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Scott Bowler
Scott Bowler

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Gutenberg: "The new editor is coming ... continued attempts to make it not be are more than a little pointless"

I got banned from the Wordpress forums (and for a fair reason, I broke the rules by mentioning ClassicPress in response to a review - and I also got a little bit ranty in a review I wrote of Gutenberg, sorry guys :s) and while I was chatting with the Wordpress forum team on their Slack channel about it I got the most definitive statement about Gutenberg that I've had to date:

Gutenberg

"As far as Gutenberg goes, I can explain this very simply: Making it "optional" was never on the table to begin with. This is the new editor. The callout in 4.9.8 was informing users of this fact and showing them the new editor. It was not asking for your opinion on what should be, it was giving you a preview of what will be. The new editor is coming, it will be in 5.0, and so continued attempts to make it not be are more than a little pointless. The Classic Editor plugin exists if you need more time to adjust your workflow or find an alternative to WordPress, and that was mentioned in the callout as well. So my advice would be to best deal with it, because the new editor has been in development for nearly 2 years, and it is coming soon. There's no chance of it not coming soon, nor of it remaining a plugin. You're well too late to be voicing that opinion when the thing is nearly a year overdue. Just my 2 cents."

So there you have it!

Top comments (6)

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nick6352683 profile image
Nick DerAvedissian

Welcome to the era of software communism. Everybody is concerned about workflow, experience, etc... which are important but not the main argument against this disaster.

The main argument against Suckenberg should be the fact that Widgets, Shortcodes, Meta Boxes, and Custom Fields are now considered legacy items, where it will be a matter of time where they stop working, so we can do everything with blocks, BLOCKS !!! How much drugs do these girly communist men do daily???

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cjbrooks12 profile image
Casey Brooks

Unfortunately, it seems like most of the major decisions made to Wordpress Core have been for the purpose of benefiting wordpress.com, not the project itself. Its decisions like this (and just a generally poor development experience compared to other CMSs, imo) that make me hope I never have to go back to Wordpress. It was revolutionary when it first came out, but there are better options now that won't make you fight the tool as much as Wordpress makes you, even if it means fewer out-of-the-box plugins. But great for you, fighting to keep Wordpress as the community wants it, not just as Wordpress.com wants it!

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scottybo profile image
Scott Bowler

Thank you - I couldn't have said it better myself!

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david_j_eddy profile image
David J Eddy

I appreciate the directness of that statement; no soft footed platitudes nor safe place wording. It would be nice if more shops could be so matter-of-fact about how THEIR PRODUCT is going the direction THEY WANT.

The opposite side of the coin is the drive to placate the general user masses, in turn keeping profits up (usage) up.

Can't win them all, right? :S

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scottybo profile image
Scott Bowler

Yep - who knows if I'm fighting the "right" fight here by creating a fork, but at the very least we all need to push back against the current state of Gutenberg.