The new Gutenberg editor?

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Got a question for my fellow bloggers.

Has anyone with a WordPress.com blog tried the new Gutenberg editor yet?  I haven’t, but I haven’t heard good things about it.    I really don’t want to try it either.   But I know in time, it will become the new “standard” editor.

I really dislike the way WordPress rolls new things out without asking us users what we think first.   I feel like they don’t care about what we want — kind of like the GOP.

If you have used it, please tell me in the comments what you think of it.   I’m just curious about its advantages/disadvantages, whether it’s easier or harder, or if it’s a dumbed down editor that makes things “easier” while giving you fewer choices  (a complaint I heard from one blogger).

22 thoughts on “The new Gutenberg editor?”

  1. I find it very difficult and complicated to do what used to be so simple. How does one choose an image from the library and insert it into the text? I had to go to the html editor to do this. To get to the html editor was a process in itself. One would think they would tell us how to use this turkey. Please give us the old interface back.

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  3. Here’s the demo: https://frontenberg.tomjn.com/

    Over on .org, there are lovers and haters of Gutenberg. A lot of people say it’s not ready yet. Accessibility doesn’t work right; some people have lost posts. We have a plugin that blocks the Gutenberg editor until we’re ready. I don’t know if I will be, though–I understand the way the site works now, widgets and shortcodes and such, and the editor is like a word processor. I don’t want to learn some new way of doing things now.

    Apparently Gutenberg is supposed to be competing with page builders. But WordPress already has popular plugins that do that. I checked out Gutenberg and Elementor; it looked neat, except that I’m not building eye-popping pages with lots of images here and there; I’m primarily posting text. So page builders are too much flash for my needs. The Classic Editor is fine for me.

    I also don’t get the whole “blocks” concept. That’s not how typewriters or word processors or pieces of paper work, and that’s what writer brains are used to. One commenter noted that Gutenberg is built to suit the brain of a developer, not a writer.

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        • Who knows. I was just thinking about the part of the comment where the editor is made for designers. Maybe they want to attract designers. And creating another editor that we writers struggle with, will chase some of us, anyway, away. If we’re forced to use that editor, I will probably go elsewhere myself.

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          • I won’t go elsewhere because I have 4 years worth of posts on here and I’m terrified of transferring all my work from one content aggregator to another and possibly losing it all. (I know that’s not the actual technical term, but you know what I mean).

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            • Yeah, I don’t blame you. It’s a matter of adapting in that case. I won’t move Sleeping Tiger either. But I would probably move elsewhere to blog on another topic I think. Idk. I don’t want to because I like the format of WP, the way it is right now. I know how to use Blogger too, but I don’t really like the look of it.

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            • Blogger lets you use Javascript, which is nice, because you can use Statcounter and Google Analytics. But it also looks old-fashioned now. I tried going back to Blogger when I got frustrated with self-hosted a couple of years ago, but my database wouldn’t transfer, and the whole thing looked awful. 😛

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            • Another reason I hate Blogger is because it’s connected to Google, so when I tried to set up this blog there (yes, I tried Blogger first) it forced me to use the name I use on Google, which at the time was my real name. Similarly, if you try to comment, it defaults to your Google name, and won’t let you use a different username. The only other option you have is to use “Anonymous” for all replies. So annoying. I liked the fact that here, I could use a completely different username that I could also use for comments.

              I also don’t like the look of Blogger, and there don’t seem to be that many themes, and the ones they do have aren’t that impressive looking. WP looks more professional, IMO. And also gives you the “share” button option. Blogger doesn’t have share buttons.

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            • Oh, you should see the arguments in the comment sections the past several months on wptavern.com. So much about Gutenberg just isn’t ready yet. Now they’re arguing because accessibility doesn’t work.

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  4. I googled this after reading your post because I hadn’t even heard of it. It doesn’t look like something I want to use. The info I found though was about a year old I think. Hopefully we will still have the option to use the old standard.

    One commenter on an article I found explaining Gutenberg in detail said it was the same idea that is used on Wix, which he’d tried and found to be an absolute mess. I remember a long time ago, trying one of those free website platforms and trying to build something with the ‘blocks’ and just gave up because it was too clunky and frustrating. I need simple.

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  6. I don’t like it. It all about content blocks. I choose classic editor and html over this wix sh$& for many reasons- but try for yourself. What I’m most upset about is how WordPress removed the email preview feature about 8 months ago. I had a lot of dialogue with a support person about how useful it was. The response was to use google docs to edit, which is not like editing a webpage! Apparently email draft feature was cut to make way for Gutenberg. Grrr. We should def make our voices heard and maybe they will keep classic editor and bring back the email draft feature.

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  7. For now, .org has a Classic Editor plugin, but it’s put out by WordPress, so nobody really knows how long it’ll last. (Will it eventually disappear as our editor, widgets and shortcodes are all absorbed into the Collective?) But there’s another plugin called Disable Gutenberg, by a guy who recognizes that a lot of people hate Gutenberg. Hopefully that one will stick around indefinitely so I can keep my happy little editor.

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