Gutenberg is the biggest change to the WordPress environment in years. Just as Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized printing with the introduction of movable type, Gutenberg on WordPress will revolutionize how people create websites. It starts with a brand-new editor, but that’s just the beginning. It’s a new way of managing content.
Gutenberg Changes
The editing pane is cleaner than before, with many features transitioned to the sidebar or the bottom of the page. But it’s what lies under that really changes everything. In old WordPress, a page or post is one chunk of material. It can contain headers, text, and media, but as far as WordPress is concerned, it doesn’t have any deeper structure. The Gutenberg approach breaks content down into easily managed pieces. Building a page becomes a far simpler job.
Blocks change everything
Under Gutenberg, a page or post is made out of blocks. A block is a chunk of text, a table, an image, a widget, or some other basic element. Each one can be edited separately, and it isn’t limited to being used in just one place. Shared blocks can be pulled into multiple pages. Creating a page becomes a matter of pulling together as many pieces as needed. You can change the type of a block, or you can go into its properties to control its appearance.
Working at the block level opens up a huge number of possibilities. An editor can define a page template as a series of block types. This helps to guarantee that pages which are supposed to follow a certain pattern really follow it.
You get more control
Blocks give content authors greater control over the appearance of their material. Right now, if your site’s theme presents elements in a way you don’t like, it’s a struggle to change it. You might have to hire a web developer to make it look the way you want, and the developer will have to tweak it again every time you need a change. With Gutenberg, you can define a custom block with its own styles, which will look the way you want every time you include it.
Gutenberg and its block structure will affect everything about WordPress. Existing themes and plugins will still work for the most part, but you’ll soon see updated versions that will take full advantage of the new system.
Would you like to see Gutenberg in action? You can try it out online before upgrading to it.
The coming of Gutenberg means it’s a great time to do a website refresh. Bringing your site up to date will improve its search rank, make it more pleasant to use, and bring in more business.
