My First Post in Gutenberg

For those of you not familiar with WordPress, you probably don’t understand the title of this post. In late 2018, WordPress switched from its traditional (Classic Editor) interface to a new block-based interface that they named “Gutenberg.” But website owners and bloggers who didn’t want to make the switch could opt to retain the Classic Editor. I listened to some presentations on Gutenberg, and decided I didn’t want to make the change right away, so I stayed with the Classic Editor. I figured I’d have to update at some point, but I wanted to be sure Gutenberg was stable and that I knew what I was doing before I switched.

This past weekend, I listened to a webinar presented by Jane Friedman on Gutenberg. I saw her speak at a writing conference several years ago, and I’ve followed her online ever since. She is knowledgeable about the publishing industry, including independent publishing, and technically very savvy. I trust what she has to say, and she usually says it well.

This weekend’s presentation was on the differences between Classic Editor and Gutenberg and her experience on updating to Gutenberg. I thought I understood the philosophy behind the reasons for the WordPress changes, and I’ve seen enough other discussions of Gutenberg that I don’t feel intimidated by its very different interface and mode of post and page construction, though I’m sure there is a steep learning curve. But I was intrigued by Ms. Friedman’s discussion of the complexities of making the upgrade.

Like my website, her primary website is built with SiteOrigin’s Vantage theme and PageBuilder widgets. SiteOrigin’s PageBuilder was designed to permit the flexibility in site design that Gutenberg now provides. Basically, Page Builder and similar page construction tools offered by other website developers are an overlay to WordPress. But they are a hindrance for sites that want to make the switch from Classic Editor to Gutenberg.

Ms. Friedman demonstrated how to switch from Classic to Gutenberg. If a site is built on a Gutenberg-friendly theme, it’s pretty easy. But not so easy with Page Builder in the middle—those sections of the website turn to code gobbledygook. At least, I didn’t understand the long HTML strings she showed on her screen.

Most of my site uses very little of the PageBuilder interface. I’m hoping to start switching over to Gutenberg bit by bit. But some of my pages and posts do use it, and I may leave those in Classic Editor mode, or I may find I have to change them in order to ever update my theme. Or WordPress might at some point stop supporting the Classic Editor and force the change.

It is possible to switch posts and pages from Classic Editor to Gutenberg one at a time, though at this time there is no way to convert all posts at once. However, I have about 850 posts—so post by post conversion is not an attractive option. My conversion is likely to be slow.

As a point of reference for bloggers who use WordPress.com (where WordPress hosts the site, instead of the author owning it, which is how many bloggers begin), WordPress.com has just started activating Gutenberg for everyone. While users of WordPress.com don’t have the same options as self-hosted sites to select tools like PageBuilder, they will be faced with learning Gutenberg.

One recommendation that Ms. Friedman made was that bloggers begin posting future posts in Gutenberg. And so . . . this is my first post uploaded in Gutenberg. I have followed my past practice of drafting the post in Scrivener, then copying and pasting into my WordPress site.

(Confession after I wrote this post: I actually uploaded it in Classic Editor, then had to figure out how to enable Gutenberg on my site. Then edit it in Gutenberg. But now it is in Gutenberg. In editing the post, I’ve already discovered a few things I like—for example, inserting images on the fly is easier.)

Let me know if you notice any differences in this post from prior posts. (As a reader, you shouldn’t.)