ACF should be user friendly and stop insulting WordPress users

• Cordial_Gamip

• December 17, 2022 at 6:41 am

When Matt Mullenweg created WordPress in 2003, he had Liberty and Flexibility in mind.

The one thing that he didn’t mention back then, was Ease-Of-Use— so that after many years, WordPress became easy to use, in which case, many people built WordPress websites, without ever writing a single line of Code. And that’s the spirit behind the creation of WordPress, onwards until today.

ACF is at best,an attachment and peripheral part of WordPress. The WordPress ecosystem can actually survive without ACF.

And the reason why I am saying this– is because ACF support keeps insulting WordPress users, and I guess it’s about time someone addressed it.

You see, everybody who built a tool/plugin in WordPress, had the WordPress user in mind. And the WordPress user that Matt Mullenweg envisioned, was someone that will build WordPress websites without ever writing a single line of Code.

This meant that, anybody who will present anything within the WordPress ecosystem, is expected to provide a fully featured system— that allowed people to use it, without ever writing a Single Line of Code.

This criteria(of using WordPress tools without ever writing a Single Line of Code) is where ACF insults WordPress users.

The thing is that ACF gives us ability to create additional fields. But it didn’t provide shortcodes or fully featured tools that can help us translate the values and outcomes of these fields into the Frontend.

And for me, this is nonsense thinking and silly attitude from the ACF Team.

Now, since ACF became a thing, I can remember that for more than three(3) Years, we’ve asked for this feature, and ACF has been stubborn to give it to us.

Rather, they will insult us and say that ACF is for Developers. Meaning that all non-coders(moron implied) should go and take the back seat or frig off.

That’s an insult to the entire WordPress Users Community, and ACF needs to apologize for that foolish statement they always throw in our face.

If you know that you can’t give us a Fully Featured Tool according to the WordPress spirit, then get out of here. Get out of WordPress and go to Django CMS, Strapi, Drupal, OpenCMS and other places where all they use is code,code and more code.

If you can’t build tools for us in the spirit of Matt Mullenweg who created WordPress for us in 2003– if you can’t build ACF to be self-serving in a way that it can also translate it’s created CUSTOM FIELDS to the frontend, then get out of here, and let those who can love us to build tools for us in the way that doesn’t insult us to our face.

• John Huebner

• December 17, 2022 at 11:14 am

You are free to have your opinion, but if you want to address the developers then you are doing it in the wrong place. This is a user forum, the only people that will see your comment is other users. If you want to talk to the developers then you should contact them directly here https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/contact/

There are plenty of us users that are quite happy with what ACF does. If there wasn’t a market for what it does then ACF would change or disappear.

• CarlParker.dev

• December 18, 2022 at 2:35 am

I got to agree with @hube2 here – this is not the place to be sharing such opinions. As with your opinion of ACF not using WP right – I personally don’t feel you are using this community support tool right either – in that kind of analogy.

The “entire” WordPress community (as you mentioned) does not fit what you are saying. Like any business/product/service, there are niches and finding the right one to benefit your needs/desires is important. But, nothing is a 1 size fits all. If it doesn’t fit yours… either move on to something else that does or more productively, learn to do it on your own instead of relying on something else.

In theory… we don’t have to use WordPress to build a website, but it improves the experience, turnaround time, security and so much more. Therefore, it is a tool that helps make things easier, just like ACF.

Obviously… WordPress is not providing you a “Fully Featured Tool” as you are having to go beyond its native abilities too, right?

I respect and feel you have frustrations, but what is really going to be the expectation or result of this posting?

WordPress Ecosystem in general gets a bad wrap for such theories.. as you have actual real developers, enthusiasts, power users, do-it-yourselfers, and I can go on. Every one has its strengths and weaknesses (and at various levels). Nevertheless, at the end of the day… the real spirit is code and anything beyond coding things ourself… is merely a tool that can be subjective to your opinion.

Open Source for that matter… that is the real spirit. Take what has been given to us and utilize it for what it is, or help others out and contribute to it to help it and others using it grow.

Just my .02 – sorry you feel frustrated.