I still miss the meta widget

  • hokonuieric · Member ·

    I still miss the meta widget as the easiest way to login. I have WordPress.com blogs under two different logins and it is by far the easiest way to change from one to the other.

    I have never seen a good reason to remove it, though perhaps I missed the explanation.

    Just sayin’

    And hoping! :)

  • justjennifer · Member ·

    Hi there, When you logged in with the now-defunct meta widget, you ended up in your WP Admin dashboard. The change came about because WordPressdotcom would like you to log in at wordpress.com and then land in and work with the new dashboard (Calypso).

    If you prefer to work with your site’s WP Admin, your account is old enough that you should see a link to it at the bottom of the sidebar on Calypso. Switching between sites (not accounts) can be done in the MY SITES tab at the top left of your screen when logged in. You can also bookmark this page https://dashboard.wordpress.com/wp-admin/index.php?page=my-blogs which will list all your sites under this account.

    Hope that helps.

  • hokonuieric · Member ·

    Hi, thanks for your interest and wanting to help. But clearly I am thinking differently to WordPress.

    “WordPressdotcom would like you to log in at wordpress.com and then land in and work with the new dashboard (Calypso)”

    I have never logged in that way and it would never have occurred to me to do so if you hadn’t mentioned it here. And when I tried now, I couldn’t see how to actually get to my site. I much prefer to have my bookmarks and login to the site I want to work on directly. And I don’t even know what “Calypso” is, but if it is anything to do with the new edit page rather than the old edit page, then I’m afraid I don’t find that easy to use either.

    I appreciate that WordPress provides me with several free sites, wonderful free software and attractive free themes. I cannot complain. And I don’t wish in any way to be rude to your suggestion. But it doesn’t really work well for me.

    “If you prefer to work with your site’s WP Admin, your account is old enough that you should see a link to it at the bottom of the sidebar on Calypso.”

    I’m sorry, but I don’t see this either. I have put a link to my dashboard at the bottom of the sidebar in my latest blog (it uses Scrawl theme) but that is all I can see.

    ” Switching between sites (not accounts) can be done in the MY SITES tab at the top left of your screen when logged in.

    Switching between sites is not a problem, but often I need to switch between accounts, and that is harder the way things are now.

    I really love and admire WordPress as a piece of software, and I think it works so amazingly well. But I just hope it is not going to go like Facebook and force on us users the one way that we MUST work, and particularly not for any mercenary reason. I think an easy toggle between the old edit screen and the new one (rather then me having to go through several screens as a work around), and retention of the Meta widget as an option would keep a lot of users happy.

    Anyway, I didn’t want to harangue you, I just wanted to add my voice to those who like some of the older ways.

    Thank you for listening and offering some help. :)

  • justjennifer · Member ·

    You’re welcome and no worries. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Each dashboard/editor, etc. has its advocates. I think in the long run there will be advantages to working with the new dash/editor, although I also favor the wp-admin and some links there already reroute to the new dash.

    Logging in to different accounts hasn’t changed, however. You could only ever be logged in to one account at a time. If you prefer to log in to each account/site on its own, you can add /wp-admin at the end of the site URL and bookmark that for quick access to each, which I assume you have done.

    Cheers.

  • hokonuieric · Member ·

    Thanks again for you willingness to listen. Just one extra thought. The old Meta login would toggle on and off, which was useful when jumping from one account top the other. Now it is slower.

  • hokonuieric · Member ·

    Hi Jennifer,

    I’m sorry, but I’m going to make another complaint at the way WordPress is going. I logged in today to make some changes to my menu, and found that when I went to Appearance, Menu, I got the new style, dreaded blue WordPress screen rather than the familiar and logical old black and white screen. Again, I absolutely hate it – it isn’t as intuitive, it took me about 5 attempts to do what I wanted, and although I don’t doubt I’ll be more efficient in the future, I still hate being forced into something inferior.

    Now it is apparent that complaints are not going to dissuade WordPress from this “streamlining”, which seems to be for WP’s benefit, not the users, but I thought I’d ask you another question please.

    Is all this the way of the future? Will we expect to gradually see all screens go to the unintuitive blue screens rather than the familiar and easy old B&W ones? Is there a reason for this?

    I’d just like to know to prepare myself for the future, and perhaps consider moving off WordPress.com and running my own sites. Perhaps that is what WP is aiming at?

    Just asking so I can know. Thanks.

  • justjennifer · Member ·

    Hello again- Yes, it now appears that those links when clicked reroute to the Calypso Dashboard. (If you see that “open in a new window” icon next to the link, it’s taking you to the new dash/Calypso.)

    While I cannot speak for WordPressdotcom (I’m a volunteer here not an employee)…

    Is all this the way of the future?

    On WordPress.com? Yes, likely.

    Will we expect to gradually see all screens go to the unintuitive blue screens rather than the familiar and easy old B&W ones?

    Again, likely.

    Is there a reason for this?

    The reason is pretty much what I mentioned in my first reply to you. Calypso is a hub/product unique to serve WordPressdotcom, the WP apps and the plugins created by Automattic for standalone WP users. You can read more about how Calypso came about in these News blog posts https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/the-new-wordpress-dot-com/
    https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/new-high-speed-editor/

    Aside:/ I do also remember a discussion where it was mentioned that the web version of Calypso is served in your browser, and so less CPU drain on the servers-which with the upgrade to PHP7 shouldn’t be an issue anyway, but when you host tens, if not hundreds, of millions of websites…

    There was a browser script written by a community member a few years ago which rerouted all WPcom’s links to Calypso back to WP Admin, but I do not know its current status or whether it still works the way the author intended it to work given the changes at this end. At the time the script was written, the pages in the WP Admin dashboard still existed.
    /Aside

    You can of course plan your move to 3rd party hosting and using the standalone WP software. There are today dedicated, managed WP hosting providers which in principle should work “like” WordPress.com (meaning updates and backups are done for you), without the Calypso dashboard.

    However, if you install the Jetpack plugin to regain features you had here on WordPress.com you’ll still need to use the Calypso dashboard from time to time. For most things I just find Calypso “different” and that takes getting used to. (FWIW-Our support site has been mostly updated to reflect using Calypso, so if you get stuck the search box there would be your first stop.)

    Long Story Short: We can certainly complain, cajole and suggest, but ultimately the decision on how WordPressdotcom develops is out of our hands (and I’m speaking from 11 years of experience).

    Whew! I need more coffee – maybe another double espresso. :) Cheers!

  • unklee · Member ·

    Hi Jennifer, this is the last I’ll write on this topic – no-one likes a whinger!

    Thanks for your friendly and helpful comments, especially as you are a volunteer! And I can see if WP thinks this will save server time or space, or integrate desktop & mobile, then I can understand why they have chosen this.

    But nevertheless they have made things harder and slower to use for me, not just unfamiliar, and I can’t see why they couldn’t have achieved their goals without making things worse to use.

    I have 2 WP accounts. One has three websites/blogs which are updated only occasionally. They cost me nothing, and I can hardly complain, and so I will just have to put up with it.

    But the other account has one website which is used often, and therefore the changes are more of a pain. I pay for the design upgrade, and it will be very little more to purchase webspace and a domain name (I know because I have yet another site which I already have set up like that). So I am starting to plan how I might move the whole thing across. And that will solve that.

    Thanks again, you have been most friendly, gracious and helpful.

  • unklee · Member ·

    Sorry, that was the same person, just accidentally using my other account.

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