Content in a site is the main dish, and creating content in WordPress is simple. WordPress uses TinyMCE as content editor, we can also spice up our content with shortcodes to create complex content layout.
Last month I launch WP-Editor.com. A simpler way to create buttons, boxes, even column in WordPress Visual Editor. It’s still very limited in term of functionality, but it’s amazing to know that we can do this in WordPress default content editor.
Building Restaurant Site in WordPress
But what if we can do this?
I was working on a restaurant site and i need a simple way to create restaurant menus (food menus, not navigation menus) so the restaurant owner can create easily create food item, re-order food item, delete food item, upload photo of food item, add price, etc.
Custom Post Type is not suitable for this
The first thing i try, is to create custom post type to store food item. Justin Tadlock create a Restaurant CPT plugin (still beta) where user can create each food menu item as post entry, tag each food item using custom taxonomy (maybe beverages, main dish, pasta, etc). But to create a page about Ice Tea is just too much for this site.
It’s too much hassle to write each content, it’s hard to explain to user, it’s hard to re-order/sort them. Yes there’s a plugin for that. But it’s still confusing for regular user.
Each entry will have their own page, and i don’t need this, so i need to disable singular pages for food items.
I need to create a page template to display all food item.
User cannot add content in between food item if needed.
Too much to build for simple feature I needed and user experience is not so great.
I don’t hate Shortcodes, but…
It’s awesome. Shortcode API is very simple, it’s easy to create one. But it’s frustrating to use. It’s even more frustrating to try to explain how to use it. Even fool-proof solution using tick box to build the shortcode tag and inserting them is too much. And it look really messy in the editor.
Page builder is just too complex
What user need is simplicity. Yes, page builder is simple, and it might be the future of WordPress editor. There’s several plugin that did this very well.
Mail Poet (formerly Wysija): to create newsletter content.
Site Origin Page Builder: using widget api to drag and drop and build content.
Elegant Themes Builder Plugin: using metabox to build content and replace the original content.
It’s simple, but in my opinion still too complex. It’s just added more complexity in writing content. Too much features. What i need is less time to explain to user, less time to support, and more time to be productive.
Why not using WordPress Editor and TinyMCE API?
If we can build this functionality in WordPress Visual Editor, it can solve a lot of problem. Not all. But a lot.
Problem solved:
Better user experience.
Simpler, less error.
What do you think about this solution?
I would love to hear what you think about this, just leave a reply or contact me.