Since WordPress 7.1 the Toolbar is also displayed in the Post Editor and the Site Editor (#65091, dev note). That change made an old problem more visible: the first two items of the Toolbar, the W and the site name, do not behave the same everywhere. #66258 proposes to fix that. This post outlines the change, the reasons, and asks for feedback before a patch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing. is written.

• Trac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. ticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.: core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/66258
• Try it in Playground
• Test plugin (zip): toolbar-links-test.zip
• Source: github.com/lmendes-design/toolbar-links-test

• A click on the W goes to the About WordPress page.
• A click on the site name goes to the site in the admin (and super admin), and to the Dashboard on the front end.
• The site name menu also changes. In the admin it has only Visit Site. On the front end it has Dashboard, Plugins and Themes.
• In the editors, the Toolbar has no link to the Dashboard.

Two fixed links.

• The W always goes to the Dashboard. Dashboard is the first item of the W menu. About WordPress and the other items stay in the menu. On small screens the W stays visible. Today it is hidden under 600px.
• The site name always goes to the site. The menu is the same everywhere: Visit Site, Plugins and Themes. On multisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site, Manage Site comes after Visit Site. Classic themes keep Widgets, Menus, Background and Header The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes..

The Dashboard has one place, under the W. Please, check following images: 

• The W is the most visible item of the Toolbar, and today it goes to a page people rarely need. With this change it gets a useful click. There is no learned behavior to unlearn.
• One click to the Dashboard from everywhere. So, we can build the right mental model.
• One behavior to learn. People do not need to check where they are before they click.
• Two clear places. The W is the admin. The site name is the site front end.
• It works on multisite. My Sites stays next to the W, as today. In the Network (versus site, blog) Admin, the W goes to the network Dashboard.

Open the Playground link. It loads WordPress with the test plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. active and lands on the Dashboard. Or download the plugin and install it on a test site. Deactivate it to compare with the current behavior. It stores nothing in the database.

What to look for:

• The admin, the front end, the Post Editor and the Site Editor. The W and the site name do the same thing in all of them.
• A window under 600px. The W is visible and goes to the Dashboard.
• A multisite, if you have one. The Network Admin and a sub site.
• A classic theme. Widgets, Menus, Background and Header stay in the site name menu.
• A plugin that adds items to the W menu or the site name menu. The node IDs do not change, so they should keep working.

Leave feedback by October 16th

Please leave feedback in the Trac ticket, so it stays in one place. Comments on this post are welcome too. The deadline is October 16th, ahead of the 7.2 Beta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 on October 20th 😊