The new editor is cool but can’t be disabled when all you need is only 2,3 custom fields.

Not every page should be “design blocked”

Why this Gutenberg? Only more complications. The beginning of the wordpress death …

Dear Devs.

I’m also a dev. I’ve been one for 12 years. I’ve invested countless hours learning and re-learning HTML, PHP, SQL, CSS, JS and Apache settings. And after a lot of pressure to mass produce sites with preset functionality really quickly with people who don’t know or hate to use code, WordPress itself. And writing plugins for it. And making themes for it. And evading its quirks.

I gave Gutenberg a try for an hour on a fresh single-site install about 2 weeks ago. Let’s tally the results:

– Can’t switch back to regular editor, no matter how many times I press that button.
– Image block alignment to center just didn’t work. Where’s the code editor?
– Where did all the settings go? Like custom meta fields, post type, template selector etc.
– Didn’t dare to see what’s inside, and what it puts out and into the db yet. Or how it behaves on a multisite. Or test it with all the other plugins. I dread the day I would have to crawl around the database on some serialized data hunt.
– In the end, with it wanting to be mandatory, I saw it more as a burden, than as a relief.

Unfortunately, there exists an inverse relationship between “fancy, quick, one-click drag-and-drop solutions” and stability, reliability, and maintainability. (Praise be the exceptions.) I see a serious problem with making a decision to ship it in version 5.0, while at 4.9.8 it still has bugs no editor should have, not to mention a reliable one. Therefore I beg you, delay it at least until all wrinkles have been smoothed out, make it a plugin until then, and give it more time in live environments.

You know, I’m the one my collegues and clients turn to when stuff breaks or doesn’t work, or should be customized, unless it’s the server itself. I can’t count the times a theme (or library or framework etc) has promised to be responsive, or easy-to-use, when it wasn’t. Or the times it just broke a site. Or left trash around. Or had a disagreement with other installed stuff. I’m quite fed up with over-hyped, flashy stuff that just fails to do what it’s for.

IT IS HIGHLY PROBABLE, that with this update a huge majority of existing sites will crash and burn. Will have to REBUILD them from SCRATCH. That is what the future holds for us who do this kind of work if this is incorporated into the core, and it’s not a bright one.

TL;DR:
– At 4.9.8 it still has bugs no editor should have, not to mention a reliable one. Therefore I beg you, delay it at least until all wrinkles have been smoothed out, make it a plugin until then, and give it more time in live environments. WE WORK WITH THIS TOOL!
– Whoever wants a -good- website, has to either have knowledge about code, or have someone do it for them. There is no easy way around.

There is way to much of a learning curve to throw at people all at once. Ive played with this over an hour and my posts look like garbage. And why are you hiding stuff all over the place? Its a search and destroy mission to get stuff done.

I’ve slowly integrated Gutenberg into one of my websites so far. When it was first rolled out to everyone, I was so excited to use it that I lept in without looking to see if my theme and its professional plugins were 100% ready (Generate Press). So, I had some teething issues, and I had to reverse a few things and go back to Classic to wait just a tiny bit longer.

When my theme was ready, it meant that a theme plugin I used would be made obsolete sometime in the future. Unfortunately, I had spent considerable time on integrating this plugin into my web pages just the month before. So, I was a bit bummed out. GP have developed a new plugin to replace the old one, but I wasn’t yet ready to spend more time converting the old settings. However, my theme developer has done an excellent job to make this as painless as possible. And the old plugin still works, it just won’t be updated.

But now, over the last few weeks, I have used Gutenberg to:
*create a new blog post from scratch
*copy and paste another blog post written in MS Word into the new editor
*convert an old post written in the classic editor to Gutenberg.

All up it was relatively easy, pain-free and fun.

I mainly use WordPress as a writer, not as a developer. And I have fallen in love with Gutenberg. The blocks take a little to get used to, but there is so much more you can do with them. I also write in different styles, and I find Gutenberg is just as friendly for a conversational style of writing as it is for a more formal style.

Lengthwise, it handled my last post, which was over 2,500 words, well. It’s also so easy to edit with Gutenberg. I like how you can move the blocks up and down and change it to different formats. And there are more formats available, more ways to use text to interact with the reader, more formatting choices for blocks. That’s a huge plus for me as having an interactive site helps to engage the reader.

Aside from the theme plugins changing, I haven’t found there to be any other issues with any other plugins that I use.

Now, I did come across a couple of bugs, particularly when I copied and pasted from MS Word. But these bugs are known issues. And it’s not like you can’t work around them. There just a minor inconvenience for now.

I’m excited about the future of this plugin!

Perhaps I’m easily pleased. But from a writer’s standpoint and as someone who looks after the web management of their five (soon to be six) WordPress websites (with no techie training), I’m in love with Gutenberg. You’ll have to carry me kicking and screaming back to Classic.

Thanks for improving my writing experience with Gutenberg.

Gutenberg is not ready for prime time. Please keep it as a plug-in and do not merge into core until it really is ready. Allow users to opt-in, don’t force them to adopt. A bad user experience en masse will cause an exodus away from WordPress and in the waiting arms of WIX, Weebly, Medium…