If ever a controversy was to divide our friendly and easy-going WordPress community – sparking fury to the point of drive-by shootings targeting Matt Mullenweg: it would be Gutenberg – the new WordPress editor, currently in public beta, available to anyone courageous enough to install the plugin.
The huge outcry was likely an unintended backlash spawned by Gutenberg's 100% open development process. The developers wanted feedback from the WordPress community, early in the process. A choice we should all appreciate and applaud.
Few seemed to appreciate it, however.
They did get some feedback, though.
Oh… my… Feedback is what they got. To say Gutenberg caused panic and confusion, would be an understatement.
But! In my not so humble opinion: many naysayers didn't *get* Gutenberg. The critique was in some cases premature, and in others it was downright ignorant and regressive/reactionary.
It had to be done! The archaic and cumbersome “classic” WordPress editor sucks. Below, I'll clarify why I've seen it as the arch-enemy of WordPress' future, for years.
Shifting perspective: Gutenberg doesn't suck anywhere near as much as its reputation suggests.
Gutenberg is good for WordPress – and you
WordPress needed Gutenberg to happen. Without it, we'd be stuck in la-la semi-CMS land, and kept depending on band-aid solutions such as custom fields, widgets, and to some extent: page builders. Why? Because competition from Wix, Squarespace and Weebly, is FIERCE.
It's not just that Wix, Squarespace and Weebly have marketing budgets larger than WordPress. Competition sparks innovation and WordPress was lacking behind. Or rather, WordPress core has been lacking behind, for years.
That's why we got page builders! Third-parties had to supply what WordPress core didn't.
In all honesty, I've been concerned about WordPress' future, during the last few years, for exactly that reason.
Project Gutenberg has restored my faith in WordPress. Without it, WordPress would be at risk of becoming the next Joomla: a CMS that was powerful, but fundamentally inflexible, at its core. WordPress beat Joomla, with flexibility and adaptability. All while being much easier to use than Drupal, which was too modular and flexible for its own good (I was a Drupal-guy before I switched to WordPress. Speaking from experience here).
Gutenberg: not as bad as they say!
Throughout the development of Gutenberg, I’ve regularly tested new releases to see whether it was ready for real-world, practical use.
Until version 2.0, I found it too buggy. That all changed, in Gutenberg v. 2.1. Apart from an issue related to CloudFlare’s WAF (Web Application Firewall), I deemed Gutenberg good enough to start using it on my site.
(I always strive to battle-test stuff thoroughly before writing about it)
This is my third post published in Gutenberg – and I've really been enjoying it!
Even in beta, it’s such a pleasure to write in Gutenberg. In fact, I find myself doing a larger portion of my writing in it. Until Gutenberg, I’d work with my text in iA Writer (a brilliantly simple writing app for Mac) for as long as possible, before exporting the final draft to the classic WordPress editor.
My (never published) WordPress editor rants
I’ve disliked WordPress' editor for years. So much in fact, that I wrote two full blog posts about it. I never published them, as I felt they were too ranty and bitchy. I strive to be as positive as possible and spread good vibes around me.
The drafts were titled “Why WordPress Should Have a Page Builder Built-in” and “Why WordPress NEEDS to ditch its Archaic Content Editor”. Below, I've condensed the gist of what I wrote back then:
Why WordPress Should Have a Page Builder Built-in
&
Why WordPress NEEDS to ditch its Archaic Content Editor
Frankly: WordPress' editor sucks. It feels archaic. It feels like Joomla did, before WordPress claimed its throne. It feels old-hat.
We need something more akin to a real framework, but with a UI on top of it. Sort of like Lego bricks. Highly standardized base building blocks. Built to be almost infinitely expandable.
Could be an approach like Widgets – but for Posts and Pages.
What's stopping that from happening? WordPress' archaic content editor, with its simplistic, single content area.
One, single content area = ok for blogging, but not adequate for CMS-use. Hence the somewhat hacky adaptations of custom fields and widgets, to simulate a real CMS (offering multiple content areas per page).
The problem with page builders: each is its own little island… there are no standards.
All page builders suffer from the same problem: each stores your content in proprietary building blocks. Switching page builder plugin will require manually migrating your content and rebuilding your layouts.
If the WordPress editor had more than one content area, page builders could tap into those content areas, letting you store your data in a standardized way.
WordPress needs to renew itself, and bring some of Beaver Builder's page builder tools into core. That way, there would be a standardized way for WordPress themes to hook into those content areas.
Naturally, this should of course be somehow standardized and be available for theme and plugin developers to tap into. WordPress CORE should set the standards for page builders.
The problem solved by page builders (like Beaver Builder) SHOULD be solved by WordPress core!
I can't fathom why the WordPress core developers haven't yet acknowledged and begun the creation of a universal content layout base – one that themes and plugins can tap into.
Today, in light of Gutenberg, I should have published those posts in full, back then. My thinking wasn't as bitchy and ranty as my inner critic wanted me to believe, after all.
I did however, publish a shorter, impromptu rant titled The Most Frustrating Thing About WordPress. I guess my inner critic was out for lunch:)
Why are we finally getting a new editor?
I believe two factors made the WordPress leadership team (finally) wake up and realize the urgent need for a better WordPress editor:
- The emergence and popularity of commercial DIY website builders like Wix, Squarespace. and Weebly.
- The emergence and popularity of WordPress page builders like Divi Builder, Beaver Builder, Elementor and Thrive Architect.
Gutenberg = a future-proof solution!
Gutenberg will let us format our content, in a standardized way – one that WordPress themes and plugins can tap into. Finally!
By splitting our content into separate, distinct content elements – called “blocks” – your WordPress theme and plugins will be able to display and use them in all kinds of funky ways. I'll delve deeper into all that wonderful potential, in a future post.
For now, just realize that Gutenberg represents so much more than “just a new editor”. Gutenberg = vast potential. Frankly, it feels so f*ckin' great to finally have it in front of us.
With Gutenberg, WordPress didn't just “catch up” with the competition: with Gutenberg, we're again showing why WordPress is superior to the competition. Its openness and expandability has taken yet another giant leap into the future of online publishing.
Big words? Sure. Big potential? Ab-so-f*ckin-lutely! 100%
This is HUGE and will shake and shape WordPress as we know it, for years to come. Period. Fact.
This is something I’ve wanted to see for a long time. I stand 100% by my words and excitement: Gutenberg is great. For WordPress at large. And for YOU.
Built by a highly skilled, capable team
To counter the Gutenberg-naysayers and contrast some of the skepticism towards Gutenberg, it's worth pointing out the highly skilled team assigned to Project Gutenberg.
Without going into a full biography of each Gutenberg team member, I'll highlight one whose work I've followed for many years – long before he was hired by Automattic: my fellow Dane, Joen Asmussen. To say he has an impressive track-record of interesting web-projects in his portfolio, is a huge understatement. For more than a decade, he's contributed considerably to the world of web design, through both his writing and design work. Among many things, Joen has created official themes for not just WordPress but also Zenphoto. I also remember his legendary site Noscope.com – now redirecting to his blog Mocco (worth reading too).
Joen is to Automattic what Jonathan Ive is to Apple.
If the Gutenberg team was a Navy SEAL team, they'd be a SEAL Team Six / DEVGRU team – the elite of the elite – the most capable of getting the job done. Well.
Not intended to replace page builders (yet)
So far Gutenberg isn’t a page builder-killer. It’s not intended to be. Tackling page builders is the next step, after Gutenberg has been integrated in WordPress core.
WILL it kill page builders? Who knows? I do have some thoughts on that, which I'll share in a follow-up post.
Give Gutenberg a try if you still haven't!
If you still haven't tried Gutenberg: give it a try. You may find you like it, after a short period of adjusting to its niceties:)
I firmly believe the open source, community-driven development of Gutenberg will yield a fantastic editor. One that Wix, Squarespace and Weebly can envy (and perhaps blatantly copy). And Gutenberg could end up as a prime case study on the power of open source development. It's possible.
Papa WordPress (Matt Mullenweg) wants as many WordPress users as possible involved in testing Gutenberg. You can install it as a plugin on your site today. Just remember that it is still in beta: there are occasional bugs, and stuff does change from release to release.
While testing Gutenberg, you can still access the classic editor. And your current posts and pages wont be altered in any way. Also, rest assured: should you deactivate the Gutenberg plugin, the posts you’ve made in it will open just fine in the classic editor.
Me? I already don't miss WordPress' archaic classic editor. At all.
Now is also the time to help shape Gutenberg. The place to do it, is by voicing your concerns and suggestions (as an "Issue") on GitHub. There's an amazing community around Gutenberg – and they do listen. So contribute! In any way you can! You don't have to be a code-savvy geek to participate just because it's GitHub;)
Go Gutenberg!
And Go Gutenberg team! Big-ups to y'all! You've done really well. Listened to constructive criticism (my own included) and held your heads high despite shards of sharp words from all corners of planet WordPress.
What about you? Have you tried Gutenberg yet? Diggin' it – or still on the fence? If so: why? Share your voice in the comments below! I'm curious:)
Jim says
… and if WordPress doesn’t have the wisdom to listen to it’s users and replace Gutenberg with something actually intuitive, easy and enjoyable to use, then time to leave WordPress, as the management is adrift and self-sabotaging all of our futures with this platform.
Jim says
I couldn’t disagree more. WP user since 2008. Web design is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. The fools who inflicted Gutenberg on us must be sado-masochists. Using Gutenberg is like a trip to the dentist for a root canal without anesthesia. I’m praying for Gutenberg to die, and all of the Gutenberg ecosystem designed around this horrible user experience to go away.
Ian Ainslie says
As someone that’s been using WP for nearly a decade, I can’t quite believe how clunky it has become. Today, I set about writing a blog post and struggled for ten minutes with something as simple as trying to wrap text around an image. Eventually had to give up…
Oliver Nielsen says
Wrapping text around images was FAR FAR worse in the old, classic WordPress editor. I can’t imagine anyone enjoying that experience.
That said, wrapping text around images, let alone simply left- or right-aligning them – has been a potentially troublesome undertaking in most WYSIWYG editors I’ve used throughout the years. Page Builders have improved upon that a lot in recent years, with their reliance on columns.
=)
Oliver
Louis N. Proyect says
I am not interested in all the “improvements” in Gutenberg. I write articles for a scholarly audience. This entails quoting authors who quote other authors. In the classic mode, this was simple. You highlighted the entire quote and indented. Then you’d highlight the quoted quote and indent it. Not being able to do this is a major headache. OUTRAGEOUS.
Sam says
I really think the bigger issue is that they DIDN’T create a page editor. It seems that what people want *is* a page editor, hence all the page editors running around out there. If they had just looked at the other editors, and said okay, these are great but let’s take all the awesome stuff from all of them and make something BETTER….sure all the guys making page editors might not have been very happy, but probably most of us users certainly would have been.
I agree with you on the philosophy that *something* needed to happen. But I just feel this was the wrong thing. If they wanted to create a better content editor, then I feel they failed at that, or at least they should have continued with it as an optional add-on until it reached a point where it was so awesome that people were asking for it to be built in.
akashic seer says
I was wondering what the hell happened to the editor. I just set up a new wordpress blog and was on paragraph 2 when I wanted to make a simple bullet list, well that requires making a new block, then I can create another new block after that to continue talking which looks like sharts. At least wordpress is based on plugins, now time to google and read and find a replacement for this garbageberg crapfest of a pretend editor.
Oliver Nielsen says
You’ll get used to it, sooner than you realise ;p
Chris says
Classic Editor: 5+ Million Active Installations
Oliver Nielsen says
Hey Chris:)
I agree that number speaks for itself.
WordPress: 37+ million self-hosted installations,
minus the 5 million that are using the Classic editor plugin
=
32+ million using Gutenberg:)
Oliver
Chris says
5+ doesn’t reflect 5 million. It reflects MORE THAN 5 million. 37+ doesn’t reflect the total installations that are updated to use Gutenberg, it just reflects overall installations of WP. Your math is fatally flawed (and you know it). I’m a betting man, and I’d love to wager with you on the true numbers…but WP will never release those. Spend some time outside of the blogosphere and see what people are saying about Gutenberg. Or, slip those rose-colored glasses off and read the comments here. 32+ using Gutenberg huh? I’ll call your BS and raise you to the table limit. Thanks for playing though 😉
Alfred says
Nobody cares. The Gutenberg/block editor sucks and makes it more difficult to do unique layouts using WordPress. Make it go away.
David says
This is shilling on a whole new level.
Oliver Nielsen says
LOL – thanks for the laugh, David:)
CreativeMedia1 says
This is the worst update on WordPress yet.
It takes 3x as long to create a website.
With WP raising prices and now this shitty editor, I will never recommend it to clients or anyone else.
Oliver Nielsen says
Why do you find it takes you 3x as long to create a website? That sounds overstated, to me at least;)
How is “WP raising prices” ?? WordPress is open source and free. Or are your referring to WordPress.com – Automattic’s commercial arm of WP ??
Oliver
Ed Duval says
It’s official, every single one of our customers has finally reverted to the Classic Editor. Nearly 100 clients were all exposed to Gutenberg, many of them rejected it within a couple weeks, but we did convince a large portion of them to keep working with it, in some cases for months.
The end result was every single one of them, even the handful that initially seemed excited about it, have all gone back to the Classic Editor. The primary reasons given were that it wasn’t user friendly, it wasn’t intuitive, posts and pages didn’t turn out as expected and it makes doing CRO almost impossible.
Personally, I don’t care. But our customers sure do and the response is unequivocal, Gutenberg isn’t wanted or needed.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Ed
Thanks for commenting and sharing your client experiences with Gutenberg.
I’m curious: in what ways have you found Gutenberg hinders CRO / conversion rate optimization?
Oliver
Ralf says
The way it is now, Gutenberg is a major nuisance. Page builders are a good thing, I use various of those and they save me a lot of time. It is good for WordPress to have a good choice of excellent page builder plugins. If WP itself offers a page builder plugin, great. We could choose to use it or ignore it. But, so far, it is just a bad choice, and forcing it upon us … well … me, as a developer, I feel violated. I still hope that they will understand it was a mistake, and fix it.
Kevin says
As a WordPress developer, I find it very difficult and tedious to use sites like Wix and Squarespace. If you look at their conversion rate, you will find it rare that a general user’s site ever goes live. Truncating a developer-driven CMS and leaving…Gutenberg…is why a lot of people are pissed off. As soon as I updated the WP Core we were using to develop sites, I got immediate reports of my team members losing customer content simply by opening a page in the editor. It is a good thing we did not push a core update to several thousand sites. That being said, I understand Gutenberg is built with React and therefor a lot of advance developers may have fun. Most WordPress developers, however, are nowhere near that level. That is just a tiny bit of perspective from a developer. The final issue I have is the sheer lack of intuitiveness – in general. This is like the 6th article I have been to in my quest to figure out WTF a block is and how it works. I obviously have much more research to do before I can make this thing compatible with our flow but so far I have not seen any benefit from it.
akashic seer says
I must be missing something, do I really have to create another block just to have a simple bulleted list? Often you will want to say a few words then use: then have a list. To currently have to have one block for the text of the bulleted list then another block for the list, making the distance between the two look like crap. I don’t so much like it creating a new block with each enter, not sure what the idea for that was. But I am not going to complain, I’ll just install a different editor. I’ll be purchasing some sort of page designer soon which probably has it’s own editor. I was just surprised by the layout and how it works.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Akashic Seer
On the frontend of your site, the individual blocks shouldn’t have more margin or padding just because they’re blocks:) They should display exactly as if you used the Classic WordPress editor.
Else your theme may be at fault. Regardless, you can easily style it with CSS to look as you prefer it.
If you wanna keep your text paragraphs as one continuous block, you can try pressing SHIFT-ENTER/RETURN instead of only ENTER/RETURN. This will force a soft line-break. Pressing it two times will have the same result on the frontend as a normal line-break. Caveat is, it only works as for paragraphs. As soon as you go from paragraph to f.e. a headline, a new block is indeed created.
I’m personally not bothered by that at all. You can still select multiple blocks and move them easily. So there’s really nothing lost by the block-based approach.
And what it HAS done for WordPress, is give us an editor that doesn’t mess up the underlying markup as often as the old, classic editor did. Gutenberg is, IMO, much more idiot-proof.
Oliver
weta says
Gutenberg is pure evil. Why? Because the core community of WordPress users really differs from users of services like Wix.com. For them, used to work in some way, it is is unwanted change, bringing huge difficulties in terms of user experience. Next, that massive backlash was caused by the stupid decission to force users to use Gutenberg as default in WP 5, when it is still in “beta” stage with many weak points.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Weta
You have a good point, regarding the differences between users of WordPress and sites like Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, et al.
I’ve never contemplated it from that vantage point.
And true: Gutenberg should never’ve forced upon users – even more so having the significant animosity against it in mind. A bold move, by Matt Mullenweg. And perhaps a dumb one?
And only the history books will tell whether it was a dumb move short term – or long term.
?
Oliver
Fixxer says
Gutenberg is horrendous. It feels as though there was little peer review testing was performed. The first thing I noticed was a massive increase in necessary clicks to perform what was simple, e.g. selecting text and assigning a header. The wysiwyg menu is gone and I constantly need to expand it. It’s not awkward because it’s new – it’s awkward because it’s far more obtrusive as a page formatting tool than a text editor – which is much the point of blogging or crafting text. What you have now is what you’d use when you already have the text complete and just want to create a visual layout.
Mac says
I tired and tried with the new editor. It is bad. I’ve been developing sites for 15 years and this is the worst improvement I have run across. The idea is great but the execution … I know what they were thinking but they did no pull it off and it is completely unnecessary. The Classic editor is beautiful, easy to use and intuitive. The new one no where near being intuitive and probably never will be.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hey Mac/Meg:)
Some prefer writing in Microsoft Word, while other people enjoy the newer breed of text editors like iA Writer, Ulysses and Scrivener, and would scream and beg for mercy if someone forced them back to Microsoft Word.
Personal preferences vary greatly, I guess. Personally I’ve never much liked the old editor, nor seen it as elegant. Well… perhaps I did see it as elegant when I came to WordPress in 2007, after using Drupal. But battling with the old, classic editor’s handling of f.e. headline vs paragraph formatting, was often problematic. Press backspace at the start of a paragraph, and boom: the whole paragraph is now a headline, like the headline about it. And on and on.
Oliver
Ralf says
TinyMCE has lots of issues, you don’t even mention the worst: code cleaning. All the other issues can be overcome by switching to html. But what good is it, if TinyMCE keeps messing it up? Improving TinyMCE, making it more configurable within WP, etc. would have been a better investment of time than Gutenberg, imho. With Gutenberg, html mode has been all but removed for me – it keeps breaking pages completely whenever I dare touch the smallest piece of code …
Oliver Nielsen says
Hey Ralf
Yeah. But there’s only so much that could’ve been done, if the development team had to work within the contraints and confines of TinyMCE.
Making a stable, reliable WYSIWYG editor that always does what we expect it to do, is extremely hard. Be it TinyMCE – or Gutenberg. With TinyMCE, their hands would be somewhat tied, as some things would be outside their control. With Gutenberg, it’s their own creation, from the ground up.
At least we can then blame them:) It’s their work, after all:)
Oliver
Alfred says
People, especially professionals, obviously UNIVERSALLY despise Gutenberg. It’s time to call a spade a spade, apologize for running so far down such a stoopid road, and pull it back out of the product.
Oliver Nielsen says
I personally think Gutenberg is great! Really enjoying it:)
akashic seer says
I think the people that don’t like it are the people that create a lot of content. I’ll be switching to some sort of plugin or page creator like ThriveThemes soon as I find one. I create lots of bullet lists, gutenberg thinks I need an entire new block for a simple list, this creates too many gaps in content, I don’t want each list to stand out so much. At least it is just a plugin thing, this is what makes WordPress so awesome and inspirational as a developer. I liked the old editor, it reminded me of a real word editor with lots of options. But Gutenberg is just the free default we don’t have to use it.
Oliver Nielsen says
True, as to WordPress being joyfully open, allowing freedom of choice, in the form of plugins:)
As to the bullet lists: see my reply to one of your other comments!
=)
Oliver
Akarso says
I’ve created literally hundreds of wordpress pages, with custom fields and post types, or without. Never have I met a client who wanted to tinker with the content and create whole page structure. People just want to enter the text here and there, content, disclaimer, some pictures, gallery. It’s the best for me, too – because I can take it from here and take care of coherent visual design, presentation, typography and so on.
Now – one day comes and I wake up to reality, where most of my sites are rendered unusable, because editor was replaced with muddled mess of ‘block builder’ which I never asked for. And now I have to upload a plugin everywhere to keep the status quo.
Oliver Nielsen says
Exactly, Akarso. That’s the whole point of Gutenberg: it isn’t a page builder, it’s a content builder, and lets your clients create better, more enticing content, and you as the web designer can still takes care of the site’s design.
PS: why not let your clients simply use the new editor? Have any of them freaked out? Have you, honestly, experienced a “big mess” when WordPress switched to the new editor? On all my sites, the content sits neatly in a single “Classic” block that works a whole lot like WP’s old, classic editor. So what’s the problem?
Oliver
Ralf says
The point is, Gutenberg is not really simple for clients. I have used various page and/or content builders for years, and it still took me a while to (mostly) understand how to work with GB, it’s not straightforward. Settings in unusual places, lack of buttons, H1 hidden in the sidebar. Pages breaking when touching html. That’s just me. But clients? I tried to explain it to one client. It took much time before she even understood how to move blocks up and down. Kept pushing the wrong arrows, and so on. But more serious editing? Styling? Selecting the right blocks for type of content? Forget it. Maybe the most confusing “feature” for me is that you don’t even see the blocks before pointing at them. That indeed freaks me out. Just a bit, but still. No, I am not going to try with other clients any time soon. TinyMCE has downsides, but at least, to clients who know Word et al., it looks familiar. They will make mistakes, but they can easily get things done with it.
akashic seer says
Or you’re like me and you want to add a list find it in the block options hit it and BAM entire block section magically turned into bullet list. thank god for ctl + z But yeah I think the issue is young developers who most likely never saw word and don’t realize everyone over 30 grew up with word and that is what tinymce mimicked. Most business owners are 40+ most developers are less than 30 these days. It is a generational misunderstanding. I can’t imagine having wordpress customers calling after an update and they can’t figure things out or break things. That must suck.
akashic seer says
Seriously most of these people’s clients are probably older than you. People in these older age groups grew up with Microsoft word. The old editor looked a lot like Word. This new Gutenberg looks nothing like any text editor anyone has ever seen. Young people can’t just demand the world changes because they don’t understand what was before.
Oliver Nielsen says
1. You’re probably on to something! I like Gutenberg, and never liked Microsoft Word. There may be a causal correlation there 😀
2. Watch out, on the age-thing! I just turned 40 ;D
Thanks for commenting:)
Oliver
Jason says
Challenge:
Create a page in Gutenberg with 4 images side by side of 400×400 size.
Result: 20 minutes of clicking add column block, remove column block, add column block just to get a 4 column setup (instead of add block, set number of columns, like every other page builder)
Followed by inserting 4 image blocks of the same size… Yet when all 4 images are added to each of their respective blocks… The third one in shrinks in height… All 4 images were just created, all identical in size, even image type…
I’d love to see how fast you can make this challenge in a video, unedited, so we can see how you really feel about this trash editor.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Jason
What do you need the column block for? You can just float the images left, and they’ll line up fine. I just did so!
That said, I don’t think image handling is the strongest side of Gutenberg. But boy oh boy I can say the same about the old/classic WordPress editor’s handling of images. It was much much worse!
PS: Gutenberg isn’t a page builder – it’s a content editor. Judging it from a page builder perspective is like comparing a Ford Focus to a rally car. Or a kitchen knife to a Swiss Army knife. As a content editor – I like Gutenberg VASTLY MORE, compared to the classic TinyMCE-based (I think) editor.
Oliver
CreativeMedia1 says
It WAS a content editor – now it has become a page builder.
This is a classic case of “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Oliver Nielsen says
You could also turn it around and see it this way:
Page builders are popular. There may be a reason for that.
Thousands… MILLIONS of people, use page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi, Visual Composer, et al.
That’s a big indicator of the old editor’s inadequacies.
IMO WP’s old/classic editor was broken, in the sense that it was antiquated in the same way Joomla and all the PHP Nuke clones were antiquated. They all used a similarly crippled AND crippling content editor. Perhaps it was even based on TinyMCE too? 🙂
Oliver
ScoDal says
I’m trying to go with the flow and accept the change instead of being a grumpy old man that just hates on something because it is different than what I was used to. I can see the new system being useful for some, but power users will probably dislike it. On my personal sites, I have installed the plugin to allow me to continue using the old editor cause that’s just easier for me.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hey Scott
Definitely use the old editor if that suits you better. I myself also use older versions of various software, because I prefer it over the newer versions.
The tool that helps us get the job done, is the right tool for the job. No shame at all in not using the latest and greatest.
Good thing the classic editor is available and supported for years to come:)
Oliver
Armand Gilbert says
Gutenberg is a mess… and it’s implementation does not bode well for the WordPress community.
I’m morbidly curious who was the “genius” that designed the UI for this POS.
Oliver Nielsen says
“morbidly curious” – LOL, Armand:)
Is it really that bad? Can you elaborate on what you particularly don’t like? And what you feel the old WordPress editor did better?
Oliver
Beau Dure says
Well, for one thing, the classic editor didn’t make me lose about an hour’s worth of work! (OK, granted, that might have been a coincidence.)
The new editor is, quite simply, clumsy. Menus pop up out of nowhere and obscure the text.
And I simply don’t understand why it was necessary. I never had trouble embedding video or tweets or anything else I wanted.
So I would turn the question around. What are the advantages of the new editor? I’ve yet to see them.
Scott says
One annoying thing is when you copy and paste content into a block, then press enter to create a new block (go to next line) and paste or write more content the cursor swings back to the beginning of the block and then creates a block BEFORE the block you just made which just seems backwards. It’s annoying because I have to consciously click at the end of the block after I paste and then press enter each time. No other editor makes you do this. Notepad, WordPad, TextEdit, Word… you paste, press Enter, you’re on the next line. What is this you’re on the previous line stuff? I’m sure this’ll get patched out in a later version.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Scott
Happy new year 2019:)
I can see why that can be a nuisance in the workflow you describe.
Have you submitted that feedback to the developer team? They’ll only change it if they’re aware of it.
=)
Oliver
Mac says
By the time we are done with all the suggestions and comments and if they adopt them they will effectively be back with the Classic editor.
Oliver Nielsen says
Ha! You think so? 😀 Nah… Let’s cross our fingers that wouldn’t be the case:)
Alfred says
We can only desparately HOPE that would be the case. Seriously, the Gutenberg editor really is that bad.
akashic seer says
LMAO recreating the wheel. But this is a shiny new wheel with a golden rim and fluffy fat tire. It’s better than the last one. It should not have been forced, maybe they should have sold it as a plugin or some how given users the option to upgrade.
Jason says
It’s not what the old editor did better. It’s what every single editor that’s in the repository does better, that they completely ignored. Namely color coding of blocks so you can actually see how they are laying out when you click that stupid little plus sign to add another block. This hover over to outline crap is absurd.
Oliver Nielsen says
It’s like that to preserve a clean UI and a good content editing experience. It’s a content editor – not a page builder;)
Oliver
Nathan Trout says
Gutenburg really sucks. I’ve been building website thru Frontpage, Dreamweaver, and Joomla and now WordPress. This Gutenburg is so bad, I am looking for a whole new CMS to use. One on the rise, not one sinking back to the technical advances that WP Bakery offered 3 years ago. I guess WordPress figured they had to start somewhere, but taking a step back for 3 year old technology is not my idea of “cutting edge”.
And as an SEO guy, its a HUGE step backwards, even farther back than as a web building tool.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Nathan
Sincerely sorry for your comment being held hostage in my WordPress comment moderation queue. Not my intention. For some reason comments were hidden from plain sight.
Thank you for taking time to comment! My sincere apologies for the delay!
=)
Oliver
Jason says
Divi. Done.
Oliver Nielsen says
As in… You prefer Divi over Gutenberg?
Truth Hurts says
Horrible take. Gutenberg is a mess. How much did WordPress pay you to shill for it?
Oliver Nielsen says
Nothing! Ain’t that a shame? 😀
I wish they’d done so. Would be nice:)
But hey: what do you find messy about it? I still enjoy it a lot, although I feel it wasn’t ready to be released in December 2018. The push for WordPress 5.0 did feel forced.
Oliver
CarloR says
Five minutes with ‘compulsory’ Gutenberg in WP 5 triggered a search for a plugin to get rid of it. Luckily, there are a couple, apparently with pretty many downloads – something to think about. IMO Gutenberg is a clear turn toward the worst. Blocks are total nonsense when you are writing a text, which happens rather often on a blog. No one of the ‘new features’ makes sense to me, whereas I had everything well under control on the ‘archaic interface’, and never had the feeling of being limited in my creations. Hope Gutenberg and all the reasoning behind it will be forgotten soon, and WP developers will revert back lightning fast to support the ‘old fashioned’ and perfectly working editor.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hey Carlo
Sorry for your comment being held hostage in my WordPress comment moderation queue. Not my intention. For some reason comments were hidden from plain sight.
Thank you for taking time to comment! My sincere apologies for the delay!
=)
Oliver
Iftekhar says
I do not understand the logic behind forcing a damn thing on people without even listening to them. Looking at the download count of GB and rating of that plugin, one thing is clear. People downloaded and tested it but they didn’t like it. Contrary to that, Classic Editor plugin’s download count and rating says it all. Most people don’t need a page-builder… we don’t want a Wix copycat. GB should have remained as a plugin for those who are so interested in “page building”. Classic editor should have remained with the core.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Iftekhar
Sorry for your comment being held hostage in my WordPress comment moderation queue. Not my intention. For some reason comments were hidden from plain sight.
Thank you for taking time to comment! My sincere apologies for the delay!
=)
Oliver
Daniel Lemes says
This is crazy. I don’t see one real good reason to shove Gutenberg down our throats. “Competition” and “the current editor feels arcaic”? To me sounds more like “let’s reinvent the wheel”.
If the blocky-thing is good because Wix is taking clients from WordPress, it’s because they are different tools. WP should offer Gutenberg as option, a plugin, or maybe part of core that can be disabled or selected on the installation, just like the language. Forcing it is a disaster for millions of users already confortable and worst: depending of the current structure like custom fields.
Honestly, I’m feeling so depressed to see this crap on core, that if I could, I would drop WordPress right now. WP is not a page builder, it’s a content editor, all WYSIWYG editors have Visual and Code mode. It was never (or shouldn’t be) an issue.
My hope is users reactions being enough to make developers review this madness. And considering the reviews of Gutenberg (2 stars at the moment) vs Classic Editor (5 stars) plugins, looks like users are not enjoying the move.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Daniel
Sorry for your comment being held hostage in my WordPress comment moderation queue. Not my intention. For some reason comments were hidden from plain sight.
Thank you for taking time to comment! My sincere apologies for the delay!
=)
Oliver
Jack Surveyer says
I agree with Fred – Gutenberg has been foisted on WordPress users while falling well short of what current Page Builder can do in critical areas:
1)Deliver multicolumn rows as containers for widgets which Gutenberg nearly three years in still cannot do. Yet this is a base requirement for good UI Design. You say it ends up as Cookie Cutter Website Designs and I say for DIY Designers that may well happen but for sheer creative page design, PageBuilders are delivering some exciting layouts vis a vis Multi-Purpose themes like Astra, Generate Press, OceanWP , etc.
2)Gutenberg is woefully thin in providing styling options for its blocks. In contrast all of the PageBuilders provide a wealth of CSS styling options as increasingly clever point and click operations. Take a look at what Divi allows users to do to repeat styling settings over many widgets with a single click.
2)Full-scale WYSIWYG Frontend UI design is being delivered by all of the PageBuilders is in stark contrast to Gutenberg which is seriously horizontally challenged. The PageBuilders are rapidly adding drag and drop resizings for margins, images, and columns horizontal repositioning. Both Divi and Elementor are promising even more z-index smart resizings including overlapping layout areas similar to what CSS Grid and the Zedity multi-layer plugin [https://wordpress.org/plugins/zedity/] currently deliver to TinyMCE editor. Finally, inline editing is improving by leaps and bounds Thrive Architect has an inline text-edit bar that one-ups the frenetic, bouncing one currently used by Divi. But again, inline edit bars for other widgets are appearing in Themify Builder and Visual Composer that will likely spread throughout the PageBuilder community.
3)PageBuilders have a fully functional templating system that again puts Gutenberg smalltime templates to shame. PageBuilder users can import pre-built websites, pages, or sections of pages. They can also export pages and sections of pages with or without global updates for use elsewhere on their websites. Most PageBuilders provide a directory where these user made templates can be managed, edited and inserted into their developing pages. Finally Beaver Builder and Divi are developing Dynamic Templates that can be passed arguments and respond to simple logic controls well ahead of the Gutenberg to-be-delivered “Whenever Potential”.
In fact the arguments for Gutenberg are all posited in Futures. Gutenberg will “soon” match the styling options, multi-column containers, drag and drop frontend design space, and then templating system of Gutenberg will present Designer and Developers with a standard set of blocks unlike the fractured set of widgets presented by the many PageBuilders. But in fact, Gutenberg blocks are fast fragmenting into dozens of 3rd party clones and “improvements” for the Gutenberg blocks that are still far behind the PageBuilder state of the art.
Thus for example, finding a standard Gutenberg “Pricing Tables” block will soon mean choosing from 3-5 clones each with its own special features. And this of course, ignores the fact that PageBuilders are making progress in deactivating and passing code from one PageBuilder to another. Elementor, SiteOrigin, and Beaver Builder leave all text and media intact without interspersed shortcodes when deactivated. And there are software projects on the go to translate Elementor page or section JSON templates files into their Divi or Beaver Builder equivalents.
Finally, the release of WordPress 5 beta 1 with Gutenberg has been most revealing. All of the major PageBuilders have promised to have interface which work with Gutenberg. Several work preemptively, taking over the edit session as just another PageBuilder edit. But Themify Builder and Visual Composer deliver true first level integration – their code segments can be interspersed with Gutenberg code. It is when you work with PageBuilder code and then Gutenberg code, the yawning gap between the PageBuilders capabilities and the almost tentative Gutenberg features becomes starkly evident. Even more telling, TinyMCE is slated to get a series of compelling add-ons in the next few months. So the bottom line is that Gutenberg is below the bottom line among WordPress editing tools.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Jack
Thank you for an interesting comment! Very very welcome. You write well, by the way.
My quick reply is that Gutenberg is not intended to be a page builder, but rather a content editor. And it isn’t targeting web developers and web designers with things like z-index – it’s targeting the millions of regular users who are non-techies, and aggressively targeted by Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, et al.
WordPress desperately needed a new editor. Gutenberg has, overall, continued to amaze and delight me:)
Don’t you think it’s nice to have an upgraded standard editor? (although I do realize you don’t consider Gutenberg an upgrade, but rather a downgrade:)
Oliver
Jack Surveyer says
Oliver –
If I write well, you write very interesting posts on your blog – provoking interesting discussions and chats.
I will take one issue with your comment. “Gutenbeg’s is targeting the millions of regular users who are non-techies, and aggressively targeted by Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, et al.” But pricely the competitive advantage that Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, et alia have over the Classic Visual Editor is that they are all returns to true WYSIWYG frontend editing – Wix especially.
Wix is still the best drag and drop Visual Editor among all the CMS systems including Drupal, Joomla and WordPress with all their various PageBuilders. Three years ago, I would say that WordPress PageBuilders such as Visual Composer and Site Origin PageBuilder among others were second fiddle to Wix. But in the buildup to Gutenberg, PageBuilders such as Divi, Elementor and Themify Builder have improved dramatically. Inline editing, drag and drop positioning plus resizing of widgets/blocks among these specific PageBuilders are rapidly approaching the Wix apex [but of course Wix, in its own glaring UI shortcoming, has yet to deliver across all devices, seamless mobile responsiveness].
But you have cited the next UI battle ground – mastery of z-index space. CSS Grid and array of popup tooltips, modal windows, slider layering, slide-in-and-out blocks et alia already hint at the z-index possibilities tied in with transparency and timeout effects. Widget/block animations have come firmly to all the major PageBuilders. But I know of many Web Designers, put off by awkward JavaScripting, await declarative or drag and drop tools to “paint in layered dimensions” that respond to mouse movements, hovering and scrolling in novel and expressive ways.
Oliver Nielsen says
Deep comment Jack. Lots of food for thought there:) I thank you for it.
I’m wondering: how would you have upgraded the WordPress standard editor, if you’d been in charge of Project Gutenberg?
=)
Oliver
Mac says
Try to teach a new user the Classic editor vs. Guttenberg like I have and not a one will use Guttenberg. It is a mess, non-intuitive and impossible for beginners. I have yet to understand why it was forced on everyone when almost no one likes it except for a few techies who like to see new things.
Oliver Nielsen says
I agree it could probably have been an easier to use editor. It does have a learning curve. But not a very steep nor very long one.
But Gutenberg prolly won’t be featured as one of the best, most elegant, most intuitive inventions of the 2010s, I’ll give you that:)
Oliver
Erik says
Forcing Gutenberg on WordPress.org members is the issue here, and I don’t care if we can download a plugin to have the classic editor because all that does is cause more bloat. If they want to push it out to all the noobs on WordPress.com where they pay WP to use the service, fine but when you start to force things to the open source community, you better expect backlash and lots of it.
Oliver Nielsen says
C’mon Erik… I value and respect your opinion, but Gutenberg has been a very open development process. Everyone’s had plenty opportunity to voice their take on Gutenberg and offer their thoughts, ideas for improvements and so on. It’s built by some really skilled, good people.
Honestly, Gutenberg has revitalized my faith in WordPress. Seriously. One of my pet peeves was the horribly old school, archaic editor. Since I went Gutenberg, I’ve never wanted to go back.
“Open source” certainly doesn’t mean stale, nor conservative.
What is it you believe the old editor does better than Gutenberg?
And have you tried using Gutenberg? Committing to a week or two with it?
=)
Oliver
Fred says
Open maybe, but the developers are clearly butthurt that most people do not like their baby and as a result all feedback is met with defensive and usually very obtuse responses.
It generally goes like this: “Gutenberg is an unnecessary mess, it’s creating an obscene amount of extra work for me. Things that used to be easy like inserting an image mid paragraph are not virtually impossible. Drag and drop is clunky and not responsive. The code output is a mess and writing clean code is now impossible. Updating my theme to work with it will take hours. Please leave it as a plugin until the ecosystem catches up!”
Obtuse developer response: “I’m sorry you aren’t liking it, we’re going to shove it down your throat anyway, but would you mind telling me specifically didn’t like it because I disregarded most of what you wrote and would like the opportunity to disregard your again and waste even more of your time. Thanks for flying Air Gutenberg, I hope you enjoyed your stale peanuts!”
Oliver Nielsen says
Hey Fred
The ecosystem has had plenty time to catch up, and will have even more time before it’s integrated into core. Trust me, it won’t be, until it’s ready.
And I can’t, in any way recognize that tone from the developers anywhere online. Not on GitHub, neither on WordPress.org. That said, I’ve seen lots and lots of insulting, meaninglessly critical, personal, rageful, aggressive, conspiracy-like (and what not) responses to Gutenberg. Coping with that backlash has been a huge task for those developers who are at the other end there, as receivers of those not always nice… opinions.
What’s good about the old editor?
To me, it’s always felt really archaic and been messing up formatting, necessitating manual “help” / cleanup in the HTML tab. Asking a client to do that, is asking for even more trouble.
The old editor is a much better candidate to be an optional plugin, for those who prefer the old way.
I value your opinion though! Of course there’s lots of valid criticism on Gutenberg – and it’s all being considered and listened to;)
Oliver
Freddy says
What’s good about the old editor?
Maybe that’s part of the problem.
Maybe the initial assumption was to be better than the old editor not realizing the reality that a new editor would need to be better than the popular 3rd party editors that have left the ‘old editor’ in the dust.
Isn’t that like Ford looking at the horse and buggy when designing the next generation car?