I feel really bad pushing this old thread again after @itWilllBeOK and @Andi-Lo already tried before me, but it really is a major issue in my opinion.
Let me clarify why I think this is so important:
Kirby is a wonderful tool to not only create smaller websites with simple structures. It’s also an enormously flexible tool to create complex websites. The team excels at providing more and more clever solutions while keeping it clean and simple (Looking at you, permissions). I feel like this approach translates to my own work when building a website for a client with Kirby. I never thought and cared that much about an easy editing workflow with Typo3, Wordpress or any other CMS. And I see amazing ideas and innovative solutions in the Kirby forum, themes and fields that show me I’m not alone with this mindset. Some of these solutions are the modules plugin, modules field and the revisions plugin.
The modules plugin and field offer a welcome alternative to the pages and the structure/builder field. I cried tears of joy when I read the plugin threads in the forum since this approach cleared a huge obstacle and made room for all kinds of complex scenarios, but even more important: keeping it simple. The quintessence of Kirby for me. It differentiates parts of a page from actual subpages while providing a way to nest objects and not having a modal hiding and disabling page functionality like uploading images or viewing other fields. Especially since the structure field still relies on modals and the subpages can’t be called anything else than pages the modules plugin is essential when aiming for an intuitive editing experience in the panel on a complex page. Want to insert an image gallery anywhere you want? An accordion? A user defined form? News articles? Editorial blog posts? No problem.
The issue with the modules plugin and field is not only about having to delete all the subpages of a page before being able to delete the page itself. That’s also inconvenient, no matter what plugin or if you even use plugins. The real problem is you should hide the modules page from the panel user if you don’t want to confuse him/her.
Same problem with the revisions plugin. It creates an invisible “revisions” subpage and therefore makes it impossible to delete any pages.
Even simply using the amazing and built-in subpage builder makes it hard to delete a page.
I hope this explanation of my motive and reason help more than a simple +1 on the GitHub issue. It really is an important topic for me and many of my current and upcoming projects.
If the issue is harder to fix than it looks to my (not even understanding half of the things going on in the Kirby core) eyes, if I’m simply overlooking something, or if it’s not as important for as many people as I believe, I’d be really happy to hear your comments.