Selecting Widgets From Top WordPress Bar Takes You To Customize Instead

[Brian Ash]

For the last few versions of WordPress, whenever you select Widgets from the drop down menu underneath your website name on the top WordPress bar, instead of it taking you to the Widgets page, it takes you to the Customize page instead (see screenshot).

If you try it yourself, you should see what I mean.

[Brian Ash]

This screenshot shows the option that isn't working correctly

[ocean90]

Hello Brian Ash, welcome to Trac.

The link to the widgets panel of the Customizer was introduced in [31176] and is by design. For background take a look at #30971.

[Brian Ash]

Replying to ocean90:

Hello Brian Ash, welcome to Trac.

The link to the widgets panel of the Customizer was introduced in [31176] and is by design. For background take a look at #30971.

Yeah, I just figured out this was by design. It was throwing me because it takes a second (or two or three) to transition from Customizing the Theme to Customizing the Widgets when you select it.

I'm not a big fan of the Customize feature in general, so I liked how it worked before better. Now when I'm working with Widgets, I'll have to hit Dashboard and then find the Widgets option under the Appearance menu. More steps, but I'll eventually get used to that.

When I'm working with Widgets, I sometimes like to open several of them up and copy HTML from one Widget to another, but Customize only lets you have one Widget open at a time. I like having the full widgets page at my disposal with more real estate.

Just like how selecting Menu takes you to the Menu page, I wish selecting Widgets still took you to the Widgets page. Maybe if enough people complain it will change back (not holding my breath though)...

Thanks for the quick response.

[dmchale]

While I understand why this was done, it seems to provide an inconsistent usability issue for users. The options in the top nav used to mimic the functionality of their counterparts in the "Appearance" menu of the backend... now that "Themes" and "Widgets" have been hijacked for their new customizer flavors from the frontend dropdown, I wonder how difficult it may be for some users to find the tools where they can ADD themes and manage their widgets with the traditional "drag-n-drop" area.