In his recent video, seasoned WordPress contributor Paal Joachim Romdahl has reviewed the current state of Navigation in WP 6.4 and TT4.
He picks up on some important UX issues and also makes some excellent suggestions for improvements.
Notes and Solutions
As someone who is heavily involved with working on these Navigation features in the WordPress Block Editor, I decided it would be helpful to review the video to capture any outstanding Issues encountered and also to provide some notes on work already in progress.
My notes are as follows:
Using the Navigation Section in the Sidebar:
- Would like to know where the Navigations are used on the site from the Site View sidebar.
- Are they currently in use at all?
- Being looked at in GitHub Pull Request #55782.
- Suggestion: Show template areas in the sidebar (e.g., Header and Footer) and be able to choose/swap out the Navigation being used there right from the sidebar. Seems motivated by experience from the Classic Menus admin page.
Navigation Focus Mode:
- Lacking spacing around the Navigation; a recent regression as it was not the case in 6.3.
- Should auto-focus the Navigation block by default; appears to be a regression.
- Expecting the sidebar to remain open when editing in the canvas.
- Always looks to the sidebar to make edits to the Navigation. The editable List View in the block inspector is ignored despite being far more powerful.
- Should show where the current Navigation Menu is being used on the site.
Editing the “Homepage”:
- He manages to get into a state where the wording used everywhere in the UI is “Page,” but when trying to edit, he is asked to “Edit Template.” This is very confusing for the user.
- Related to GitHub Issue #56244.
Navigation Block:
- Suggests it would be useful to have the Navigation Menu name at the top of the inspector controls below the block details. This isn’t shown even if the “List View” tab is selected. Being partially addressed in GitHub Pull Request #54436.
- “Manage Menus” button in “Advanced” still goes to the WP Admin Post List Screen. Do we need this anymore or should we now link directly to the
Navigationsection in the Site View sidebar? - Switching to a new Navigation Menu is possibly too hidden – being addressed in GitHub Pull Request #54436.
Bugs
- The responsive canvas can be dragged out so it obscures the Site View sidebar. That feels strange. Tracked in GitHub Issue #56747.
Thanks to Paal for taking the time to review the progress on Navigation in WordPress. You can also keep up to speed on what’s happening by subscribing to my YouTube Channel.