Permalinks wording is incorrect

[dmccan]

Testing 4.4 beta 2 and saw some permalink oddity. Downloaded 4.3.1 and did a fresh install of 4.3.1 and on another site a fresh install of 4.4 beta 2 using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. Went to Settings / Permalink Settings and on both see the default permalink structure as "Day and name".

I am installing on Windows localhost. I unchecked allow search engines to index site when installing.

[johnbillion]

This is intended behaviour since WordPress 4.2. See #6481.

[dmccan]

Ah. I did not realize there was a change. I notice that the wording on the page does not reflect the new default:

1. The instructions at the top say "By default WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them ...", but that no longer reflects the new default. It should say "By default WordPress uses web URLs that have the day and name in them ... ".

2. The first item in the list says "Default" but it is no longer the default. I understand that in some regards "default" = "unaltered", but perhaps instead of "Default" it would be clearer to say "Plain". Plain seems to be used to describe basic URLs and indicates that it is not a pretty or "aesthetic" URL.

Thanks

[afercia]

I'd recommend to consider to update the text to reflect the new default. It should mention that Pretty Permalinks are enabled only if the server supports it. The Codex page should be updated too:
​https://codex.wordpress.org/Settings_Permalinks_Screen

[Ankit K Gupta]

I am agree with @dmccan, if 'Day and Time' permalink is default then it should be clearly show on page. Current scene is creating confusion.
Created patch for the same.

Thanks

[Ankit K Gupta]

patch file

[juhise]

The above description text should also be updated, I have updated the text. Instead of 'Plain', 'Post ID' will look more relevant.

[johnbillion]

So WordPress actually has two defaults now. If the server supports URL rewriting (for example via mod_rewrite on Apache) then the day and name permalink structure is used. If not, the permalink structure we currently refer to as default is used.

To simplify this, any reference to a default should be removed. The default has no relevance, after all.

[johnbillion]

34509.2.patch​ changes 'Default' to 'Plain', and removes other unnecessary references to a default permalink structure.

[DrewAPicture]

@johnbillion Not sure about "Plain". What do you think about "Generic" instead? Otherwise, looks good to me.

[DrewAPicture]

In 35599:

Permalinks: Rename the "Default" permalink structure to "None" as permalinks have been enabled by default (where supported) since 4.2.

Updates help tabs and contextual text to match.

Props johnbillion, DrewAPicture.
Fixes #34509.

[pavelevap]

Maybe there should be context for "None"? Because translation can be different for current string "None" (for setting alignment for image) and "None" as a permalink settings...

[DrewAPicture]

In 35604:

Permalinks: Use "Plain" instead of "None" for the ?p-###, which is still a valid permalink structure, just not a "pretty" one.

Permalinks are enabled by default (where supported) since in 4.2. When that change was made, it rended the "Default" label (previous to [35599]) inaccurate.

Props Ankit-K-Gupta.
Fixes #34509.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to DrewAPicture:

@johnbillion Not sure about "Plain". What do you think about "Generic" instead?

How about "Short"? Get Shortlink button was hidden by default in [34556], but if we call them shortlinks in one place, we could as well do it here.