Great idea, poorly executed

  • I had been looking at various page builders (BeaverBuilder and Brizy) and was pleased to hear that WordPress was going to offer its own version. I downloaded the plug-in and started to give Gutenberg a test drive.

    My initial reactions are that it is nowhere near as powerful or flexible as Brizy, which I think is very good. In Gutenberg, when you add a new page or post you are faced with a blank page, which you start to edit with blocks, but you don’t see the page’s or post’s URL, so you can’t easily link to other pages.

    It seems to you have to revert to the Classic editor (to grab the URL) and then go back to Gutenberg, where you can add in the link. This is clumsy and a backward step.

    I also can’t see how you add in full width images and I can’t see how or where you add in parallax functions, which are very easy in Brizy.

    If WordPress don’t delay the launch of Gutenberg then I think many people will be driven to other third party page builders, who at this stage have nothing to fear from the launch of Gutenberg.

    The idea of having a comprehensicve and intuitive page builder within WordPress is a great idea, but Gutenberg at this point doesn’t tick many boxes and that is a shame.

    • This topic was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by turtonsw.
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  • I suspect (I may stand corrected), that you are thinking Gutenberg is something that it isn’t.

    It isn’t a page builder in the sense that it includes hundreds of functions like Visual Composer or Beaver Builder, it is simply a ‘builder’ in the sense of the editor we are used to will change so instead of being a straight forward text box, you create your posts with blocks/headings etc.

    For features like parallax, that is down to custom code or plugins.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by johnfrl_15.

    Gutenberg as a block-oriented editor is only phase 1 of the “Gutenberg revolution”, not really comparable to a full blown pagebuilder.

    Phase 2 will take blocks to customization and site building, and maybe then we can begin to compare the functionality to pagebuilders like Beaver Builder or Elementor.

    But nobody really knows what that’s gonna look like (yet), so it’s hard to say.

    Thread Starter turtonsw

    (@turtonsw)

    Many thanks for your comments — much appreciated. I agree that it is probably too early to compare Gutenberg to the likes of Elementor, et al, but it strikes me that WordPress has the chance to create an all encompassing platform that makes writing and designing a dream. It would be great not to have to buy any more themes and create stunning website designs within the WordPress ecosystem and perhaps this is where it will go. I will have another go with Gutenberg and see how it shapes up, but at the moment it just feels a bit ‘clunky’ and that’s not what we all love about WordPress. Best, Simon

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