Gutenberg: The editor we do not want

  • I like Gutenberg, the original press. The one that kickstarted a cultural shift and broadened education for the masses.

    I do not like Gutenberg, the new editor in WordPress. The one that kickstarted a rift in the user base.

    It’s not that Gutenberg is buggy, it is, but it’s also in development and bugs should be expected. Nevertheless, having been testing Gutenberg since the beginning I can say many bugs are being worked out and the editor itself has come a long way over the months. It’s functional now, not production ready obviously, but it works. Sort of.

    Yet WordPress is a community project. Or at least it’s supposed to be.

    The reviews for the Gutenberg plugin at the time of writing this clearly indicate a love-it or hate-it position. Right now the hate-it’s are leading. I cannot imagine any successfully established company upending their flagship product to the point that it creates such division with their consumers. Yet WordPress is. I would imagine that most companies field-testing a new product would decide to either abandon or take a step back and re-evaluate their decision if the customer response was as polar as the reviews for the Gutenberg editor are with WordPress. Yet the developers seemingly ignore the reaction of the community and plow forward with the massive change that (again, based on reviews at the time of this writing) most people do not want.

    Things may change but the Gutenberg editor itself doesn’t provide THAT much flexibility over the previous one. And the areas it does augment were likely attainable with the original editor by simply adding the appropriate plugin.

    I recognize there’s the Classic Editor plugin. But this is backwards. It should be Gutenberg as a plugin with the classic editor as part of the core. If the Gutenberg editor really is that great, usage of the plugin will skyrocket (for example, like JetPack) and then maybe it’s time to include it in the core. (Although, JetPack is popular and it’s not in there; one could argue it makes more sense for JetPack to be a part of the core than Gutenberg.) There are even a few of us who rely on the simple HTML textarea field provided by the classic editor’s plain text mode. In Gutenberg it’s just not the same.

    When I write I do not think “Paragraph Block. Hard line. Paragraph Block. Paragraph Block. Image Block. Blockquote Block.” The Gutenberg editor breaks a natural free-style of writing with these partitions that force me as the writer to think about the type of content I am authoring instead of the message being communicated.

    My biggest frustration with the Gutenberg editor is not with the editor itself, it’s with the developers who simply refuse to acknowledge that as a community we do not want this. At least not in its current form.

    I have not even begun to address some of the significant issues Gutenberg raises, such as: moving a substantial amount of the codebase from PHP to JavaScript, breaking the last decade of plugins, the completely different user experience for content authors that are not technically savvy (of which there are many); the list goes on and I don’t have to include the whole list here because this forum is already filled with people who are vocalizing their same frustration.

    I’ve been using WordPress on countless sites for over a decade now. If this editor makes it to core I’m going to have to strongly consider abandoning WordPress for another platform because the thought of using the Gutenberg editor makes me cringe. In my opinion it’s an over-weight, bloated piece of frontend software that is inconsistent with the rest of the WordPress user interface. But above all, it’s difficult to want to use software knowing the organization behind it simply isn’t interested in listen to its users.

    Update: Wow… I guess you guys are actually going through with this despite the obvious lack of interest from the majority of users. Anyway, I’ve decided to migrate my sites from WordPress to a static site generator with a custom admin web page to more easily manage the content.

    Such a shame…

    • This topic was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by DZ.
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  • Thread Starter DZ

    (@dzaikos)

    @dzaikos: You keep replying in multiple threads with this same point about the classic editor plugin, but the developers have this backwards. Gutenberg should be the plugin, the classic editor should be in the core. [source]

    @anevins: @dzaikos, That’s the way it is and we’re just asking for why people don’t feel like it should be that way. This should not be a criticism on @karmatosed. If you have anything more to add to your review please add it there instead of posting on other people’s reviews. [source]

    So much for community. Sometimes we can support other reviews but sometimes we cannot?

    Anyway, I don’t see how I’m criticizing @karmatosed; I’m drawing attention to the position held by said individual through their consistent responses: 1, 2, 3 (and more but I didn’t feel like going through more threads). This was done to lead into my point that I hold a different position. It’s a constructive argument, but I get the impression it’s not welcome.

    So be it. The stars at the top of the forum speak for themselves.

    Andrew Nevins

    (@anevins)

    WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

    Yes we generally don’t allow people to make “me too” comments on other people’s reviews. This isn’t because the people saying me too aren’t relevant, but that their comments are misplaced. They should be giving feedback on their own reviews.

    Reviews aren’t meant to be agreed or disagreed with. Reviews are for plugin authors to engage with real user experience and improve their plugins in response to that.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Andrew Nevins.
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