Wp-calypso: Editor: "View post" href is in Permalink section incorrect if not yet published

[tbradsha]

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a new post.
2. Set a permalink.
3. Save it as a draft or as a scheduled post.

What I expected

Clicking on the "View post" link should take me to the /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ URL, e.g.:

https://example.com/2020/05/07/my-permalink/

If the anchor text is a URL, the link should actually link to where it claims. Granted, both links will ultimately work to load the same place, but if I'm prepping a marketing campaign or something, I'd want the pretty link when I copy/paste it.

What happened instead

Clicking on the "View post" link takes me to the ?p=xxxx URL, e.g.:

https://example.com/?p=3142

Notice the discrepancy:

Browser / OS version

Google Chrome 81.0.4044.129 + macOS 10.15.2

Context / Source

Reported in 20916942-hc:

now if I copy this permalink to word and then want to open it it tells that there are no link to it: https://example.com/?p=2833

I see the permalink name is long showing all the title, but when I copy it to word now it is smth short: https://example.com/?p=2833. Before those changes it was not short, it was the same what I copied

As a sidenote, they also liked having the permalink next to the title:

hi, there was a permalink available close to the title of a post, but now it is gone

I dont agree with the new version of permalink, please put the standard version back for me:)

[tbradsha]

20947881-hc:

so the url paste comes up with a number - not the name - what am I missing?

[sirreal]

I believe this is the expected behavior, permalinks are public-facing features and don't make sense for drafts.

The permalink is a clickable link to a previewable URL. It's true that the URL the link points to is different from the text of the link, but this is a user experience decision that seems reasonable to me.

This is core Gutenberg behavior.

I'm closing this as I don't believe this is a bug. Feel free to reopen if you disagree.

[tbradsha]

permalinks are public-facing features and don't make sense for drafts.

Fair enough, but what about for scheduled posts? Yes, they're essentially drafts, but as far as the user is concerned, they're a finished product. There's no clear way to grab the URL for a scheduled post and reference it in a newsletter, marketing spiel, etc.

As for drafts, the slug permalink is valid, so what would be the benefit of not always using that if a custom slug is set?

I don't see any upside in mismatching the href vs. the text link. Whatever is displayed, I'd expect (as a user) the displayed text to match the underlying link.

[jeyip]

@sirreal

Should we confirm with our UX designers before making the change?

[sirreal]

Should we confirm with our UX designers before making the change?

@jeyip Since this is core behavior I think the appropriate course is to raise the issue in Gutenberg. There doesn't seem to be strong motivation to diverge from core behavior for this.

[jeyip]

Thanks for the clarification. Ultimately, if this is how core already behaves, this seems more like an enhancement than a regression of functionality. I'm going to modify the issue label accordingly.

[yansern]

PR in core. https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/24380

[ockham]

permalinks are public-facing features and don't make sense for drafts.

Fair enough, but what about for scheduled posts? Yes, they're essentially drafts, but as far as the user is concerned, they're a finished product. There's no clear way to grab the URL for a scheduled post and reference it in a newsletter, marketing spiel, etc.

I think a lot of the rationale here is historical -- AFAICT, WP always used the ?p=123&preview=true (non-permalink) format to point to previews in the _old_ (pre-Gutenberg) editor, and continues to do so in the Posts wp-admin screen, so Gutenberg chose to be consistent. Now there _might_ be a good reason for that (maybe the ?preview=true query arg isn't guaranteed to work with all permalink structures? :thinking: Seems unlikely though) -- or maybe it's really just historical.

It's true that Scheduled posts, unlike Drafts, use the proper permalink in the old editor tho. So this is something we could change at a minimum.

As for drafts, the slug permalink is valid, so what would be the benefit of not always using that if a custom slug is set?

I can confirm that slug permalinks work for me for drafts (I had to verify since I'd never tried that before).

I don't see any upside in mismatching the href vs. the text link. Whatever is displayed, I'd expect (as a user) the displayed text to match the underlying link.

I think we can file a PR against Gutenberg to get the ball rolling. (Edit: I phrased that poorly -- we already have Yan's https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/24380 :slightly_smiling_face: )

[yansern]

I can confirm that slug permalinks work for me for drafts (I had to verify since I'd never tried that before).

Thanks for verifying that!