The WordPress Gutenberg Developer Series: Part 1 – Guten, what?

Introduction

This blog post series we will deep dive into the new WordPress Editor, Gutenberg. This first post in the series will explore what the fuss is all about and what can be achieved. Later in the series we will look at how we can extend the default functionality and really give your website editors the best content editing experience.

Introduced in WordPress 5.0 The Gutenberg WordPress editor also known as the WordPress block editor is Automatic’s latest big feature added to WordPress. Gutenberg is a page builder that has evolved WordPress as a blogging platform by adding content blocks and new rich content editing experience for it’s users.

Previously WordPress was using the Classic Editor that was a TinyMCE (WYSIWYG) for all posts, pages, custom post type content etc. Now that Gutenberg has been introduced to the scene, everything has become “blocks” instead of the single content editor (WYSIWYG).

What kind of content can be added to Gutenberg?

New WordPress blocks include everything from paragraphs, headings, lists, images, galleries, embeds and much more. With every new release of WordPress, Gutenberg is seeing more and more blocks being added giving more power and freedom to content editors.

Blocks treat Paragraphs, Headings, Media, and Embeds all as components that, when strung together, make up the content stored in the WordPress database, replacing the traditional concept of freeform text with embedded media and shortcodes.

​​Say hello to the Old vs the New

WordPress Classic Editor

Gutenberg Block Editor

Legend:

1. Block Inserter
2. Block editor content area
3. Settings Sidebar

“Gutenberg is an important step forward for WordPress. Gutenberg enables WordPress to build content layouts, not just write articles. It is one of the many transitions happening in WordPress toward a more simplified user experience.”

– Zack Katz, speaking at WordCamp Denver 2017

The current state of Gutenberg

WordPress is slowly moving away from being just a blogging platform. The push towards giving the platform a full website editing experience is becoming more apparent. Could this be because of the vast amount of community plugins that have been doing this type of page builder experience already?

At Saigon Digital we are enjoying using Advanced Custom Fields in conjunction with Gutenberg, it now allows us the flexibility to create Gutenberg Blocks effectively and develop a great content editing experience for our clients websites. We will discuss this more in detail in the future blog post of this series.

The Future of WordPress and Gutenberg

Gutenberg is a codename for a whole new paradigm in WordPress site building and publishing, that aims to revolutionise the entire publishing experience as much as Gutenberg did the printed word. The project is right now in the second phase of a four-phase process that will touch every piece of WordPress — Editing, Customisation (which includes Full Site Editing, Block Patterns, Block Directory and Block based themes), Collaboration, and Multilingual — and is focused on a new editing experience, the block editor.

The developers at Saigon Digital are looking forward to seeing to seeing what is in the pipeline for Gutenberg and what the future holds for our content editing experience.