Twenty Seventeen: Leave Theme Options visible

[sterndata]

Please see ​https://wordpress.org/support/topic/twenty-seventeen-theme-no-theme-options-tab (among others)

It seems to me (heh) that it would be nice to leave the theme options tab visible but add a line that says “These are only used if you set the front page of your site to a fixed front page.”

[zoonini]

Also came up here: ​https://wordpress.org/support/topic/front-page-section/

and here:

​https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-introduces-twenty-seventeen-default-theme-and-wp-rest-api-content-endpoints#comment-204597

[Ipstenu]

This is not new as of 4.7 -- I know at least in 4.6 the behavior is the same and you can hide things contextually in customizer. While I think that's a sensible approach, it's also a discoverability issue. If someone doesn't have a Front Page set, they can't change to it. This creates a disconnect since people can make pages from admin, so they should be able to do all those things.

I wouldn't want to see the options show up all the time if I can't use them (I feel that's as bad a UX as not showing them), but we should figure out how to make them more findable for users.

FYI this came up with a small number of people in beta/RC - ​https://wordpress.org/support/topic/twenty-seventeen-theme-options-menu-disappears/

[davidakennedy]

Thanks for the ticket @sterndata!

And thanks to others for the links to other examples of this type of problem.

This did come up earlier, and it was decided to stick with the current route because it's a better experience to only show options that can be currently previewed when changed in the Customizer. That said, I can understand how the other way can work better for some people depending on many things like their knowledge, workflow, etc.

I'd like to see this iterated on in the Custmizer, since it's foundational to it, and customization. I don't think the theme can solve this alone. I'm leaning toward closing this as wontfix, but maybe a ticket for the Customizer can be opened, if it doesn't exist already.

[sterndata]

As much as I agree with the "don't show them what they can't do" argument, all the pretty pics of 2017 show that option there, so it makes for bad user experience (IRL, not UX) when they don't see what's in the screenshots and videos.

[ianbelanger]

I am closing this ticket as wontfix since there hasn't been any action on it in 3 years and no one else has reported this as an issue to trac. Feel free to reopen if you disagree.