Junk Default Editor

I’ve been using WordPress for almost a decade. Have been using it as my primary CMS for website development for several years now. I’m quite familiar with many aspect of website design and development. With that being said, here’s my take on the Gutenberg Editor. The short of it is that it’s still in its infancy and should not be the default editor.

This of it is that Gutenberg isn’t an editor, in my opinion. It’s a page builder. Over the years I’ve used various page builders for WordPress. I’ve used both free and commercial WordPress page builders. Gutenberg looks and seems to function like a page builder instead of an editor (e.g. TinyMCE). Of the CMSes, WordPress seemed to have the smallest learning curve when compared to others such as Joomla or Drupal. Gutenberg just threw that completely out the window.

Instead of new users just learning the basics of managing a WordPress website (e.g. settings, themes, plugins, adding and modifying pages and posts, etc) they now have to learn the intricacies of Gutenberg. Instead of just typing away and clicking on icons similar to that of a word document, they now have to learn quite a bit more. Normally one would just type their text, highlight it and click a button to make text bold or change the type of text (e.g. H1, H2, etc).

I think Gutenberg has much potential as a page builder, however, it should:

1. Be labeled as a paged builder and not as an editor.
2. Not set as the default WordPress editor. Have it as it is, a separate plugin not built into the core of WordPress.

It’s exceedingly annoying to have to install Classic Editor when I create a new website. I’ve noticed those using WordPress.com (free) are stuck with Gutenberg and can’t install plugins unless they upgrade to the paid version. I hope for the sake of WordPress this doesn’t negatively impact their platform. Then again, this is what happens when a software company makes such ridiculous decisions.