Recently I wrote about a WordPress hyperlink bug that makes adding certain links take too many steps. It just returned.
If there’s one thing I wish software engineers knew, it’s that some improvements aren’t improvements. I present as an example the hyperlink bug in self-hosted WordPress.
I don’t know if it exists on the WordPress.com sites, since I don’t use that version.
Prior to last September, when you added a hyperlink to text, you could easily specify whether you wanted the link to open in the same window (or tab) or in a different one. All you had to do was click a checkbox. That checkbox was in the same window where you entered the URL. Everything was all in the same step.
It was quick and easy.
For some reason, last September, someone decided to change that. The window suddenly became just a single strip for the URL. You entered it and clicked “Link.” Here’s what it looked like:
But you couldn’t control whether the link opened in a new window or not.
To do that, you had to hover over the link, click the link when a popup appeared, then you had to click a little “pencil” icon to edit the hyperlink:
You then saw a window with an “Advanced” link you had to click:
When you clicked “Advance,” that’s where you found the checkbox to open the link in a new tab:
The change made no sense. It only made what should have been a simple task that much more complicated.
Hyperlink bug gets brief improvement…but far too brief
Back in November, another curious thing happened. We saw a slight improvement. No, it wasn’t back to the way it had been with everything in the same window.
But when you clicked over the link you’d already placed, you now had just one window with an “Open in new window” checkbox:
So it eliminated a couple of clicks at least.
I was happier with that but still not completely happy. I like simple, uncomplicated steps for simple, uncomplicated things. When a blogger adds a hyperlink, that should always be simple.
Someone at WordPress seems to have forgotten that basic blogging truth.
Back to more complications
I recently updated to WordPress 4.2. These days, I think we bloggers have to update whenever an update becomes available. I don’t mean to sound like an “early adopter.” It’s just that most updates contain critical security patches. So delaying an update could leave your site vulnerable to whatever security risk an included patch might immediately fix.
But we’ve now regressed a bit with the hyperlink bug. You now have to add the hyperlink to the small window and click the “Link” link:
You now see the little pencil icon. When you click that, it opens to this:
So they’ve added a step since November’s update. But we’re still a couple of steps down from last September’s update.
I’m still hoping that they’ll soon this little hyperlink bug so that the checkbox is in the same window in which you add the URL to begin with.
That made the most sense when it used to work that way. It would make the most sense now!
