While I still don’t completely know what I’m doing yet, I decided to take the chance and learn something new today! I’m using the new WP editor known as Gutenberg!
For those of you who don’t blog let me give you some background. WordPress (WP) is the backbone of my blog. I have a theme (Divi) that makes it look pretty, but the skeletal structure that supports the theme is WordPress. For years, the WP editor has been laid out in the same fashion. I would write my blog post into in the same manner that I would use a document program like Word. Just type, use the additional buttons to highlight text or change the font, etc.
The change over to the new editor came while Chris and I were in the middle of packing for our big move. I didn’t even allow WordPress to update to it. I knew I wanted to wait a few weeks while most of the major kinks were worked out. And I knew I just didn’t have the patience or time at that moment to get to understand the new editor.
Then the move happened. Job hunting. New jobs. New apartment. No time to think or plan. So I updated to Gutenberg and then immediately added a plugin that allowed me to use the Classic Editor. That meant I had until the end of 2020 to start using the new editor.
And then in March, I read some posts about Gutenberg by Hugh from Hugh’s Views and News. He has a lot of different posts about how to use the new editor that I find very interesting.
Hugh had been using it since the
But two weeks ago, I started having problems with my links. A lot of my links were starting to fail and I was told that one of my plugins might be causing the problem. The suggestion was to deactivate all of them and start adding them back in slowly to see what might be the problem. I did that one other time and it took me so long to get back to where I was that I decided not to go that route if I didn’t have to.
Instead, I decided that a last in first out method (LIFO) would be the easier way to go. And the last plugin that I added was the Classic Editor one. So out it went. Now I’m not really sure if that was the problem or not, but right now my links appear to be working again.
In the new Gutenberg editor, my paragraphs are now in blocks. Blocks that can be moved up and down with a simple arrow on the side of it. So much easier than the classic editor (as the original format is now called.) In classic mode, you have to cut and paste to move a paragraph. While that is easy, it’s just simply not as easy as moving an arrow.
I also like the bigger area in which to type. Previously, it was filled with a triple-level toolbar. Now the toolbars are fly-outs, I don’t see them if I don’t need them. Which in turn, frees up space to see more of my post while I’m typing.
There are a couple of things that I haven’t figured out yet, so my posts won’t look exactly like they used to. The biggest thing for me is that I’ve always changed the color of my links to make them stand out on the page. But while I can see how to change the font color of an entire paragraph, I still haven’t figured out how to do it for just a sentence. It’s a work in progress.
Just one of many new things to learn with this new editor. But learning new things keeps me on my toes. What new things have you learned this week?
In other news this week, I’ve been nominated for a Bloggers Bash Award for the second year in a row. I’m nominated in the Lifestyle blogger category and voting is now open you can vote for me and a lot of other wonderful bloggers at the Bloggers Bash Award Voting.
I’m generally a really late adopter of new tech or design software, etc. But, I jumped on the Gutenberg bandwagon early, figuring it was going to happen sooner or later–and I really like it. Still not sure I know how to do everything, but it’s nice and clean. Was kinda proud of myself, actually, because I’m a little bit of a Luddite. Well done, and welcome!
Hi Jennifer, thanks so much for linking to my post about the new Gutenberg Editor. I’m delighted to hear that you are giving it a try and that you’re beginning to like using it. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I’d never go back to the Classic editor. I’m still leaning lots about Gutenberg, much of which I will be sharing on my blog over the coming year.
Good luck with using it and for actually giving it a go. Too many bloggers have given it a bad press without so much as giving it at least 10-minutes of their time. It’s such a shame, especially given that support for the classic editor will cease at the beginning of 2021. Expect lots of panic around that time.
Thanks, Hugh. I do like to wait until some of the kinks are worked out in a huge role out like that. I’m glad some linking problems caused me to make the move. Maybe I’ll send you a question for the blog because there are some things I haven’t figured out yet and maybe others will want to know the answers too!
I’m still finding the odd bug on it, but the WordPress engineers are great in tackling them when I report any bugs I’ve found. Fire away with any questions.
I’m just about to share a link to your post on my blog, so you may get one or two people checking it out and leaving you some more comments.
Thanks for linking back to me. I just posted a question on your blog about changing link colors.
I’ll get back to you, Jennifer.
oooh Jennifer! You’ve hit on a biggie with this as far as I’m concerned! I don’t do a huge amount on my original blog but I blog fairly regularly on my newer craft website. Both are WP self-hosted and for a long time I have used the Site Origin Page Builder plugin to design my posts. I absolutely love it and it was the answer to all my prayers as I found the WP editor very limited.
So I haven’t really taken any notice of this Gutenberg thingy because Page Builder is block based anyway and very easy to use. Everything was fine until I was creating a post on my craft blog last week in my usual way when WP starting acting really strange.
I don’t really know what happened but in the end I had to shut it down and log back in. And when I did, it appeared that the post I had been working on had opened up in Gutenberg and I could see no way of getting into my usual Site Origin Page Builder from there. I tried everything but could not get this post back up in Page Builder so in desperation, I started a new post and it came up in the usual WP editor which is where I can hit the tab for Page Builder.
There is no such tab in Gutenberg – it’s as if we will be using that or nothing by the time they phase out the WP editor in 2021.
So I rewrote the post in Page Builder and all was fine. BUT I am really concerned that it seems as if Site Origin Page Builder isn’t going to work in Gutenberg. And I have no idea why the post I was writing crashed and then came up in Gutenberg when I logged back in.
It almost feels like Gutenberg is a clunkier, clumsier version of Page Builder. Page Builder is SO easy to use and you can really refine your post design so easily.
Since that experience, I’m feeling kind of nervous every time I log into WP!?
I’m wondering about all the other plugins I use and how I will be able to do all the things they allow me to do once we have to use Gutenberg.
Do you know anything about that?
Thanks for this by the way, it feels good to know people are testing the water.
I’ve not heard of Site Origin Page Builder before so I’m not sure how it should work at all. So far, I haven’t seen any wonky in my plugins. But I also waited until I saw that most of them had updated themselves before I switched to Gutenberg. I didn’t want to be in the new editor and find out that none of my plugins were updated for it.
Hi, Jennifer – I stopped by from Hugh’s. I’m glad to hear that you have given the new editor a try, and that it is working for you. This post looks great!
Jennifer, I’m not on-board with it yet. But I know I’ll need to try it. I’ve seen some stuff I don’t like from others using it – pictures covering up words, weird layouts. Thanks for sharing it’s not so bad. Maybe soon….
So am I. In the beginning it drove me nuts, now I am quite partial to it. Like all new things, it just takes a bit of time to get used to…
You are so right, Margaretha. I’m glad you stopped by.
I love it when fellow bloggers inspire you to try something new. Well done! I read Hugh’s post as well and decided to follow his advice to check out your experience with Gutenberg.
I have not made the switch yet. I haven’t even updated to version 5 of WordPress, because – like you – I wanted to wait until most bugs were taken care of and I wasn’t in the position to have a major drama on my hands. Are we ever? Anyway, like you again, I’m currently in a “stable environment” and will make the switch soon. Thanks for your insights.
I hope you do make the switch. It was much easier than I thought. I allotted myself a whole weekend to create one post in Gutenberg. Turned out I only needed a couple of hours. I did go back and forth between Hugh’s post and some WP explanations a couple of times. I found Hughe’s post to be easier to understand and it helped a great deal in going through it.
Hi, Jennifer;
I haven’t figured the colour thing out yet, either. I want to colour one word and the whole paragraph changes!
Sounds like a problem for Hugh 🙂
I agree. I think I’m going to pose that question to Hugh!
I’ve totally stuck my head in the sand and am completely ignoring it haha!
Take your head out of the sand. It wasn’t as bad as I thought…she says for right now! 😉
A great post, I too was inspired by Hughs post on the new editor and shifted two weeks back or whenever Hugh wrote that piece.
Are you self hosted? I am not . I found your explanation of your efforts to relink intetesting . I am a bit of a novice to blogging and i didnt do any of the pluggin stuff you speak of.
As for the block editor as non self hosted blogger it quite fun, you can do colums, tables, colour blocks, drop letters. Not having to copy paste is great. But hitting return and being told to create a new blick is a pain. But it is quite okay to use. But i am still learning.
I am self-hosted, so plugins, while helpful, can sometimes be problems. Thanks for stopping by!
Explains it. Thanks for clarifying
I’m on Blogger and I must say that I enjoy the fact that it’s not as complicated as WP (and it’s free!) But, I did move my subscriber list over to Mailchimp this week and that was a huge leap for me – big learning process. It was actually less complicated than I’d allowed myself to believe once I found what I needed to do and figured out how to do it. Still, new tools are always a challenge – glad you bit the bullet and tackled your new editor succussfully.
Thanks for linking up with us at MLSTL and I’ve shared on my SM 🙂
Oh my gosh! Power to ya, girl! I tried it, briefly, and hated it! haha Surely, I didn’t give it enough to time to try it and play around and stuff but it totally blew my mind! I would love to read more about your experience with it. As a WordPress Web Designer, some of my clients who transferred over from WordPress.com are like “What the heck is this?” haha Change can be good, right? Thanks for sharing this! #MLSTL
Change can be good. I challenged myself to create the blog post only in Gutenberg. It took a couple of days. I walked away a couple of times. But each time I would reread Hugh’s post and also search for the problems that I was having. In the end, it made sense.
Hi Jennifer, I’ve also been ignoring it. But I didn’t know until reading your post the the classic editor had a deadline, so I guess I’m going to have to take the plunge sooner than I thought. I’ll also do what you did and wait for when I have some free time to devote to the learning curve. It won’t be soon, but I’ll try and get it changed by the end of the year. Thanks for the little ‘push’. Visiting from MLSTL and pinned. 🙂
Don’t wait too long. I think we all build things up in our head about how hard somethings going to be to learn. And then once we try them, it’s better than we thought and we kick ourselves for not going there sooner!
I’m glad you gave the new editor a try and succeeded. Congrats, Jennifer, on your Bloggers Bash award nomination! #MLSTL
Hi Jennifer, I resisted Gutenberg at first and then though ‘why not?’. Change can be challenging but I’ve persisted and now feel quite comfortable using the new editor. I do sometimes fall back to Classic Editor but this isn’t very often now. Thanks for sharing at #MLSTL and another challenge you have accepted and overcome. Go Gutenberg LOL:)
As they say in Star Trek, “Resistance is futile.” Gutenberg isn’t going away, so I might as well jump on it sooner rather than later. I figured that if I had a hard time this time, I could revert back to the Classic Editor and then just keep dipping my toes in here and there. The worst would be waiting until they shut down the classic editor and then scrambling to learn it in less than a month.
I could not ‘get it’ and gave up…not really when it was first thrust upon me. I have a wordpress blog but not hosted there. My lovely techie guy who set my blog up ages ago, installed Classic Editor and that is the best for me. I hate to think, like so many big companies, we will need to update when it is NOT suitable for some of us. Guess by then I will make up my mind whether to keep blogging or not after 10 years.
Thanks for your helpful post.
Denyse #mlstl
I think you should keep trying to get to know it. Although I gave myself a week to complete one post, in all it only took a couple of hours. I had to reference Hugh’s blog post a couple of times as well as this lovely site: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-use-the-new-wordpress-block-editor/
Thanks for sharing your experience, Jennifer. I have played around with Gutenberg some, but haven’t made the switch. I have an older theme that doesn’t allow all of the Gutenberg features. I am thinking about updating my theme. At that point, I will make the switch. I did clone my site and take a tutorial to learn what Gutenberg can do. I’m nervous about the learning curve, but excited to be able to use some of the new features.
I struggled with it too initially, but now I rather like it.
Good luck with the Bloggers Bash award!
I haven’t ventured there yet. Must admit I do my drafting in a word document (I do a lot of editing as I go) and then paste into WordPress when I’m reading to post. I’m planning on updating at some stage in the future, but it’s a little daunting.
The interesting thing about Gutenberg is the blocks. Each paragraph is its own block and then you can move each block up or down. No more cutting and pasting to move paragraphs, like you have to do in Word or in the Classic WP editor.
I have my site set to use the Classic Editor for all my old pages and posts but I can switch to the block editor for new pages. I still haven’t done it yet even though I’m pretty techie. Good that you’re trying it out.
Hi Jennifer,
I didn’t notice that much difference with the Gutenberg editor on the blog I have on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website. Then, I don’t get to put any plugins or anything on it. blog.seattlepi dot com/boomerconsumer/
Rita
Ooh Jennifer, seems like you’ve hit a raw nerve here! I was an early adopter of Gutenburg and thought, “What can all the fuss be about!” That was until the little bugs and issues started cropping up. I think now, after several months, things are gradually sorting themselves out, but there are still some things I prefer about the classic system. I hope in time Gutenburg will be a seamless monster! #MLSTL and Shared on SM