Its fair to say that the majority of us (wp community) dreaded the new 5.0 update that came with a new editor known as Gutenberg. From our many talks with friends and acquaintances it was mainly because it was an unknown to them. Most were already locked into a process and comfort of doing things. “I just don’t have the time to explore” many would say.
Developers and designers, would think “how am I supposed to structure a homepage on this?”. Where are all the features for designs?
Worse, many agencies who managed multiple websites on WordPress started fearing what would happen to their websites when that update came.
Reality check: The WordPress team gave everyone plenty of time to be prepared. Yes, yes, it was still one more thing for you to do in your busy day. But think of it this way. If it weren’t for them you would still be stuck in your ways being left behind by your competitors. So I say, thank them.
Now lets get some things down. Can you build your fancy homepage on Gutenberg? A big no. Sure you can get some nice things going with blocks and some impressive plugins which extend the functionality of the editor, but no righteous person would add all that bloat to their site. Gutenberg was not designed for it. But neither was the visual (TINYMCE) editor.
Now lets get your mind out of developer or designer mode. If you are a writer and using WordPress for what it was intended for (content generation and management) then you are probably loving the new block editor. Sure takes some getting used to, but OMG look at all that I can do now while writing content. All the settings are neatly organize. You probably feel more productive. You probably are now. Everything is easier.
So at this point you are probably guessing we consider Gutenberg a friend. And rightfully so. Because we love it.
But what about my fancy designs?
There are so many themes and plugins out there that pair very well with Gutenberg. Let design be design and content editing be it’s own thing. one should not overwrite the other. It’s not efficient. This will make managing your pages, blogs or custom post types that more efficient.
If you are a blogger or have a blog on your website then you definitely want Gutenberg active. Don’t be the guy that deactivated it from your whole install. You will be missing out.
What are your thoughts on Gutenberg? Is it your friend or foe?
