After over a year in development, the biggest change to WordPress in years is finally here. But what is Gutenberg and how can it make working with content in WordPress 5.0 easier?
A New Editing Experience
Gutenberg is named after Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press with movable type more than 500 years ago. At its core, Gutenberg is a new editing experience for WordPress. It is a distraction-free interface that eliminates the old Microsoft-Word-inspired editor and instead focuses on building content with blocks. It may take some getting used to, but the end result is a much more powerful, robust content-editing experience.
For non-technical users, including those without any knowledge of HTML, Gutenberg is a blessing. No need to worry about marking up your content – just use one of the many built-in blocks to add your headings, paragraphs, lists, and links.
What the Block?
So what are “blocks”? In short, everything. The goal for Gutenberg is to turn every piece of your content into movable blocks, just like the original letters on the Gutenberg printing press. Every paragraph you write can be rearranged using arrow buttons. The same goes for images, headings, embedded Twitter posts, and anything else you put in your content. But that’s just the beginning.
Gutenberg comes with many pre-built blocks that used to require a page builder, shortcodes, or custom HTML layouts. Need your content split into multiple columns? There’s a block for that. Want to create a pull quote to highlight a part of your content more? There’s a block for that.
But what about your special content? The content that needs a custom layout with specific fields WordPress doesn’t provide? That’s where your development team comes in. With the new Blocks API, WordPress allows for the creation of custom blocks that can then be marked as reusable. These custom blocks will be added to the blocks menu along with the pre-built blocks for your selection.
Gutenberg has turned your content into a series of selectable “Lego Brick” options. This will allow users to click and choose bricks making the content editing experience even easier.
Enhanced Features
Gutenberg may be “just a new text editor for WordPress” but it also incorporates a number of new features that provide even more content customization options. One of my favorites is the color editor. With just a few clicks, you can change the background or text color of your individual paragraphs from a selection of predefined colors, or using your own custom colors. This is a great way to bring your company’s branding into your content in a way that used to require custom code and development hours.
Another new feature is the “Table of Contents”. Because of Gutenberg’s block structure, WordPress is now more aware of how your content is arranged, and can automatically generate a table of contents based on your headings. This helps you keep your content organized, and it also improves the accessibility of your content as it reinforces the idea of using a sensical, semantic heading structure.
Getting Ready for Gutenberg
Now that know about Gutenberg and its benefits, how do you best prepare to utilize it? If your website is currently in WordPress, you can test Gutenberg now. First, be sure to make a backup of your current website. Then install the Gutenberg plugin on your site and start writing with the new editor. Because the scope of what’s changing with Gutenberg is limited to the editor, your site’s theme should work out of the box. If you know of any extensive changes made by your development team or are unsure about your theme’s support, contact your developers for help.
Over the next few months, take your time to adjust to the new editing experience. Buttons will be in different places, so you’ll have to re-teach your muscles and mouse movements. There will be an adjustment period, but that’s exactly why Gutenberg is available to try now.
If you’re having trouble adjusting, you can always switch to the Classic Editor with just a few clicks. The old editor will be restored and WordPress will look like it used to. Still, you’ll want to start getting used to the new way of doing things because the Classic Editor won’t be around forever.
One more note about that Classic Editor: if Gutenberg is about to launch and you’re still not ready, the Classic Editor will be available as a plugin. While not a permanent solution, the Classic Editor plugin will give you additional time to adjust.
Are you ready to get started with Gutenberg? Download and install the plugin and get to creating content! If you run into trouble, the development team here at Findsome & Winmore is always available to help.