This week’s Prompt For The Promptless is about shopping lists:

A shopping list (noun) is a list of items needed to be purchased by a shopper, a grocery list is a the most popular type of shopping list– including items that need to be procured on the next visit to the grocery store.

I’ve decided to write a shopping list of things I would like WordPress to fix. I know, technically, I can’t shop for these things, but since I actually pay WordPress money for this site, I think it counts.

The edit post box is all fucked up.

This is a screenshot of the edit post box I’m currently writing this in:

Do you see any difference between those two lines of text? I don’t and I’m a professional. Bold text and regular text look exactly the same. The only way I can tell if something is bold is to go into text mode and look for the < strong > < /strong > tag.

Headers:

This is what my headers look like in edit mode:

Do you see how the header is smaller than the regular text? That’s not normal. Headers are supposed to be larger and bolder than normal text. It’s difficult to write posts when you have absolutely no idea what they will look like when published.

Plus, that screenshot’s size is 100%, meaning that, when published, all of the text is larger than it is in edit mode. If I cared about formatting more than I do, that would be a real problem.

You’ve done something to drafts in the last week and it’s pissing me off.

The other day, I wrote a post. That’s not unusual. I often write posts. Where I generally make my mistake is posting first, then editing. I should really learn to edit before I post, but I always seem to find something I’d like to change after it’s up. My revisions list usually looks something like this:

Anyway, I wrote a post and then made changes as is my wont. I updated. None of the changes I just made were there. That’s odd, I thought. I went back in to edit and the changes were there. Huh, that’s odd, I thought. I hit update again. Some of the changes were there, others weren’t. OK, then. Edit again. I found something else I wanted to reword. I changed that and it changed, but then the changes I made before disappeared.

Editing my post was like trying to juggle sand. I’d make a change and there would be a 50/50 chance that it would show up. If it did show up, the next time I edited, there would be a 50/50 chance that the first change would disappear.

Finally, I went through the entire post and changed everything I had already changed–sometimes, changed several times–at once. I copied the whole thing just in case, hit publish and crossed my fingers. There were still a couple of small changes I would have liked to make, but I figured I was tempting the fates to have all of my changes disappear again and left it as is.

That’s an excellent system you’ve got there when “good enough” is the best I can manage.

Your iPhone application is abysmal.

I often edit posts on my phone, when I’m standing outside smoking a cigarette at work. The other day, I made one small change to a published post. Instead of updating it, it changed the status from published to draft. Well, alright then, I thought. I’ll just publish it again. Whatever.

When I hit publish on a post that was already published, instead of publishing the version that I had just updated, it used an ancient draft out of nowhere. It even changed the name of the post title to the working title I was using while writing it.

I was unable to do anything about it from my phone. It wouldn’t let me un-publish it or make any changes. I had to go to a real computer, go into versions, pick the right one and publish that. Had I not had access to a computer, my post would have remained published in its unfinished state for no goddamn reason.

Also, I can never get to my stats from my phone. It takes me to just a dead-end WordPress page. Fortunately, I’m not stats obsessed, but I do like to know what people are reading, where they are coming from and where they are going. I can never access that information from my phone.

And while we’re at it, there are a few things I positively hate about your site that you still refuse to change…

Get rid of Fisher Price’s My First Blog Post.

This, I hate this:

What the hell is that? I want the edit post page with all the bells and whistles (where my text is always bold and my headers tiny)…

…not this bullshit excuse for a new post page:

How is a title ever optional?

Any time I accidentally click on Fisher Price’s My First Blog Post, I am enraged. Why is that there? Why do we need two “New Post” things, when one is clearly superior to the other? Get rid of it.

Stop making me approve/trash my own links.

Every time I link something on my blog, you feel the need to tell me about it and make me approve it. I know that I link my blog because I’m the one who linked it. Every time I have to trash one of my own links, it makes me feel a little stab, like I’m not good enough to link to my own blog. Stop that. Give us an option to never see those stupid self-referential comments.

Your reader sucks.

Sometimes, I’ll go into my reader and there are only five new posts from all the blogs I follow. Sometimes, I’ll go to my reader, particularly on my phone, and the latest post is from two days ago. I’ll read it thinking it’s a new post and find out it’s from two days ago. Not that I begrudge you showing me posts from two days ago, since I clearly missed it the first time, but new posts should always be on top.

WordPress, I am generally happy with you, but some of these things drive me bonkers, especially when they’re working just fine one day, and the next, they’re broken.

I’m sure there’s more, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. Start fixing these and when you’re done, I’ll give you more things to work on. As a start, go back to the edit post page you had before you made the latest changes. Thanks.

Sincerely yours, forever bold and tiny texted,

Goldfish

xoxo.