For the past year, the WordPress core development team has been working on a complete revision of how editing content in WordPress works. Now the results of this work—codenamed Gutenberg—are very close to release in the core version of WordPress.
What is Gutenberg?
Gutenberg is a new editor in WordPress. Instead of one big “content editor” box in your WordPress administration, the editing paradigm is shifting to one of many, much smaller blocks. Content authors will create their sites using these blocks which will give them finer control over the formatting and presentation of content in their WordPress pages and posts.
When Will Gutenberg Show Up on My WordPress Site?
Gutenberg has been available for some time now as a plugin—an extra you can add to your WordPress site. But beginning in the recently-released WordPress 4.9.8, you’ll start to see notes encouraging its download and use.
You’ll still have to install a plugin to use it, and if you’re hosting your site on Pantheon, that means going through Pantheon’s workflow (just let us know if you need some help with that).
Come WordPress 5.0, slated for release later this year, Gutenberg will be integrated into WordPress core and will be the default interface for editing content.
What If I Don’t Want Gutenberg?
Fortunately, the WordPress core team has offered an opt-out solution if you decide that Gutenberg isn’t right for you. Taupecat Studios has already installed the Classic Editor plugin to every site we manage. It’s sitting in your plugins administration screen, deactivated but waiting. Once Gutenberg goes live, you can always switch back to the classic editing window you’re comfortable with by activating that plugin.
How Does Gutenberg Affect Beaver Builder and/or WPBakery Page Builder and/or Advanced Custom Fields?
Some have called Gutenberg a response to the plethora of WordPress page builders available as third-party content editor alternatives. While this isn’t exactly true, it isn’t exactly false, either.
Responsible page builder plugin developers have known about Gutenberg for awhile, and have planned accordingly. Beaver Builder has pledged their commitment to supporting Gutenberg upon its release. Advanced Custom Fields (not exactly a page builder, but often used like one) has also been testing their development against Gutenberg, and promises to be 100% compatible with WordPress 5.0. WPBakery Page Builder also promises a smooth transition to Gutenberg.
Anything Else I Should Know?
Only that change is hard. But don’t worry. We wouldn’t leave you to face a change of this magnitude on your own. As always, let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
And as always, Happy Pressing!