designers and devs anyways, but I found that I had to go digging as many links on github and other blogs refer to the wordpress hand book and not this. This post should be in the handbook…

What did you especially enjoy or appreciate about the experience?

Editing & previewing is lightning fast, even with slow internet.

What did you not enjoy about the experience

Here’s my feeback:
as an experienced wordpress designer and amateur php developer I love Gutenberg, but am finding it not intuitive compared to the overall classic WordPress experience (editor, widgets, menus etc).

The main part of it is that there area set of arbitrary terms for content areas in the classic experience (widgets, menus, templates, customize, etc) that are being thrown out or combined in a new set of arbitrary terms for content areas (templates, blocks, site editor, etc.).

The fact that I had to spend a considerable amount of time to understand the differences for a few arbitrary terms and what they mean in a UI is going to be a significant barrier to migrating existing clients to FSE and training them to understand. It simply won’t be worth it.

Since the core of my experience still lies with the classic editor with 3rd party addons I will likely never adopt FSE for any new clients even though its a much better editor .

@pointydrip Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with me.

The popup dissappeared much too quickly I had to reload the page to read it.

Agreed. This was brought up a few times above and there’s now an open issue for it: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/28175

This is likely only meant for designers and devs anyways, but I found that I had to go digging as many links on github and other blogs refer to the wordpress hand book and not this. This post should be in the handbook…

Can you clarify a bit what you want to see in the handbook from this post? Happy to follow up here even though this falls a bit outside of the scope of this call for testing 🙂 Seems important to clear up either way.

The fact that I had to spend a considerable amount of time to understand the differences for a few arbitrary terms and what they mean in a UI is going to be a significant barrier to migrating existing clients to FSE and training them to understand. It simply won’t be worth it.

I totally get this frustration. This is why these calls for testing are happening now long before this work reaches core. This is expanded upon in this awesome post “Status Check: Site Editing and Customization” that I highly recommend reading if you have the chance. From that post, I want to call out this part in particular: “For all the following items, keep in mind that they tend to illustrate the maximum amount of customization options — the ability to lock down templates, capabilities, design tools, etc, is still a prime focus to account for the different needs of different sites.” Long story short, these options are intentionally starting out really wide and vast before refinement is added in. Hopefully, in time, as things start to come together it’ll be a smoother experience.

Definitely keep testing and sharing feedback as you go as your perspective is a valuable one to have.

Thank you for following up with a comment from the video you did with Carrie! Huge help for me 🙂

I found it confusing that clicking Save brought me out of the FSE template mode. I saved I did not ask to go out of the FSE mode. I want to see what it looks like on the frontend. Meaning clicking Save and then previewing the template on the frontend.

Whew, agreed. I completely expected to stay in FSE template editing mode. These issues relate to this too:

http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27905
http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27900

Its not clear to me when you edit the template if “Cancel” means “Discard my changes” or “Keep these changes drafted but don’t publish them yet”.

Opened an issue here: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/28172 Great call.

The other issue is that since you don’t see the header or footer in the post editing context, as soon as you do apply changes to a template and you land back on the post, you immediately think “Did it work?”.

This is a great point. As I mentioned above in another issue touching on “previewing”, I am not going to open a new issue but I will include this in the write up. Right now, I think tackling this issue will make this concern less of a problem potentially: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27847 If you think that’s wrong, just let me know!

There’s no place that I have found within FSE to revert a template/part back to the theme’s default setup.

Good news! This is already underway here: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/28141

I feel like I’m the only one who had this issue – I couldn’t find any references to it. The header and footer areas refused to work for me when editing any template. I tried with multiple installations, etc. Ended up filing a bug report: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/28158

I plan on adding a couple more bug issues tomorrow, although overall the process seems like it’s going in a great direction!

Something to note: I thought it was particularly weird that clicking on the Site Logo when in the Site Editor doesn’t take you to the dashboard but opens up a Site Editor Menu. The Dashboard link is not nearly highlighted enough, and I missed it the first time and used the back button to get to the Dashboard.

Woohoo! Thank you for testing and opening up that GitHub issue. I commented there with some suggestions as I think it might be related to another issue we saw in the FSE slack channel.

The Dashboard link is not nearly highlighted enough, and I missed it the first time and used the back button to get to the Dashboard.

Ah ha. This is the navigation component. If you’re inclined, it would be great to open an issue for that.

I’ve been developing my own FSE experimental theme (Fizzie) for a while now. For a couple of reasons: 1. being that I’ve created content that causes infinite recursion and breaks TT1 Blocks and 2. I wanted to see how well my theme stood up to the test script, I chose to run the tests with this theme.

I must not have been looking or using an earlier version, but I’d never the Template field in Status & Visibility before!

In step 9, when I clicked on Edit, I was pleased that most of the template parts loaded up successfully, including Classic blocks for my template parts that just contained HTML.

Two problems:
My Server Side Rendered Fields block produced an Error loading block

The Navigation menu in the footer produced This block contains unexpected or invalid content.

Both to be debugged.

It took me a while to find how to get back to the original post. I eventually found the Cancel button.

I then tried editing Pages.

I was pleased to see that the Templates for Front-page and my Posts page were correctly chosen. When I created a page with slug about the page-about template was also chosen but the (Edit) link’s closing parenthesis wrapped to a new line. Q. How would I go about creating a new template for a selected post/page?

Other comments:

  • When editing the template I tried choosing Code editor. This displayed the content of the post, not the template.
  • Similarly copy all content copied just the post, not the template.
  • When editing a template part from Appearance > Template parts I was offered the chance to edit the front-page template. Don’t know why.
  • The Site Editor ( beta ) still can’t handle Classic blocks in templates.
  • When Saving, the list of changes didn’t include blocks where I’d only altered attributes. e.g. Categories and Search
  • What are the rules for inventing the template part names?

Thanks for the thorough response. I love that you are building your own theme and that you used it for this call for testing!! Very cool. Obviously feel free to keep doing so but keep in mind that it might mean at times that you’ll run into theme specific issues.

It took me a while to find how to get back to the original post. I eventually found the Cancel button.

Whew, agreed. I found this entire part of the flow

Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context

pretty confusing.

How would I go about creating a new template for a selected post/page?

This is discussed here: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27851 I agree this is an important flow to build out!

When editing the template I tried choosing Code editor. This displayed the content of the post, not the template.

Ah yes. This was reported a bit ago: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/22528

The Site Editor ( beta ) still can’t handle Classic blocks in templates.

Current issue related to this here: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210129175937/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/23086

When Saving, the list of changes didn’t include blocks where I’d only altered attributes. e.g. Categories and Search

I wasn’t able to replicate this with the Categories block. I found that it would still prompt me to save the overall template and, further, changes were properly saved. I was using the TT1 theme for this test! If you’re able to replicate with TT1, mind opening an issue?

What are the rules for inventing the template part names?

I am not quite sure I understand this question 😅 Mind rephrasing? For now though, this gets a bit outside of this call for testing but I’d be happy to try to track down an answer for you.

Did it crash at any point?
Not directly, but on the singular template, I got the message that an error occurred in the comments block.

A small wish for improvement:
On the template name in the upper middle area of the editor site header, instead of just linking the drop-down arrow to open the drop-down, link the template name, too.

s
search
c
compose new post
r
reply
e
edit
t
go to top
j
go to the next post or comment
k
go to the previous post or comment
o
toggle comment visibility
esc
cancel edit post or comment
0
:)