Metabox Placement

Some follow up feedback on the placement of metaboxes.

I am still testing the arrangement of metaboxes in Gutenberg and it is not perfect to the extent that it is as usable as the current (classic) backend interface.

I am doing my test on a clean install using the astra theme and Yoast as a sample plugin. Initially metaboxes for both of these are in the right sidebar. In this position the Gutenberg interface won’t let me drag either of these beneath the content area. I need to go to the classic interface to do this and then, once back in Gutenberg, you can’t move metaboxes back back into the sidebar.

While you can move whatever metaboxes into whatever order you want below the content area you can’t but any above it. And you can’t collapse or hide the content area either.

In addition to this you can’t move or arrange the standard controls for Featured Images, Categories or Discussion and the Authors and revisions metabox are missing.

I point out all these weak points in Gutenberg as they ability to move, hide and collapse these metaboxes and ones for custom post type field groups is a fundamental requirement in any one of many scenarios and workflows I might set up over the course of the lifetime of a web project; the build, data entry, SEO, amendments, addition of extra data, maintenance, feature updates etc. The way Gutenberg is designed thwarts these.

It’s a pity that Gutenberg was not limited to the content area either as a drop in replacement or even as an extra tab for the initial implementation to ease its integration.