Tag Archives: workaround

Widgets in New Site Issue & Workarounds

There is a problem with the display of widgets when editing them. This only happens with a classic theme on newly created sites. It does not affect older sites.

When a new site is created it comes with a pre-installed set of widgets. This is theme dependent.

When you go to edit the widgets in this scenario the pre installed widgets show up labeled ‘block’ in the widget editor. They still work on the front page of the site but may cause confusion.

Screenshot of Widget Area in the Dashboard. The widgets are all labeld block
Screenshot of problematically labeled blocks.

Adding more widgets to the sidebars and other widget areas is not affected, these show up as expected.

This seems to be a side effect of our transition from the classic editor and classic themes.

We are looking at fixing this but it is a tricky problem.

Workarounds

  1. Ignore the problem, the widgets still work. If you are happy with the widgets that are pre-installed by the theme just keep them.
  2. Ignore the problem but add any more widgets you need. Adding more widgets works as expected.
  3. Delete the widgets labeled ‘block’ and replace. The newly added widgets will display properly. If you look at the front end of the blog you should be able to note the widgets you need to replace.
Screenshot of a widget area in glow blogs with a standard set of widgets
Here we have replaced the ‘block’ widgets with new ones. These are correctly labeled.

Forms in the Block Editor

We have just added a lot more blocks to use in the Block Editor.

Unfortunately the Forms are not working properly. The Developers are working on a fix.

Workaround

In the meantime the Jetpack Contact form still word as expected in the classic editor. If you switch to the classic editor for a post or page you can create a form there.  Contact forms can be used for gathering information of all sorts, not just contacts. More information on the Jetpack Contact form in Glow Blogs.