Half-Elf on Tech

Thoughts From a Professional Lesbian

Tag: testing

  • This Post Was Written on Gutenberg

    This Post Was Written on Gutenberg

    I think … I like it and I don't like it. Yeah that was the worst review ever, so let me explain.

    Overall, I like the direction

    I'm a big text-editor person. I like the control, I'm comfortable in HTML, and I really only used the visual editor in the last 3 years because I felt to fully support people with WordPress, I needed to do so. Naturally this means I'm probably the least likely candidate to like Gutenberg. But I do.

    I don’t like the animations

    The transition animations feel 'off' to me. When I start typing, the icons for styles (bold and italic and so on) vanish, which is nice, but they reappear when I move my mouse. This is a problem if I want to go back and edit a previous block. Things are cut off.

    I like that everything is a block

    The simple idea "Everything is a block" is really nice. I can understand this easily, and it was no hard jump to think of my content as blocks. Moving blocks around is also nice. The idea of blocks and modular content suits me.

    I don’t like that ‘tab’ doesn’t work

    When I'm writing in sections, blocks, I can't use TAB to navigate back and forth. Yes, I want too. Since I can't use my arrow keys either, it's really annoying. Navigating by keyboard is a huge part of what I do daily, and I like to keep that. ## I like that I can use Markdown* The `*` is because I can kind of use markdown. And by kind of what I mean is in the above line, I used `##` to make the H2 block. On view, it works. In the editor though it looks like this:  An example of inline markdown I'm not super fond of that. I expected it to magically transform. ## I don't like the meta-box experience Okay. This is the advanced user stuff. But I use meta boxes. I spend a lot of time making my meta boxes fix the screen space. I added content to the publish box. And I'm not the only one out there who customizes the heck of the sidebar and the below the post area and … Yeah. I'm seriously concerned about that. Right now, all I see on the sidebar is a 'drop cap' toggle, which I probably won't use. I'm watching the Advanced Drawer discussion very closely with that in mind, since I have a post type with, literally, a dozen meta boxes. And no, not all will fit on the sidebar. ## As a whole… Gutenberg is really neat. It has some serious quirks, but that's why it's in beta testing at the moment. So please. Test it. As Chris Lema said, the people working on this plugin need our feedback. If you're a hardcore WordPress user, be that a developer or an advanced user, please download the latest plugin and leave your comments over here. To that end, comments here are closed.
  • Google Advertising Experiments

    Google Advertising Experiments

    In the time since I’ve gone back to Google Adsense, I’ve had issues with some of their ads. Mostly religion and politics. Big shocker, right? Every once in a while, Google suggest I allow those ads:

    Consider allowing ads from sensitive categories to increase auction pressure and improve performance.

    I usually discard the suggestion, but this time they tried something new to me.

    … you can allow these ads now, or run an experiment to help you decide.

    Experiment?

    There are only two types of experiments right now. One is ad units, where you can adjust templates and ad sizes. The other is what I’m doing, allowing and blocking ads. I clicked on the experiment button, and it set up an A/B test for me, tracking the clicks of each version of my site, to see if anyone actually clicks on those ads.

    Screenshot of the experiment page, showing nothing since it just started

    Initially there was an option to automatically pick the best one, but I don’t know if I want to. I do know that I want to actually see if anyone who reads my sites wants to see political ads.

    The reason I’d blocked them is they were showing right-wing crazy people on my sites, and I’m not that person. They were showing ads I would deem offensive (and you have to work hard to offend me) so instead of reading every single ad, I decided to block all of them, assuming I wasn’t hurting my income too much.

    After this experiment, I’ll circle back and make a more informed decision. I wish there were more things I could experiment on, like specific ads in specific locations, but this ability to just see if the ads are clicked at all is a nice start for a free product.