If you’ve logged into your WordPress admin dashboard recently, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a banner at the top of the site letting you know that “A new, modern publishing experience is coming soon.” But, what does this mean? What is Gutenberg going to do?
In short, in an upcoming version of WordPress, the “Classic Editor” that you are used to will be replaced with a new editor. In the post below I’m going to break down some common questions we’ve received and our plan to address Gutenberg.
TL;DR – We’re going to install the “Classic Editor” so that your site continues to function as it does now. If you want the new editor, give us a call and we can talk about how to update your theme to support it.
Wait, what’s going on? What is Gutenberg?
As web technologies are advancing and new Content Management Systems are becoming available, WordPress is upping their game and providing a new publishing experience for pages and posts called Gutenberg.
Frankly, this is long overdue as the Matchbox team has been implementing a custom builder on our sites for over three years and the new editor is going to allow this to be even more customizable and provide better flexibility for your sites in the future.
How will this affect my site?
If you were among the daring folks that wanted to give it a shot, you would have experienced some layout issues on your primary pages and even more weird display and content entry issues in the WordPress admin area. This is mainly because our use of custom fields isn’t supported in the traditional way by Gutenberg.
Do have to upgrade to this version of WordPress?
Yes. It is critical for all sites to be updated to the most recent version of WordPress. This isn’t as much for new features as it is to make sure your site receives all of the latest security patches.
As for the new editor? DO NOT enable Gutenberg.
It’s not very often that WordPress introduces a breaking change into Core and this has to be one of the most heavily debated changes among the WordPress community. Due to this, the “Classic Editor” that you’re currently using has been broken out of Core and put into its own plugin. By using this plugin, everything will work as it does now.
What do I need to do?
If you host with us, absolutely nothing. The Matchbox team is going to make sure your site is taken care of. Before the release of WordPress 5.0, we will be installing and enabling the “Classic Editor” for your site.
Once the new version of WordPress is released, we’ll test the site again to ensure everything is continuing to work as expected. Our anticipation is that nothing will be needed to correct these issues but as with every update to WordPress core and plugins, code updates may be necessary to keep visual and functional elements working as they are today. If there is an issue with testing, we will reach out to you directly to discuss the maintenance and support needs.
But I have FOMO, can I still get Gutenberg?
Of course! We can enable support for Gutenberg within your theme, but depending on the level of customization, there could be a cost associated with the theme upgrade. In many cases, we would recommend that we invest in a website refresh and build an updated theme that supports Gutenberg’s content blocks.
Either way, we would love to talk to you about what we could update your site. Give us a call at 314.849.6969 or send us a message and let’s make the web better.
A Brief Synopsis Video Of This Gutenberg Blog By Matchbox Design Group
