Problem setting parent page attribute using Block Editor

  • Resolved Robby Barnes

    (@robby-barnes)


    3 years, 9 months ago

    WP version: 6.0
    Theme: Cyberchimps Responsive version 4.7.4
    Site: fifthestate.org

    Hi folks,

    My site is generally working well with Responsive Theme, as it has been for the past 9 years.

    The site contains an archive of magazine articles, each on its own web page. There are currently 4,980 pages on the site.

    For each article there is a parent page devoted to the magazine issue in which the article appeared.

    All of the issue pages have as their parent a page displaying all the issues (fifthestate.org/archive).

    Recently I decided to start using the WP Block Editor and am having a problem setting parent page titles using the Parent Page dropdown menu.

    I never have any problem selecting parent pages using the dropdown menu in the Classic Editor, but the menu in the Block Editor shows only a few top-level pages to select from.

    Even if I paste in the parent page title it is not accepted.

    If I switch back to the Classic Editor the parent page title is accepted and the current edit becomes a child of that page.

    Some parent pages are displayed, but not all.

    For example a parent page beginning with 3 digits, such as 401, Summer 2018, is displayed. But a parent page with 2 digits such as 30, May 15-31, 1967 is not.

    I checked with my theme developers and was told that the problem is in the WP core, not the theme.

    So I will be grateful for any and all help you can give me with solving this problem.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator threadi

    (@threadi)

    3 years, 9 months ago

    The Parent Page input field in the Gutenberg editor is an auto-complete field. You can enter here the first characters of the title of the page you are looking for and it will be displayed – click, done.

    I guess what matters for you is how many characters you enter into the search field. This will execute a database search for the entered characters which is limited to a certain number of characters depending on the database system. With older database systems this is usually set to 3. Could you try if it really does not work with less than 3 characters? Then you would have found the reason. Solution would be in this case a newer database system, for which you would have to contact your hoster.

    Thread Starter Robby Barnes

    (@robby-barnes)

    3 years, 9 months ago

    Thanks for your reply, threadi.
    To clarify a little, the auto-complete field in my Gutenberg Editor, in addition to one- and two-digit titles, is failing to display many other pages. For example it doesn’t show the Archive page (which is only one level below the Home page) as well as others.
    I have been using the Classic Editor for some time. It also has an auto-complete dropdown for selecting a parent page and it displays all pages for me.
    Actually, the main reason I decided to switch to the Gutenberg Editor is my understanding that WP will be phasing out the Classic Editor sometime this year. If that is incorrect, I will be glad to just keep on using the Classic Editor.

    Alvaro Gómez

    (@mrfoxtalbot)

    3 years, 9 months ago

    Hi @robby-barnes, I was looking into the issue you described (some pages not being “suggested”) and it could be related to this similar issue where some terms are also missing.

    At the moment, there seems to be a hard-coded upper limit to how terms in a category are listed/suggested and I suspect this could be affecting the “Select parent page” feature as well. A workaround is suggested here but I am no 100% sure it will apply to your case.

    I hope that helps!

    Thread Starter Robby Barnes

    (@robby-barnes)

    3 years, 9 months ago

    Hello again,
    I will continue using the Classic Editor and hope that it won’t be phased out until the Block Editor’s Parent Page selection dropdown (auto-complete) can be made compatible. Thanks to those who are working to make this happen. / Robby

    Alvaro Gómez

    (@mrfoxtalbot)

    3 years, 9 months ago

    Hey @robby-barnes!

    I will continue using the Classic Editor and hope that it won’t be phased out

    Personally, I think it is unlikely that the Classic Editor will be phased out in the immediate future but, for reference, you could always use the “Quick Edit” feature available in the page list to set a page’s parent under wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page to set the parent page.

    I recorded a short video to illustrate how this feature works:

    https://cloudup.com/cUXErhlhciZ

    Thanks to those who are working to make this happen

    Thank you for that!

    Since the issue is already being tracked, I am going to mark this as “resolved”.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Alvaro Gómez.
Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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