Pivotal owner and lead developer, Phil, shares his views on Gutenberg, the latest WordPress plugin
I’m sure all fellow WordPress lovers will have heard the news about the impending integration of the Gutenberg plugin to the future release of WordPress Version 5.
Gutenberg is a page builder that allows users to manage their WordPress websites with extra formatting capabilities without any knowledge of HTML or CSS coding.
WordPress users will have already started to see on their Dashboards:
“A new, modern publishing experience is coming soon. Take your words, media, and layout in new directions with Gutenberg, the WordPress editor we’re currently building.”
However, looking at WordPress users’ reviews, Gutenberg is showing a poor average rating of only 2.3/5 (as at 20/08/2018).
With few ratings in the middle, it appears people either like it or loathe it (with an air towards loathing), but I can’t understand why.
I’ve been testing and playing with the Gutenberg plugin for several months now. It seems like a perfectly reasonable and organised page builder to me, that will no doubt be further and further developed to everyone’s advantage.
As a WordPress trainer, personally, I’ve never been a lover of Page Builders. Some of them are so complex you may as well book yourself onto an HTML course. I would always prefer to use HTML and CSS, but I recognise that not everyone wants to have that level of knowledge or may simply want to design a page or post layout that helps make it more readable and engaging.
Enter Gutenberg…
A simple-to-use but comprehensive page builder that can replace many a plugin for adding content and creating a nicely laid out page.
Plus there are some really nice options allowing users to easily have 2 or more columns of text in a row. This is not easy for a layman in current WordPress. Gutenberg also allows you to easily embed items from YouTube, Instagram, etc.
And then there is still the option to revert to Classic Editor for people like me, and to view revisions. So, what’s the beef?
My simple view is that we should embrace the changes. They are for the better, and I’ve no doubt that WordPress’ team will just make it even more so, as they always do.
Thank you WordPress and congratulations!
