Block Respect

It seems most of the friction against Gutenberg stems from blocks being a foreign concept to many. And for many of those people there are many logical reasons why the block interferes with their workflows and use cases.

So, can I make a number of suggestion that may smooth the transition and actually add some real killer features to Gutenberg.

The first is an option in writing settings regarding which block to start with:

Start new pages and posts with:
• Blocks
• Text Editor (TinyMCE – Classic block)

I suggest giving the title Text Editor as, for many, TinyMCE and Classic may be meaningless. And naming it Classic is unnecessary in any event

You could even do this with a drop down to select whichever block you wanted to use as default on page/post creation. Say you wanted cover image as the first item in your posts and pages, this would be automatic.

The main point I am making here is that the blocks or text editor choice delineates between two different ways people want to work. And, if working with the text editor (Classic) block only, one can switch back and forth with the Classic interface, where necessary without having to deal with the comment tags delineating blocks.

The next suggestion is a way to de-block the content so that it is put back into one block, the text editor block (Classic). This could be done with a button somewhere in the interface. You can already simulate this by selecting all the blocks, cutting, then pasting into the classic block. The only thing you have to do is manually remove the tag comments to preserve the “everything in one block state”. The stripping of the comment tags could surely be done with a script.

The benefits of this are many.

Where content in blocks needs to be reverted, because working in one block is more practical for a certain use case or, more favoured by a developer or writer taking over post content creation.

The other benefit relates to page structure and layouts. It is obvious that blocks could play an important role here for things like sections/rows/columns or a flex/grid option in future iterations of the Gutenberg project. It is something that solves the big issue with page builders. Using blocks as a basic foundation for page building/layout could come with an API allowing vendors of page builders and themes to add their own bells and whistles and interfaces.

Using Gutenberg as an intro to page building for new an users, once mastered they can opt for something more sophisticated.

The big benefit here is that, by using a common foundation, users will be able to switch themes and page builders in more frictionless manner without leftover shortcodes etc. And, developers can just de-block if they don’t want to deal with these layout structures.

One last suggestion. There should be a more visible way to switch between the Visual Editor and the Code Editor. Naming one Writer and the other Developer would be more clear in relation to what each of these do. I think users are intelligent enough, where they are only into content creation with visual elements, that Developer is an advanced space that they will not want to visit.

The Developer (Code Editor) really needs some sprucing up. Some work in this area was done when code mirror was introduced to WordPress recently. It is evident in the HTML block but needs to work more like a proper IDE much in the vain of CodePen or Codeacademy. It needs a dark mode, better syntax highlighting, better code completion and respect for formatting and indentation.