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The New Gutenberg WordPress Editor

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If you haven’t heard about it and you have a Word Press website, there is a big change coming that may create some new challenges for you.

Word Press has finally decided to do something about it’s clumsy and limited page editor. If you are like me, you may use a third party editor like Beaver Builder, Elemento or Thrive Editor instead of the clunky Word Press Editor. In situation, you may not be effected by the new upgrade.

The major challenge associated with this upgrade is the coding language. The Gutenberg editor is built on a java script platform while the CORE of WordPress is built on a PHP platform.Here in is the potential for conflict and disaster. Disaster being your site goes down during or after the update is installed.

I recommend that you do not update your Word Press site until the the second or third release or Word Press 5 is released. WAIT before updating.

Below is content from the official WordPress Web Site

A new publishing experience for WordPress is in the works: get ready to make your words, pictures, and layout look as good on screen as they do in your imagination, without any code.

You might have heard of this project — it’s called Gutenberg, after another invention that revolutionized publishing — but are wondering what it means for you. Who will see the biggest difference, and what it will change for your everyday workflows? Everyone, and everything. The Gutenberg editor uses blocks to create all types of content, replacing a half-dozen inconsistent ways of customizing WordPress, bringing it in line with modern coding standards, and aligning with open web initiatives. These content blocks transform how users, developers, and hosts interact with WordPress to make building rich web content easier and more intuitive, democratizing publishing — and work — for everyone, regardless of technical ability.

It’s great that so many people think WordPress is the best way to get their ideas on the web, and it’s easy to unlock the power of WordPress if you know how to write code — but not everyone does. And now, you won’t need to.

The most targeted way to help the people building this new user experience is to test the editor using a particular script and set of tasks. You can find the tests and instructions right here.

What is a block?

One of the things you hear a lot about during discussions of Gutenberg are blocks. These blocks are a unified way to style content that currently requires shortcodes, embeds, widgets, post formats, custom post types, theme options, meta-boxes, and other formatting elements. By allowing rich customization without deep knowledge of code, blocks make good on the promise of WordPress: broad functionality with a clear, consistent user experience.

The current WordPress editor is an open text window—it’s always been a wonderful blank canvas for writing, but when it comes to building posts and pages with images, multimedia, embedded content from social media, polls, and other elements, it required a mix of different approaches that were not always intuitive:

  • Media library/HTML for images, multimedia and approved files.
  • Pasted links for embeds.
  • Shortcodes for specialized assets from plugins.
  • Featured images for the image at the top of a post or page.
  • Excerpts for subheads.
  • Widgets for content on the side of a page.

As we thought about these uses and how to make them obvious and consistent, we began to embrace the concept of “blocks.” All of the above items could be blocks: easy to search and understand, and easy to dynamically shift around the page. The block concept is very powerful, and if designed thoughtfully, can offer an outstanding editing and publishing experience.

Compatibility

The Gutenberg project is actively addressing compatibility concerns. Blocks are the de facto new mechanism for building content features, and we recommend that developers migrate any features they offer that are well-encapsulated by blocks. However, support for existing WordPress functionality will remain, and there will be transition paths for shortcodes, meta-boxes, and Custom Post Types:

  • Shortcodes.
    • Will continue working without changes.
    • There is a new “shortcode block” to help inserting them.
    • There’s a planned mechanism for previewing them in place.
  • Meta-boxes.
    • Some will continue to work with no changes under the new UI.
    • Some will need updates (particularly those that rely on the DOM for operating).*
    • Several can be converted to native blocks (particularly those that are rendered on the front-end).
    • Some can transition to new Gutenberg native extension points outside of the content area.
    • There will be a mechanism for conflicting meta-boxes to load the classic editor instead with a notice.
  • Custom Post Types.
    • Are supported by Gutenberg.
    • Need REST API (show_in_rest) declaration.
    • Can opt out by not declaring “editor” support.
    • Will be able to declare supported and default blocks.

* Certain meta-boxes that rely on the specific structure of the current editing screen are not guaranteed to work under Gutenberg, and might need changes before they can be loaded correctly.

Resources

There are a number of resources where you can learn more about the project and ideas behind it.

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