If you are actively plugged in to the WordPress community, I am pretty sure that you have heard the name “Gutenberg” a lot recently in various WordPress related websites, forums or blogs. A lot of discussions have been happening on both the positives and negatives of Gutenberg. If you haven’t heard about Gutenberg or want to know more about Gutenberg, this article will explain it to you in detail.
What is Gutenberg?
Gutenberg is the codename for the latest publishing tool that will be included in the upcoming WordPress 5.0 release. It helps users to create pages and layouts visually just like any other page builder available on the WordPress platform. The goal of Gutenberg is to create a new post and page editing experience that makes it easy for anyone to create rich post layouts. Gutenberg will also serve as a replacement for the WordPress WYSIWYG editor. Currently, Gutenberg is available as a WordPress plugin but will soon be integrated into the WordPress core.
Gutenberg uses a block system to build out page content or page layouts. These plug and play building blocks can be as basic as text, headings, lists, images, videos, etc. or even have advanced layout blocks to define rows, columns and cover images. You can even save your own custom blocks that can be reused at a later time. In the future, developers will also be able to create custom blocks for Gutenberg.
In the coming times, Gutenberg’s main focus will shift from just being a page/post editor to a robust website creation tool itself. With such a transition, it will bring a standardized page building approach into the WordPress core. Here is a short introduction on how to begin writing your own custom Gutenberg block.
How to Use Gutenberg?
As Gutenberg is still being tested and not integrated into the WordPress core, you can download it as a plugin from the WordPress Plugins repository. Once you install the plugin to your WordPress website/blog, you can just go to any page or a post and you will see “Gutenberg” as an editing option for the same (see below image).
When you are on the Gutenberg editor screen, if you click the “plus” icon on the top left, you can choose from the Common Blocks that include Paragraph, Image, Heading, Gallery, List, Quote, Audio, Cover Image, Subhead and Video. Then there are also Layout Elements that include Buttons, Columns, Text Columns, Separator & More. Once you build a block and are happy with it, you can even save it by converting it into a shared block that can be used again in another page or post.
Gutenberg Project on GitHub
The Future of Gutenberg
Gutenberg has been planned to be released in three phases. The first phase is the integration into the WordPress 5.0 core and focusing on the implementation of blocks. The blocks system allows you to focus on how your content will look without the distraction of other options. This will ultimately help WordPress users to present their content in a way that is direct and engaging.
The first phase will pave the way for the steps two and three, planned for the next year, to go beyond the editor functionality into full website customization.
Please leave your comments below and let us know how much you love or hate Gutenberg!
