Custom Fields / Post Meta JS seems broken

[mdawaffe]

The hide/show behavior is inconsistent with the rest of the interface.

Attached:

Add New inputs are hidden by default, slide open when clicked.

CSS tweaks.

[ryan]

"Enter new/Cancel" for showing either the dropdown or the input was nice. Can that be retained?

[azaozz]

Think this makes it to look more consistent, but the functionality is more inconsistent. The user has to open the postbox (if closed), then click again to open the "add" form.

This is different than adding categories as they can be selected by a checkbox. When adding meta fields, both Name and Value have to be entered, so the form is used every time.

Also the main usability complain was that both "select existing" and "add new" were visible at the same time. A lot of users were unclear what to do.

[mdawaffe]

​http://trac.wordpress.org/attachment/ticket/8182/Post%20Meta%20Box.png

I don't have any post meta in a fresh install. That's what I see, which is totally confusing. "Enter New" is what I'm trying to do: enter a new post meta.

If we don't apply the patch above, we need to show the text field (without the cancel link) if there's no select dropdown.

Regardless of whether we apply the patch above, we should consider getting rid of the JS fanciness and just adding some text between the select dropdown and the text field:

"-- OR --", "Select a meta name above or add a new one below", ...

[azaozz]

The main usability concern is that both the select and type new Meta Name fields are available at the same time. Seems that this confuses a lot of users.

The same scenario exists on the first tab in the uploader, where both "From your computer" and "From Internet" are shown at the same time. Seems that many users don't like that/get confused, so we will have to separate them there in two different tabs.

Adding an explanation that only one "Meta Name" field should be used would improve the usability (and I personally prefer not to use js there too) but unless we really make only one field available, it seems this will remain confusing for many.

[azaozz]

Show only text input field for new blogs with empty post meta table

[azaozz]

(In [9992]) Hide post meta select when meta table is empty, see #8182