Restore hyperlink/shortcut to open Cards in the Control Panel

[ggreenaway053]

In Craft 5.9, the hyperlink functionality to open a card (eg a matrix block, entry chip etc) was removed. This introduces significant friction as clicking the link to open the card properly saved several slide-out modals from appearing and allowed easier access to update the content within the card.

Previously, being able to quickly click a link on the card to open the element was a core part of the UI. Currently, the interaction feels less intuitive and requires more "hunting" for the correct click target.

Expected Behavior
Users should be able to click a clear, identifiable link (or the card title/thumbnail) to open the element's edit page directly in the current window or a new tab.

Actual Behavior
The direct hyperlink functionality has been removed, making it difficult to navigate to the element quickly from a card view and introduces several slide-out modals rather than being able to focus solely on the internal content.

Thanks,
Gareth

[wsydney76]

I just stumbled across that too. Those links were not only used to navigate to the intended element to be edited, but mainly because editing multi-site content via slideouts is a real pain (you can't switch sites inside a slideout, which means either unintentionally publishing untranslated content, or forces you into an unintuitive workflow).

Can't pass this to clients as is, so for now playing with adding a new item to the card dropdown menu:

Event::on(
    Element::class,
    Element::EVENT_DEFINE_ACTION_MENU_ITEMS,
    function(DefineMenuItemsEvent $event) {
        $event->items[] = [
            'label' => Craft::t('_extras', 'Open in full-page editor'),
            'url' => $event->sender->getCpEditUrl(),
            'icon' => 'pen-to-square',
            // 'description' => Craft::t('_extras', 'Opens the element in a full-page editor instead of a slide-out.'),
        ];
    }
);

[thupsi]

The author's preference for the card edit workflow (slide-out/full-page) depends on many factors, like complexity of content, screen size etc. If I had to guess, I would think many people prefer slideouts (the change was requested after all), but there're some valid points made above for the opossite (for specific use cases).

+1 for an extra dropdown item that links to the full-page edit form.

Another idea would be to have a setting on the field that contains the cards, where we would be able to choose if we want the title hyperlinked or not. The downside to that is "adding yet another setting".

[mmikkel]

I'm a fan of the change, in general.

In my experience, authors has generally struggled a lot with Craft navigating to dedicated edit pages in cases where the author meant to edit a related or nested element via slideout (or where the contextual UX would be better for it). This has proved especially problematic when editing content in Preview.

That said, even if the new behaviour is retained I also think it's a good idea to make it simpler to navigate to elements' dedicated edit pages from cards and chips, without having to go via their slideouts, if that's what the author wants to do.

IMO, the easiest solve would be to add an "Edit element in a new tab" action to chip and card action disclosure menus, that would open the element's dedicated edit page in a new tab: