Site Editor: Calypso site previews feel unintuitive

[jeyip]

What

There seems to be a lot of friction around the calypso preview mode for the site editor. We currently use the gutenberg core preview mode for technical reasons. Jacopo describes the "why".

“The Site Editor doesn’t have any “real” preview feature, as there are no draft steps involved. It means that it can’t open a preview of the actual frontend in a new tab (or in the Calypso popup), because it would always show the last saved version.”

Feedback Describing Confusion

How do I preview the actual site? Should there be a “View Site” option in the W menu? (Mike R.)

Preview my site does not work the same way and content seems to be editable during preview – which felt against my expectations. (Aadil M.)

I also get stuck in Preview mode and have no idea how to return to the site editor. Is Preview just the editor? (Melissa S.)

It seemed like the Preview button was broken, till I clicked the tablet or mobile views (Desiree F.)

GIFs

Traditional Calypso Preview

Not Calypso Preview

How

Uncertain. If we decide to address this, it will require more discussion amongst engineering.

[ivan-ottinger]

Just noting here that we had a user report in 3870069-zd-woothemes. They found the Preview confusing as it doesn't provide the expected results.

As a workaround, I suggested them to use the mobile view tool that is built in the browser.