With the release of Version 5.0 of WordPress expected to take place at some point this year, the WordPress team has revealed its new Editor functionality – Gutenberg.
Gutenberg is the codename WordPress has given to its brand-new post and page editing experience.
The aim is to make ‘writing rich posts effortless’. To achieve this, Gutenberg uses blocks that will help simplify processes and be used instead of shortcodes, custom HTML or ‘mystery meat’ embed discovery.
A New Way of Creating Content
WordPress has traditionally offered a ‘blank canvas’ for users when it comes to creating and adding text to a webpage.
But the blocks within Gutenberg now make it easy for users to add, move and style multimedia content with minimal technical expertise.
That means more visually-appealing, exciting, dynamic pages can be created that utilise different formats, including images, videos and audio to mention just a few. Rather than being distracted by coding, Gutenberg has been developed to allow users to focus on what they want to deliver – great content.
There will also be a chance for users to create their own blocks to add to sites.
Gutenberg has been developed on GitHub under the banner of the WordPress organisation. The new content experience has been created using WordPress REST API, JavaScript and React.
Gutenberg is now available as a plugin and will be included in WordPress 5.0 once the full version is released.
And, if you prefer the old classic editor, fear not. That will be available as a plugin.
What about WordPress 5.0?
Gutenberg is certain to be a default in WordPress 5.0 – the latest update to WordPress that is currently in the works.
According to official WordPress correspondence, the official date of WordPress 5.0 is coming but has not yet been finalised. It was initially thought that the release would come in 2018, but with the year starting to wind down, that might become 2019.
You can keep an eye on what’s going on with WordPress 5.0 and what progress is being made here.
Williams Commerce has worked with a number of clients to create websites built on WordPress. Take a look through our work and contact us if you’d like to discuss a project of your own.