Cancel

Sarah Gooding

WordPress.com Introduces Content Options Customizer Panel, Plans to Include in Jetpack

content-options

This week WordPress.com introduced a new Customizer panel to its users called Content Options. The new panel offers a number of minor tweaks that would ordinarily be handled by a few simple free plugins on a self-hosted site. It brings a whole new range of customizability to the WordPress.com sites that was not previously available.

Content Options have been launched across the network with a handful of features that WordPress.com plans to expand:

  • Blog Display: choose between displaying the full content of each post or an excerpt on the blog and category, tag, and date archive pages. A “default” option is also available for themes that mix excerpts and full posts based on post format.
  • Author Bio: Hide the author bio on single posts.
  • Post Details: Show or hide the post date, tags, or categories.

“We also plan to add support for modifying other elements in the future, including the ability to hide featured images and author names,” Automattic Theme Wrangler Thomas Guillot said in the announcement. More than 30 themes on WordPress.com currently support Content Options and all new free themes will be built with support for the new Customizer panel.

Guillot also confirmed that the Content Options is a plugin that Automattic is aiming to include in Jetpack in the future, although he could not provide an ETA. If it does eventually get shipped with Jetpack, self-hosted users who use a combination of plugins to provide the same functionality will be able to drop them in favor of turning on a Jetpack module. Many theme authors already support popular Jetpack features, such as sharing buttons, the contact form, and galleries. Content Options is a handy customization feature that may be the next module to receive widespread support from theme authors.

Category: ,
Tags: , ,
14

14 responses to “WordPress.com Introduces Content Options Customizer Panel, Plans to Include in Jetpack”

  1. Presumably WP.com are introducing this due to demand from users to modify those elements.

    If there’s demand for it among WordPress users, wouldn’t it make sense to include the functionality in core itself so that theme authors and users could take advantage of it without having to use Jetpack on self hosted installs?

    Authors could support it through add_theme_support()

    If you’re a theme author who receives support tickets from users about how to modify the byline info or excerpts, telling them to install Jetpack just to modify it is overkill.

    A standardized method of dealing with it in core would seem to be in everyones interest, like the custom logo functionality.

    Create forum topic from comment

      • Custom Logo was also part of Jetpack first, and got integrated into Core later.

        I too, think it would make sense to include this in Core. However, I can see the advantage of adding it to Jetpack first, figure out how it interacts with most themes out there, fix bugs, make it easier to use and integrate into themes, … Then, once the product seems stable enough, propose it for integration into core.

        Consider it a Beta period of sorts. :)

        Create forum topic from comment

  2. The new panel offers a number of minor tweaks that would ordinarily be handled by a few simple free plugins on a self-hosted site. It brings a whole new range of customizability to the WordPress.com sites that was not previously available.

    Seems like what when presented with actual customers who spend money — and the desire to get more customers to spend money — the philosophy of “decisions not options” is not as realistic as some people would like.

    Just saying.

    Create forum topic from comment

    • Like it or not JetPack is a very integral part of WP and will only become more so in the coming years.

      Automatic is a private company that has chosen to free themselves of the constraints of core devs debating for 3 YEARS about which buttons should and shouldn’t be part of the WP editor (as one ridiculous recent example).

      I, for one, wish Automattic was WAY more aggressive than they already are.

      Hear that Matt? My credit card is out and I’m waiting for a reason to pay Automattic real money. :) Although at $300/year JetPack Pro looks interesting……

      Create forum topic from comment

  5. This is theme territory. For most themes, design decisions should govern over providing users with an overwhelming number of options. And for many themes, this functionality wouldn’t make sense. For some themes it could, though, and it’s not complicated for a theme to implement these options themselves if they want to. Add a section and a few basic controls to the customizer. There is no need for themes to rely on Jetpack for functionality like this.

    Create forum topic from comment

    • @Nick, What do you mean “there is no need”? Of course there will be a need for all the themes that are interested in being on wordpress.com, or show “jetpack compatibility”, and once many themes will support it, they will start crying about the fact that it is something common to most themes, and why can’t it be in core instead of forcing them to implement the same functionality again and again in every new theme. And before you know it, it will become part of core.
      This was exactly how site logo became part of core, although it is easy to be implemented by theme authors.

      And that is of course not the only example. Isn’t your css editing feature that you want to push into 4.7 an exact rip off of a jetpack feature? Obviously nothing wrong with adopting ideas and even code from other places, but it seems like what @Jermey implies is correct – whatever goes into jetpack will end up in core with much less scrutiny (as it is already installed on millions of sites).

      Create forum topic from comment

      • it seems like what @Jermey implies is correct – whatever goes into jetpack will end up in core with much less scrutiny (as it is already installed on millions of sites).

        Well, ignore for a second the ~35 or so features (some of which have been in Jetpack forever) that have not ended up in core, and you might be on to something.

        Create forum topic from comment

You may also like

Newsletter

Subscribe Via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

%d bloggers like this: