how do I go back to Classic Editor
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I’m sorry, I see lots of posts about this, but their advice is maybe not up to date. EG click on dots in top right hand corner and an option will appear to go back to Classic.
I want a classic editor with no blocks. None. Not a block that ‘looks Classic’ for example. Just the old Classic editor. Is that possible? Are there simple ways of finding how to do this? I can’t really believe that after 11 years with Word Press I may have to move all my blogs!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there, Hm, if you are asking about cathyingeneva.wordpress.com you should be able to revert to the Classic Editor by following the advice you found about clicking the 3 dots in the post or page Editor.
If you are referring to a different site, maybe a new site you just registered and set up using one the new Block Editor themes, you need to switch to a different theme before that option to revert will appear.
If you aren’t sure which theme is involved, please give us a link to the site you need help with.
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Hi, actually I’m trying to set up https://wordpress.com/customize/laratalk.home.blog
I’m using Professional Business theme at the moment. I would change to anything that permitted me to use the Classic Editor if that’s the issue.
When I open a post I see no way of returning to the Classic Editor. It has the Document Block layout. The three dots up the top right do nothing useful for my purpose. Going through WP Admin, which is my preferred option anyway, doesn’t offer me a Classic editor that I can see.
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Hello again, change the theme on laratalk.home.blog to Dara or Edin and look for the option to Switch to the Classic Editor. Click on the three dots at the upper right corner of the Editor and select “Switch to Classic Editor”
and click onWill I still be able to use the old editor?for a screenshot.Let me know how that goes.
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Just adding that any of the X-Business themes, like “Professional Business,” as well as the new themes (Redhill, Brompton, Leven, Hever, Stow) have the Block Editor integrated so it’s not possible to switch to the Classic Editor in those themes.
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Hey, justjennifer, I think you have just saved my day!
If only you were in charge of WordPress. I appreciate that there are probably lots of people who love Gutenberg, but there are clearly many millions who don’t. And I’m definitely one of them. I feel like it’s against the principles that WordPress began with to force us down this one track. I’m really disappointed, and that’s as a fan of many years’ standing.
Not only that, but the new Customiser? I simply don’t understand how it works, it’s awful. I started and deleted a bunch of blogs over the last couple of weeks because sorting out how they looked was too hard. I’m not a techie by any means, but I’ve been around this sort of thing for a long time, built and maintained my own websites and blogs back before WordPress and it’s like the more WordPress tries to do, the worse are the consequences for the users.
I’m a writer, so for me, what really matters is words and type. Ah yes, there used to be a blogging platform called WordPress. It was called WordPress because it was about…..words.
Whereas now, WordPress is about pictures, monetisation, stuff that is so far away from its original focus that I guess it’s no surprise I no longer feel like it has anything to do with me. Sadly.
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Just a quick question…those themes you suggest, Dara and Edin are being retired. So what option will we have going forward? Is this something that is changing sitewide? I don’t follow up on things, but I hate this block editor…
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Seriously? So my problem is not solved? Perhaps justjennifer could comment on this.
I realise that WP now powers a third of the internet and therefore the original core users who supported it because it said that print mattered no longer count. But all the same. It’s hard to believe that WP is so insistent that we must all be forced down the Gutenberg Block path.
I surely won’t be, even if it does mean leaving.
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There are currently 113 free themes available at https://wordpress.com/themes/free
Approx 20 are new themes that only work with the Block editor so you still have approx 90 themes that will work with the Classic editor.
My dashboard offers 362 free themes meaning I can still activate any of the 249 retired themes. Perhaps at some point some of those older retired themes will have to be completely removed, if only because they are no longer search-engine friendly, let alone Block editor compatible.
Hopefully enough old themes and the Classic editor will continue long enough until the Block editor experience is easier for me to live with.
I’ve tagged this thread to ask for feedback from staff. -
themajicrobot, I was assuming that justjennifer knows more than we do on account of being a moderator. She seemed to struggle to come up with two. But I do hope feedback from staff will be illuminating.
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I have been trying all these older themes…even the ones suggested, and none have the option to switch back to classic editor.
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Well, I used one of those two suggested above (can’t remember which one) and it works fine. AT THE MOMENT.
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@themagicrobot — thanks for flagging us.
@cathychua note you can always flag staff too by adding a “modlook” tag.Feature retirement means the feature goes away completely, but theme retirement is different since we don’t want to affect how your visitors view live sites. Here’s how theme retirement works:
– If your site is using a theme when it’s retired, nothing changes. You just get a note about it being retired.
– If a site has used a retired theme, currently policy still lets you switch back to that theme, for that site.
– New sites will not have access to that theme.
Just know that new features sometimes won’t work in old themes, and fixes / bug support is a bit limited since we’re apt to have you just pick the newer theme instead.
Also, sorry your experiences with blocks has been subpar.
I can say that while the classic editor is available for now, in my experience it’s a lot of work maintaining so many editors (classic web, block web, plus versions for various apps.)
So given that the classic editor may be removed at some point, if there are specific issues we can address for you with the Block editor, can you share details on those issues now? That way we can hopefully get them addressed long before the old editor is retired.
And the issues don’t have to be bugs. But they do need to be specific enough that we can recommend a change… and no, “kill the block editor and return to classic” isn’t the sort of action I’m referring to, though it may be tempting to make requests like that. The block editor does have its quirks right now, but it does open up a world of options we simply couldn’t support before.
So, things like, “I can’t figure out how to swap images” or “I want to be able to change the layout for all blog posts at once” or “It takes too long to load on Chrome” would all be helpful. Just let us know what your typical usage is like and what hurdles you’re running into there.
Thanks in advance. :)
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Hi supernovia. Thanks for engaging. I won’t be the first to have written in these forums along these lines.
In a piece of bad timing I wrote an academic paper not long ago, suggesting that WordPress does a reasonable job of sticking to its core original policies. And indeed it keeps to some of them rigorously.
But in other ways not and some would say how could it? We all know it now ‘powers a third of the Internet’ and you can’t do that based on the requirements of your original core users which were that it should be all about a beautiful place to make beautiful print. You will recall the days before The Image became almost everything and then Monetisation became the God of All Who Use the Internet.
If you are just a person who wants to have blogs and put print on them, it is extremely hard to find any resource online that isn’t either image or marketing obsessed. There are some very small sites that recognise the need for the minimalism. Just you, your screen, keyboard and cursor. But of course, we are all scared about ongoing continuity. A little business that promises we all will be for you for ever. Very easy to say.
This puts people like me, who have zero interest in monetisation, nothing on my blogs is about making money, in an invidious position. Didn’t they all die in the great plague of 2010? Those people who wrote blog posts and weren’t trying to sell socks or sex from it?
Maybe this is the bottom line for me. If you are able to power a third of the Internet and counting, then you have a pretty lousy model if you can’t afford to support the Classic editor. Especially since you have received literally millions of complaints about it and there is at least one serious fork as a consequence. Unfortunately the fork isn’t for me either, as it is for business users.
I would be perfectly happy to use a model of WordPress that charged a small amount to keep Classic going. A few bucks a month times millions of users isn’t nothing. But if you tell me that lil’ ol’ WordPress can’t afford to keep the Classic editor going, something is seriously wrong.
As for specific issues with ‘Block’, it is really hard to talk about this with people who aren’t writers. If you are a writer the idea of having your screen the very opposite of a beautifully blank space is very difficult. For example, right now, I’m not writing in the tiny square I get to write comments in. I’m writing elsewhere on a large plain screen and I will cut and paste it here. If you look at your last paragraph, you will see how the relationship between you and me is a total disconnect. What I want is very simple. An aesthetically pleasing screen, not too much rubbish on it, and a large blank space to write as I want to write. Not as WP wants me to write. Not as The Block wants me to write. But whenever anybody says this to WP, somebody like you replies that this isn’t helpful. Tell me if your images aren’t loading properly. Well, you know. You can define as ‘helpful’ things that let you do what you want instead of what we want. But I’m struggling to see, from my point of view, how that is ‘helpful’. As for the idea that we should stick with something that is so immediately and permanently enraging and we’ll get over it. Not happening. for me, anyway.
Part of the issue is what defines a ‘writer’. Most of the people who call themselves ‘writers’ on WP and the internet generally aren’t. Mostly they are like this as a typical model, a ‘stay at home mom who loves cooking and writing about it and getting you to click on something that will make me money’. They monetise their blog in some way. And if you want their recipe for spag bol, you have to wade through incredibly tedious text about why stay at home mom prefers blah blah blah to bleh bleh bleh when they cook something mind-boggingly boring, a bunch of photos ‘this is me about to stir’, ‘this is me stirring’ ‘this is when I’ve just finished stirring’ and finally you have your bingo. You have got to the bit that is just ‘ingredients’ and ‘method’. At which point you discover that the reason it’s buried at the bottom of a very long and slow screen is that it isn’t any good. But hey, the photos were…ummm. Sigh.
It is not that I mind that many million such marketeers exist and probably call themselves ‘writers’. But there is a major difference between a ‘writer’ for whom that means creating words and a ‘writer’ for whom that means if you click on my pictures it’ll take you to Amazon and I’ll make a cent. WordPress is all over the latter. But I do wonder if WordPress thinks it would be so much better if that other type didn’t exist. That type like me.
From what I can gather from my research, there are lots of reasons why people hate ‘Block’. But you can’t do anything to make it work for me since the very idea of being trapped in a ‘block’ gives me….Writer’s Block.
Thanks.
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Thank you for the suggestions re. changing to a different theme. I have a couple of blogs re. to College and I tried to use the same theme, but for the one I opened last year Classic was available; the one I opened today, same theme, hasn’t got Classic available. And what I find EXTREMELY disappointing, is that I am asked to PAY to have the Classic Editor available [while I am already paying for the professional website!]… not happy at all!
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You absolutely do not need to pay to use the Classic Editor.
To restore the Classic Editor, follow the steps under “Will I still be able to use the old editor?” at https://en.support.wordpress.com/wordpress-editor/#frequently-asked-questions
We do recommend the new editor though, and we have some extensive documentation available at https://en.support.wordpress.com/wordpress-editor/
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