Happy New Year! We might only be a few weeks into 2019, but change is in full swing. The WordPress community has had an extremely busy couple of weeks with the introduction of WordPress 5.0, also known as Gutenberg, and all of the changes that have come with it.
Don’t have a clue about what I am talking about? Gutenberg is a sweeping change to the ever-familiar WordPress environment. Although change can be stressful, Gutenberg brings you – the user – more power than ever!
What exactly is Gutenberg? How will it impact me? What can I expect in the coming weeks? These are all fabulous questions. Let’s dive in.
Welcome to Gutenberg
WordPress’s standard page builder – the tool used to build and edit the pages of your site – has long been a “What you see is what you get” or “WYSIWYG” editor. This tool was great for being able to add text and some basic images while quickly seeing how it would display on a page.
As media and technology have evolved, it has become increasingly harder to add more advanced image galleries, buttons, and displays with the standard editor without having to deal with HTML, shortcodes, or potentially very confusing plugins leaving some users incredibly frustrated. With Gutenberg that all changes.
Welcome to Blocks
Gutenberg ditches the “WYSIWYG” editor and instead uses a drag and drop builder comprised of blocks. Blocks will allow you to quickly add text, image galleries, forms, columns, and a whole lot more without having to touch a single line of code. It is as easy as selecting the block that you want to add, dragging and dropping the block where you want it, and adding the content that you want to display. Blocks update after any change is made so you can see an accurate representation of how your content will look as you add it.
Blocks can also be organized into various column structures and layouts to achieve unique displays for your content. For those that want more advanced controls like CSS classes and specificity over font sizes and colors for individual blocks, you also have that control in easy to use sliders and color selectors.
The best part is that all of the settings that you are familiar with in WordPress are still around in Gutenberg. They have just gotten a little bit of a facelift. Gutenberg removes the clutter of the builder to allow you, the creator, to focus on the content you are curating, but when you need the tools to craft your content, they are at your fingertips.
How does Gutenberg impact me?
Gutenberg will impact all WordPress users. It will directly and indirectly impact future services and add-on features to Gutenberg, third-party page builders, and more. Gutenberg is not just a change to the builder itself, but the beginnings of a larger overhaul to WordPress as a service.
Staying up-to-date with the latest news and changes coming to the platform is like getting the oil changed on your car. It’s not the most exciting, it can be time-consuming once in a while, but it is invaluable if you want a secure, reliable, and feature-rich website to display your content.
Gutenberg will take some time to get used to, but it’s long-term investment for the end-user that will be invaluable. We highly recommend that you take some time to get familiar with some of the changes and familiarize yourself with some of the new blocks. There is a plethora of great resources to get started.
As a Worship Times member, we have you covered. Don’t worry about updating, or changing settings, or anything. We are working behind the scenes to test all of the changes that come with Gutenberg to get its power into your hands as soon as possible.
Our first priority is to make you aware of the changes that you will soon be seeing when editing and updating your website. Over the next few weeks we will continue to conduct testing and prepare videos covering all of the changes in Gutenberg which we will share with you in our members’ Learning Center.
As we slowly update to Gutenberg you should not notice any major issues or modifications to the way your site looks or functions. We will continue to provide updates to you as we begin the transition to Gutenberg. If you notice any issues with the performance of your site, please contact our support team as we want to rectify any potential issues as soon as possible.
If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please feel free to contact our team as well. We would love to hear from you.
We are in this together.
Looking for a fresh, modern website without the hassle and time-consuming process of getting it up and running? Let us help!
