Consider showing the permalink UI when hovering over Title

[maddisondesigns]

Issue Overview

In the current version of WordPress it's super easy to tell what your page url is going to be as it's very conveniently displayed beneath the page title.

Gutenberg has turned something that was really convenient into something that's not. You now have to actually click on the page title before you can edit the Permalink or even view it. This is an annoying extra step and it's not some that people are going to expect.

At the very least, the Permalink should show when hovering over the page title.

Steps to Reproduce (for bugs)

1. Open any page
2. Try to view the Permalink without clicking on anything

Expected Behavior

I shouldn't have to click on a block to find out what my Permalink it. It's really annoying and frustrating and is yet another process that Gutenberg has mad more difficult than what it currently is.

Current Behavior

Users need to physically click on the Page title before they can view their page permalink.

Possible Solution

Either show the Permalink all the time or at the very least, show it when hovering over the page title.

Gutenberg 2.7.0
Firefox Quantum 59.0.2 (64-bit)
WP 4.9.5

[ZebulanStanphill]

I am in favor of showing it on hover. I do not think it is necessary to show it all the time (and the UI looks cleaner without it, in my opinion), but showing it on hover makes it simple enough to find and see when you want to find and see it, and increases the discoverability of the permalink.

[danielbachhuber]

Flagging Needs Design Feedback to see if this is behavior we want to change.

[karmatosed]

I think having it show on hover is ok in this case.

[ZebulanStanphill]

It just occurred to me that in the future, the Title will just be another block, albeit outside of post_content. I wonder if you will be able to edit the layout of all post title areas from any individual post or if you will have to click to switch away from editing your post to editing the title area alone. I wonder how that would affect this.

Right now the Title is not a block, so having it display information like the permalink on hover seems to make sense. But standard blocks do not show anything but their outline, name, and side controls on hover, so if the Title becomes a normal block in the future, what happens then? Would the Title appear as a block when editing a single post, or only when editing the title area template?

This is probably bringing up design issues rather prematurely since nobody seems to know exactly how editing stuff outside of post_content will look at this point, but I decided to point it out anyway, just in case it ends up being important right now.

[wpmark]

I think that having the permalink only editable behind a title box makes no sense here and should be visible somewhere else on the page, or at least be behind a button with the "Permalink" label. It took me about 5 minutes to find where this was.

[ZebulanStanphill]

I agree with @wpmark that it is weird to have the permalink only editable from the title, especially considering the future where the title would become a block and you could theoretically have a post type where you don't even show the title, but you still need a way to edit the permalink. I think the permalink should be editable from the document settings inspector/sidebar.

[karmatosed]

It's worth considering flows in this along with size and space. The later means having in the sidebar would be a really limiting experience. Flow wise it does make sense to have in title, it is expect pattern similar to what we have today.

All that said, the discoverability absolutely is something that we should iterate on. There are a few things we could consider such as exposing it more not just on hover. I do think though it's a case of discoverability in the current position over moving.

[ZebulanStanphill]

Why can't it be shown in both the sidebar and when selecting (and/or hovering) the post title?

[karmatosed]

Why can't it be shown in both the sidebar and when selecting (and/or hovering) the post title?

For a moment think about it from a few perspectives:

• Smaller screens (they can't and shouldn't depend on the sidebar)
• Blocks active (they show a different sidebar)

Having this UI showing in up to 3 places is a very confusing experience. As you process through having it at the end of publishing flow makes a lot of sense and has an issue already, I would encourage that change, testing and potentially revisiting based on outcome.

[wpmark]

For now it makes sense to me, to either show this all the time (after all, its space is always present, but it just shows on hover) or move it to the sidebar (which is how Calypso does it).

[iandunn]

I had trouble finding it as well. It never occurred to me that I'd need to click on the title to see it. I can see how that makes sense now that I know that's how it works, but I wonder how many existing users will be tripped up by that. I just came across a forums report where the user seems to be confused about that as well.

[designsimply]

Updated the title to reflect the design feedback above.

[youknowriad]

We have a new panel for permalinks now #11874. This issue is not relevant anymore