WordPress Front End Editing: Barley Plugin and Better Options Today
WordPress front end editing means changing a post while you look at it on the live site, instead of jumping back and forth to the admin edit screen. In 2014 I used a paid plugin called Barley for exactly this. This article covers how Barley worked, what I learned using it, and the best ways to edit WordPress posts from the front end today.
Quick answer: Barley for WordPress was a paid inline editor that let you edit post text, images, tags and featured images directly on the live page. It is no longer sold, and its old website now shows unrelated content, so don’t install old copies. Today, use the built-in block editor’s preview, a visual page builder such as Elementor or Beaver Builder, or the Site Editor in block themes.
Table of Contents
Why I wanted WordPress front end editing
I needed a faster way to fix older posts in our archive after Google Panda penalties. Opening the edit screen of every post, saving, then checking the live result was very slow. I wanted to stay on the post in the browser and edit the text, add a featured image, change tags and fix links without leaving the page.
How Barley for WordPress worked
Barley added editing options to the admin bar and inline tools on the page itself. You can still see a demo of the plugin in this video:
With Barley active, you could:
- Create and delete posts
- Edit post content and titles
- Format text with bold, italics and bullets
- Add images and media
- Add or change featured images
- Add or change tags and categories
It was not free. I paid $12 a year, and later the price went up when it moved to CodeCanyon. For my archive clean-up it was good value.
Problems I found with inline editing
These lessons apply to any front-end editor, not just Barley:
- No save button: Barley saved every change instantly. Watching the edit screen at the same time, I saw it add extra paragraph, div and span tags. After heavy copy and paste, always check the code view, because changes may be hard to undo.
- Injected code gets saved: we inserted AdSense in the middle of posts, and Barley saved that ad code into the post content. Turn off plugins that inject code into posts (ads, related posts) before editing, so it is not hard-coded.
- Theme support: it worked well with default themes, but custom themes could miss the classes it needed to find post elements.
- Manual updates: it was not in the WordPress plugin directory, so updates meant downloading new versions from the vendor’s site.
WordPress front end editing options today
- Block editor preview: the built-in block editor already shows content close to how it looks on the site, and the admin bar’s Edit Post link takes you straight from a live post to its editor.
- Elementor: a popular visual page builder that edits pages on a live-style canvas.
- Beaver Builder: a front-end page builder known for clean output.
- Site Editor: with a block theme, you can edit headers, footers and templates visually from Appearance, then Editor.
- Quick Edit: for titles, tags, categories and status, the Quick Edit link in the Posts list is fast and needs no page loads.
For bulk content clean-ups like mine, it also helps to view word counts of all posts to find thin pages first, and to add custom CSS to the WordPress editor so the editor matches your live design. For more on fixing thin content, see WordPress comments and SEO.
FAQ
Is Barley for WordPress still available?
No. It is no longer sold, and its old website now shows unrelated content. Don’t download copies from unofficial sites.
Can I edit WordPress posts from the front end without a plugin?
Not fully inline, but the admin bar’s Edit Post link and the block editor’s live-style preview make the round trip quick. Block themes also let you edit templates visually in the Site Editor.
Are page builders safe for SEO?
Yes, popular builders work fine with SEO plugins, but they can add extra code, so check page speed after switching.
What should I watch for with any inline editor?
Check that it doesn’t save ad or plugin code into your posts, and review the code view after big edits.
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For editing the older ones finding and editing I would say good tool. I was not aware of it thanks for sharing. Best wishes, Anuj
It’s very helpful for bloggers who spends lots of time in the editing of a post.
Well even if we proof read the post but after publishing it when we read it again, sometimes we find things which needs to be changed in the post. so, in that case this plugin will be useful to edit. So, worth giving a try.
Very informative post. i mostly use the tools or the wordpress to ,Edit Live Posts, But after reading your article i changed my way. Thank you for uploading this post!!!!!
once again you come with new trick. this was really cool and helpful for all bloggers who work on WordPress platform
Great looking blog you have here!! Great stuff as always. Looking forward to giving it a read.
Hi, thanks for sharing this great plugin. I’ll definitely give it a try!
Great looking blog you have here!! Great stuff as always. Looking forward to giving it a read. I always found here awesome posts and i always enjoyed and gained a lot after reading your posts. I personally love these wonderful suggestions
Very enlightening. It’s very helpful for bloggers who spends lots of time in the editing of a post. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!
This is a great tricks to change on word press post on browser Without loin of blog. Thanks for sharing awesome information.
This is really a great post, i can’t believe this that you can change on word press post without login of blog. This is a awesome tricks.
Hi,
I actually landed here from Google search of faster ways to edit your article . I too wanted to do this for editing some of the old content on my website. This made my life easy.
This is a very interesting solution for someone that does a lot of posting and editing. Thank you very much for the tip.
Hi ,
Outstanding post, you have pointed out some good points , I also think this s a very fantastic website.Thank you for sharing .
Hi Chandra,
Thanks for sharing this wonderful post with us regarding live post editing.
Using this plugin is a smart idea, every blogger now wants to work Hard but in a smarter way. Looking at the feature of this plugin, i think it’s a must for all bloggers who want to make editing of article post easy.
The price tag is ok, $12 investment is not much and i think most blogger will find it affordable and i will also be giving it a test but i will have suggest you guys make it a lifetime payment instead $12 yearly.
Have a nice weekend