Slows down my writing severely

  • Karl Andersson

    (@swekarl)


    5 years, 3 months ago

    First of all, I understand why WP and Matt have developed and pushed Gutenberg. It is to keep up with competition and be able to attract “normal people”. It also reflects the development of the web in general, being less text heavy and more focused on visual content. I saw Matt’s long talk on Gutenberg (in 2017?) and I was excited to start using it.

    Having said that, I was disappointed. I run a traditional “blog” (remember those?) where I use lots of headlines, subheadlines, lists and quotes. Whereas I previously only continued typing and then formatted certain lines in certain ways, while just having the cursor/text thing in that line, I must now add a new block for every such small formatting! The result is that it takes me at least the double time to write a post. What’s more, it takes away the joy of it. Focus goes to fiddling around with the mouse to add blocks, whereas I previously only used the keyboard and could focus purely on my creativity.

    I always felt supported by WP in the past. All new features were explicitly launched to help users focus on the content, not the technology around it. Distraction-free editing, etc. I like that attitude, but with Gutenberg I feel that you have made the writing complicated again, instead of joyful.

    I will continue using Gutenberg since I really want to like it. But I need to tell you that I’m suffering, for the above reasons.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • buddee

    (@buddee)

    5 years, 3 months ago

    In the default (Gutenberg) editor in version 5.0.2 (I don’t know if it’s exactly the same as this plugin) it’s IMO easy to change the block type, for instance from a paragraph to a (sub) headline. What I did: Enter Title, hit enter, type some words (in a paragraph), hit enter, type some more words (in another paragraph). Cursor is in that paragraph. Now just hit the button “change block type” (sixth from left, seprated with divider left and right) and select new block type. OK, if you want to use H3 or H4 for the sub headline, you have to hit another button, but it’s very close. At least you don’t have to add new blocks (in advance) that.

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by buddee.
    Thread Starter Karl Andersson

    (@swekarl)

    5 years, 3 months ago

    Thank you for taking the time to reply and for your tip. You are right, it is indeed possible to “just write” and then format. I guess I just wanted to use it “the way it was intended” to really give the new editor a chance.

    However, the way this is done is not smooth. Selecting text happens differently from in other apps. I suppose this is because the editor doesn’t use my OS’ (Macos) native select feature, but has invented its own, JavaScript-based way of selecting text. Nothing wrong with that per se, but since it works differently, it is a constant source of small nags. It’s like inventing the wheel anew but with a different technique. I just don’t see the point. For example, I was irritated that my OS’ standard command for “select all” only selected the content within the block I was in. That way I couldn’t easily copy an entire blog post to use as a template for the new one. But then I realised that by pressing command-A twice it actually selects all blocks and lets me copy them. A JavaScript feature. Like I said, it’s not stupid per se, but different from all standard practices across OS’s and platforms.

    Another thing that nags me, for example when changing block type as discussed here, is that the formatting bar above each block hides the last line of the previous block. It irritates me every single time I edit, that I can’t see the full text I’ve written without moving the cursor/marker away from the block I’m editing. Again, this is the opposite to the “distraction-free writing” that WP used to promote.

    An aspect outside the editing is that the preview takes ages and stops loading if I switch to another tab while it’s loading, which I always used to do even in the old WP since it’s so boring to look at loading webpages.

    I still think Gutenberg is probably a good idea, and I do feel excited about blocks with more specialised features. I seriously considered, before writing this reply, giving an extra star, but at this stage I can’t.

    It should also be mentioned that TinyMCE was not perfect, especially in the way it messed up the content when switching between visual and text. But at least it was pretty intuitive and distraction-free.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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