Time To Abolish Post Specific Metaboxes in The WordPress Post Editor

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I’ve used WordPress to write about WordPress for more than seven years, it’s how I make a living. Recently though, writing in WordPress feels more like being a data entry specialist. I guess in some ways, it’s not surprising considering that’s exactly what I’m doing.

The post editor is more or less a pretty user interface that enables me to add data to a database. I think the feeling is stronger if you write in WordPress every day as it’s an endless cycle of filling in text areas, fields, uploading media, and clicking the publish button. Many of these tasks take place within their own metabox which is something that detracts from a seamless experience. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to try something different.

Many of the posts I write post consists of content blocks such as: blockquotes, media, etc. Thinking about how I create content in WordPress, the conceptual post editor proposed in 2013 makes complete sense. Instead of a full-blown TinyMCE editor, I could select from a set of established content blocks. In addition to the content block idea, some of the metaboxes are integrated into the editor.

Proposal To Revamp The Post Writing/Editing Interface

The publish, categories, and tags metaboxes are integrated into the editor. It probably wouldn’t take too much effort to add a way to feature an image. I don’t know how usable this interface is, but I’d love to give it a try for a few months. The more metaboxes that disappear, the less I feel like I’m hitting switches and turning knobs before clicking the publish button. By having some of these tasks integrated into the editor, I think it’ll provide a better publishing experience.

I probably wouldn’t be able to get rid of all the metaboxes because of the plugins I use. However, I’m most interested in an interface that consists of less scrolling, searching, etc., that gets me to the publishing stage quicker without feeling like a data entry specialist.

Despite a large amount of discussion surrounding the proposal, the concept lost steam. Although I’ve never used it, I feel like I’d prefer it over the current editor. It’s anyone’s guess if we’ll ever see the post editor undergo a major change, but if it did, this is the direction I’d like to see it go.