Proposal to remove the option to manually change the post status in Post settings to Published. (Or at least add messaging)

[yaelirub]

We allow the user to manually change the status to "published" without any messaging while we change the post.status to published. When the user asks to exit the editor, we display a generic "you have unsaved changes" message but no real mention of publishing the post.

After getting @diegoreymendez's advice on this, I think that the solution to this issue is to show users a message when they change the status of the post to publish in the post settings saying this action will publish the post OR eliminate the option in Post Settings to change the status from draft to published.

** This is not offline related but spun off of: #12099
Would love to hear your thoughts, @osullivanchris , @diegoreymendez.

[osullivanchris]

Thanks for bringing it up @yaelirub

I have two proposals which are closely related to this. I wonder if these move forward, will it remove the use case we're seeing here.

1. Leaving the editor behaviour. This is different on Android and iOS today. I had proposed making this closer to Android, where we do not ask the user what they want to do with a draft before leaving the editor, we assume they want to update the draft Exploration: should we prevent user to leave the editor without publishing changes? WordPress-Android#9810. However this is for a draft post. A published post would be different so I probably need to look at that flow alongside. I would never assume leaving the editor = update and go live. In that case I would show a confirmation dialogue.

2. Publishing from settings. We've been talking about it here. I was suggesting once the user does that, don't let them leave the editor without hitting the 'confirm publish' dialogue. Post gets automatically published without a confirmation WordPress-Android#10021. I think I would treat that as a principle, any time the user wants to 'go live' get absolute confirmation and certainty from them.

Another option which I think you may have made a separate discussion, would be not to allow the user to change the status to publish in this menu. As I understand the menu is necessary as its the only way to move from published to draft/pending review. Today it is effectively a radio button (it literally is on Android). But we could provide the same actions without having this radio button setup. Here's a quick idea. The options would be contextual to the current state and would never show publish for a draft post. There's clearer ways to publish

That's a lot of thoughts for now so I better leave some space for feedback! Cc @iamthomasbishop for new editor behaviour.

[yaelirub]

@osullivanchris , thank you for the quick response!

Can we Focus on the 2nd proposal for this issue?
I think that the discussion on "leaving the editor" expected behavior on both platforms is a big ongoing discussion and so I don't want it to block this one.

Another option would be not to allow the user to change the status to publish in this menu

I am absolutely for this option and I believe @diegoreymendez is too. Can't think of the value in allowing the user to update the draft status to published from the post settings but if there is, we should definitely alert the user about his publishing action.

I think I would treat that as a principle, any time the user wants to 'go live' get absolute confirmation and certainty from them.

💯

[osullivanchris]

Thanks for the feedback @yaelirub

Just wondering how to push this forward. Is point 2 and the sketch answering the right question? Do you think we should make that change?

[kean]

Fixed in 24.9.
For drafts, this field was replaced with a "pending changes" toggle.
For published posts – gone.