Could be worse, could be better

  • Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working in the Squarespace editor for a small client website. Since it seems somewhat obvious WP is building Gutenberg as a response to their editor, I’ve been comparing the two.

    My observations:

    Blocks > shortcodes. They’ve served WP well up to this point, but the idea of building all of that into a block that can be pointed-and-clicked its way into content is amazing. I expect good things moving forward here.

    The editor bar in the text/paragraph boxes needs more options. I’d love to be able to highlight text and turn it into a block, rather than go through the process of converting the block. I think this would be more intuitive and be helpful to non-technical users who are crossing over from the classic editor. (I haven’t reviewed technical documentation yet, but will the editor bar be extendable?)

    Clicking the + icon between blocks should give me the option to select the block I want to insert (I know it does this with the one on the side already). This is something I like in Squarespace. If I’m editing a document and adding blocks between things, I’m more than likely wanting to add an image, block quote, etc. rather than another paragraph.

    Gutenberg has the potential to be good, but its not there yet. Its sad seeing the fracture that this is creating in the community. From the outside looking in, I think both sides would benefit with some more empathy towards the other. People are very passionate about the websites they create and anything that disrupts or changes that should be taken with care.

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  • Plugin Author Tammie Lister

    (@karmatosed)

    Thanks for the review and testing @dannisbet.

    Blocks > shortcodes.

    I agree!

    Regarding highlighting text and turning into a block when in a block. That’s an interesting flow you’re describing. Worth considering, although I am unsure how that would work in practice visually. Do you perhaps have some suggestions?

    Predictive suggestions of blocks also sounds interesting, we right now have recommended blocks, do you see this going further?

    Thread Starter Daniel

    (@dannisbet)

    Thanks @karmatosed

    For the text/turn into a block, think about how we currently have a dropdown in the classic editor that can change highlighted text to a heading. Same idea, except it changes to a header block. My line of thinking is that this behavior mirrors how WordPress users have done this in the past and would present another (needed) level of familiarity as they learn the new UI.

    On the blocks, predictive would be awesome, but really all I was suggesting was that the + icon between two blocks would have the same behavior as the one on the side, which brings up the modal to choose the block you want, instead of just adding a new blank text block.

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