Wordpress: Everything about it

Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 46 points –

Got suckered into helping a non-profit with their web presence, and of course, it was a Wordpress site (at least it wasn't a Facebook page).

Everything about WP is mildly infuriating at best, just regular infuriating at worst. Everything. If you know, you know. It's like they tried so hard to make it "easy" to use that it went full circle into a fuster-cluck of unintuitive and clunky everything.

With every facet of the experience being an upsell, is there a tier where it's just not horrible to use?

Specific examples:

  • WYSIWYG editor doesn't match the preview

  • Chasing the scroll point in the outline when moving elements

  • Can't edit block properties after they're added

  • Everything is a damn upsell

    • Want to remove the Wordpress footer? Upgrade to a paid plan (does not specify tier)
    • Okay, I've updated to a paid plan that meets our needs. Please remove the footer please.
    • "Oh, you have to have a plan two tiers up to do that"

  • General clunkyness

  • Only supports Apple map embeds which cannot find any of the addresses I need to enter

    • Cannot embed a Google map properly (doesn't support percentage widths for the iframe element so I can't make it responsive)

  • Changing the column widths on a layout grid block never releases the slider, so you have to mash keys until something else selects that locks it roughly where you want it.

46

https://wordpress.com/support/com-vs-org/

Seems like you're referring to Wordpress.com, which is their hosted, an all-in-one solution.

If you self-host WordPress, like the wordpress.org version, you will have a much better time - but you need to be able to maintain and look after everything yourself. I've never had any upset, but some plugins WILL be freemium and will bug you to get the paid version or subscription.

Yeah, they already had everything partially setup on Wordpress.com so I was more or less required to take over that. If I was brought into it from the get-go, rather than cleaning up that mess, I'd have spun up a VPS and built a proper static site for them (they're not using it as a blog or any of the interactive features).

You could still do that. If it's not a huge site, that effort might be less than digging out of where you are now?

The information would be easy to move over, but I have no idea how difficult it'll be to transfer the domain away from WP (they registered it with the plan) or if that's even possible. They also already printed the domain on their swag so we're stuck with it.

Probably just going to have to power through, though I may look into moving the domain and moving to a static hosting for long term once their 1 year is up with WP.

idk about wordpress, but can imagine you can just get a domain transfer, pay another year with the new provider and then freely use it.

Yeah, you'd think. But I'm not expecting it to be straightforward or easy (if it is, then yay). I'm definitely going to look into it.

Nah, I doubt it would be hard. Luckily there is a central body governing this and saying what they can, can't, must and mustn't do.

One complication is if they recently bought the domain. I think you need to wait like 90 days or so after a domain purchase or transfer to be able to transfer it.

I think you need to wait like 90 days or so after a domain purchase or transfer to be able to transfer it.

They did about a week ago, and that's what I'm assuming is going to be the hangup. I've just not ever messed with domains registered through WordPress, so I'm also unclear if there are any other restrictions or paywalls (everything is an upsell with them). I get mine directly from a registrar and am familiar with transferring those.

Yeah, that's probably impossible. I think that's an ICANN rule.

But I would assume that wordpress is a normal registrar, just one that's highly integrated into their other services.

Edit: apparently the limit is 60 days, and a registrar can choose to transfer it anyways but they don't have too. It's an ICANN rule intended to protect the buyer.

Transferring a domain from wordpress seems to be pretty straightforward with no fees. If they are not too expensive you could also just change the nameservers or edit the wordpress DNS if that is possible.

Thanks!

I've got more than 60 days before they want to go live, so it's certainly possible.

I hadn't looked into it at all yet (have had other things on my plate today), but my main fear was that the domain was registered to WP and just assigned to their account (e.g. WP "owned" the domain and we wouldn't have standing to transfer it). Again, I have done zero research on that front and was largely assuming WP would make it difficult.

I'll talk to the stakeholders and see what they think. They've already paid for a year of hosting and additionally may want to stick with WP for "reasons" (in which case I'm stuck). They didn't say why they chose it, so I dunno. We'll see I guess. Thanks again.

I hope you get your way :)

Again, if it's not too much work, I would prepare a static site first and then, when it's ready, work on just flipping the domain target to your new server.

I cannot imagine that you cannot change the domain's destination. You can still keep it registered at WordPress, that doesn't matter.

I feel you. This is one of the main reasons I quit doing freelance web design, hate WP with a passion and everyone was using it.

Yep. It's for a good cause (the NP does good work) but I am so regretting my decision to help. If they didn't already have the site partially setup and the domain registered with WP, I'd have just offered to throw it on one of my own servers and written something with Tailwind (it's a static site, so they're not using any of the blog or interactive stuff).

It's kind of the perfect storm - supposedly simple enough for the average person to use (they can't), and restrictive enough for the dev that it's like being forced to type with oven mitts on. At least in my experience.

like being forced to type with oven mitts on

That's exactly what it feels like. xD

supposedly simple enough for the average person to use

That is in fact the result every time that claim is made about any product. That was the pitch for COBOL, so simple your business analysts can write it, no need for expensive programmers. That was the pitch for business rules engines. That was the pitch for dozens of drag and drop GUI based programming "languages". Lastly that's the pitch for any number of specialized tools that let you "script" them like WordPress.

Not once in the hundreds of times those claims have been made have they ever been true. Every last time the only thing you end up with is a horrible programming language/framework that still requires programmer's but makes the experience of working with it miserable for them.

I think the takeaway is wordpress.com is NOT at all the same as wordpress.

Some of the complaints are for the platform itself, more are for the .com product, and the rest for the org setting up shop there without much thought.

I don't know where to start. I get that you're mad, but you're also just... You clearly dont know what you're doing. And that's okay. But that's like sucking at a videogame and blaming the controller.

WordPress is excellent. It's only downside is that they present large attack surface areas, but that's only because they e made it so easy to hobble together all kinds of plugins to get your site to do anything.

From the sounds of your post, you dont like the theme you're using. Maybe try a different theme. Or maybe you should switch to the classic editor? Idk.

You only have to pay for things you opt not to do yourself. That's it. WordPress is free and open source.

To be blunt: it's a skill issue.

What you moaning about? It works like a charm.

It is literally the worst CMS I've ever used in my life, and that includes Sharepoint.

I love SharePoint :)

Keep it simple and it's a wonderful platform. Too many people overcomplicate things and cause themselves their own headaches.

The first line - don't say that out loud, or you won't make any friends. The only thing worse is Lotus Notes.

I make a ton of money using SharePoint, why would I not love it?

You do realize that you can simultaneously make money on something and acknowledge it's a piece of shit at the same time, right?

Except it isn't a piece of shit. It does what it says it does on the box. The fact that people expect it to do far more than that is their fault, not the fault of the product.

I upvoted you for participating in good faith, but I definitely don't agree about Sharepoint. I've made projects succeed despite Sharpeont, never because of it. lol.

I think a lot of that is a lack of knowledge around it's capabilities, it's not as flexible as other systems, but at the same time it's absolutely amazing at doing certain things really fast and easily. I have thousands of people using systems I've built in SharePoint and more than half of them don't even know it's SharePoint. They just pop in, use it, and get out.

In all fairness, it may be. In the cases that have been dropped on my plate, it was absolutely not the correct tool for the job. It was just "what we have".

It's frequently the best tool for the job BECAUSE they already have it. If you need another tool, with another login, with more licensing costs, and more training time, and more support, it's often a worse option even if it has more features.

If they're trying to spin up an intranet and share some files within the organization, it's absolutely amazing. If they want a simple database containing active work items for a small team to process, it can do that too. If they want a central place to see who's currently on vacation... SharePoint's got you covered.

If you're trying to use it as a ERP system, it ain't going to work. If they want a full fledged CRM, also a bad idea.

SharePoint can meet at least 80% of the requirements for most office business processes involving files, pages, or single database tables, and it can do it for 20% of the cost/effort of dedicated software. If you want all the bells and whistles, that ain't going to cut it though.

I fucking hate wordpress. I get assigned a simple task to implement something on some page and find out that the code I need to edit isn't in a Git repo, but instead it's in a basic textbox buried somewhere in a page template. The code is stored in a database instead of version control because the people who built the site don't know any better.

A good theme does not store any code in the db imho

Right. But if the theme is selected by someone who doesn't work with code, and who builds the rest of the website with drag'n'drop widgets and unmaintained plugins, you're in for a bad time.

Wordpress.com sites are trash.

Wordpress as a CMS otherwise is fine.

Yes, you need to use Oxygen Builder, Divi, or Elementor to WYSIWYG effectively.

Yes you need to have daily backups and a security tool like Wordfence or WPMUDev's Defender.

But it works, its easy to build and migrate, it integrates with everything you want it to, and the content creation and management is super simple for an end user to manage. You can also get support for it from everywhere and anywhere at this point.

Reality: Everything sucks and you have to adapt and adjust to bullshit on any and every CMS you work with.

Improvise, adapt and overcome, OP. WordPress, like any other tool, is only as bad as the person using it. Look at it as an opportunity to learn a new skill.

He didn’t say he couldn’t use it, he said it was mildly to normally infuriating. Your comment comes across as patronizing and also misses the point.

I mean honestly why should anyone ask for improvements to anything, when you could just “get good” instead?