Dave Winer has said WordPress really needs a simple, normal writing interface and I couldn’t agree more. We’re hardly alone and it turns out they’ve been listening.
@writingslowly On the flip side, this has the potential to put sites like MB, Pika, and other Markdown- and Hugo-based blogging sites out of business. It feels like Wordpress has woken up to the fact that people are moving to simpler web creation sites and is trying to re-capture that market.
@drwalt yes, I’m going to try it out at least. It might be too basic for many users, but some people, myself included, are quite keen on basic. I won’t be leaving micro.blog, though, which is both simple and full of useful features — and for a very reasonable price.
@apoorplayer that’s an interesting thought. I’ll be continuing to use micro.blog, which for me hits the sweet spot between simplicity and range of features. And static sites are just different from the php-and-database approach of Wordpress. Im also keen to see how Dave Winer’s new work turns out.
@writingslowly WordPress has had a distraction free option, and Classic Editor works fine for basic writing. But underlying framework of Block editing is a complex layout system, not for writers. Besides, there are so many better options for research and authoring. Wrangling a CMS is not one.
@Skarjune “underlying framework of Block editing is a complex layout system, not for writers” - yes, that has certainly been my experience. It might well be that no ‘simpler’ front end could improve this.
@writingslowly Besides, Write is not a WordPress feature, it’s on WordPress.com by commercial Automattic, not the Open Source CMS software. Yes it’s free to play with, then comes the upsells to actually deploy professionally—as opposed to using WordPress.org software on any host anyway you prefer.
@writingslowly A startup attacked that problem in 1998 or so (Design Intelligence ). It and the patent got sold to Microsoft who wanted it for their desktop publishing app. It is a hard problem and didn’t fully work after several person years of coding.
@apoorplayer WordPress seems in slow decline after decades of growth. Many Writers opt for simpler automation to meet needs from Ghost to Substack. While I maintain legacy sites in WP, looking at Pika as option for blog style sites. Else rather hack HTML/CSS/JS than drown in tech bloat.
@Skarjune Fundamentally I agree, but I am not a skilled coder, so wrangling CSS/JS is above my skill level. But sites like MB and Pika seem to be more focused on the personal rather than monetization, which is again right where I sit. My legacy WP site should be gone by November.