Block theme: Change default filtering to "Curated" by default about pattern-directory

[ryelle]

@jasmussen I've changed this locally and will push shortly, but there's an awkward behavior now where the "View all patterns ->" link (going to the archive) no longer shows all patterns, and in fact repeats most of the patterns you've just seen.

Homepage	Archive page

[jasmussen]

Thanks for the work, and appreciate the screenshots.

That is awkward, yes. I wonder, was there any context for the addition of the "View all patterns" CTA on the landing, vs. just showing pagination right there? Would that be an option?

[ryelle]

Initially this grid was meant to be the curated section, and then the Archive showed the full listing of patterns, like from Showcase. This was done to set the stage for other featured sections in the future, like pattern bundles, if/when those are built.

[ndiego]

Perhaps the "All" on the homepage should not be selected. Then when you click "All" or "View all patterns", you are taken to the archive page.

[ryelle]

Would that still default to "curated"?

[ndiego]

Would that still default to "curated"?

Yeah, I think so for this iteration. That keeps parity with the current site.

[ryelle]

I'm not sure if that helps — the issue is still that clicking the "View all patterns" link in the footer will show you all the same patterns.

[ndiego]

One possible thought would be to include the "curated" and "community" in the pattern number:

That makes it a bit clearer what you are viewing. The "All" section would just be "XX patterns"

[ryelle]

Oh, that made me realize— there's also the issue that the query total is different now. On the homepage, it's the count of all patterns ("1,875 patterns") but on the archive page it's just the count for the current query, i.e., curated patterns ("43 patterns"). I suppose adding "curated" would fix that issue.

The "All" section would just be "XX patterns"

We don't really have an "All" section anymore — you can technically select "All" out of the filter options dropdown, but now clicking "All" will take you to curated patterns.

[ryelle]

We could change the "View all patterns" link to use https://wordpress.org/patterns/archives/?curation=all — so the top category links would all use "curated" as default, but if you've specifically clicked that link it will show all…? But then if you click any other category once on that page it flips back to curated, so maybe not.

[ryelle]

We could also remove that link entirely? Let users navigate using the top row of categories only.

[ndiego]

We could also remove that link entirely? Let users navigate using the top row of categories only.

I'm inclined to keep the "All" in the categories row, at least for now, since it's on the current site.

[ryelle]

I'm inclined to keep the "All" in the categories row, at least for now, since it's on the current site.

Yes, that would stay in place. I'm just talking about the "View all patterns" link above the footer on the homepage.

[jasmussen]

This older design doesn't include the "View all patterns" link at the bottom, essentially dives right into the full paginated list of all patterns, just as the current directory does, and the tabs simply filter that curation into subcategories.

I think there are a lot of opportunities for improvements across filters, categories, improving guildelines for submission, better author profiles, pattern bundles, endless good ideas to explore. But many of those are larger, and could use good and broad input and consideration. In the mean time, it would be good to find the simplest path forward, in case that means removing the "view all patterns" link, and just showing the pagination directly, as is the case on the existing version.

[ryelle]

"Just showing the pagination" is more complicated than it sounds, because the new theme was set up to use a separate page for the homepage. I realize I didn't complete the thought here, but that was intended to explain that we can't use pagination here, because the home and archive are two entirely separate queries/pages.

I'm trying to switch that now to see if we can bring in pagination, but I need to remove all references to the archives page, which is harder than a simple swap.

[ryelle]

Archives page is officially gone now. I think I've checked all the paths that could have lead there, so there should be no dead ends. The homepage has pagination on it, and all views default to only showing curated patterns (except author archives).

[jasmussen]

"Just showing the pagination" is more complicated than it sounds

Apologies, I should've learned by now to never use the term "just" in software development. This was my bad.