Gutenberg — Quantum Leap for WordPress

WordPress.org pushed out a release of a new core software version to version 5.0.1 in December 2018. This update includes a new user experience for the content area which is a marked change — the long awaited and much maligned “Gutenberg.”

For those who are using their WordPress dashboard prolifically the change will best be implemented by activating the “Classic Editor” plugin and then in the settings, selecting “Allow users to switch editors” to NO.

If this means absolutely nothing to you, likely you do not login to your WordPress dashboard. Rest assured, WordPress version 5.0.1 is impeccably backward compatible.

Like anything that benefits from maintenance, you may want to request a maintenance update to your WordPress website. You may be missing some security improvements that could make it vulnerable. Your web hosting company will be happy you are paying attention to security — both yours and theirs.

Gutenberg is a positive improvement for WordPress. It’s meant to provide a more robust experience for creation of content that would emulate the experience of site builders such as Square Space or Wix. To be frank, it’s likely targeted more to sites on WordPress.com where website creation is highly controlled in that environment.

If Stephen B. Starr Design created your website, it was customized for your business or organization. Gutenberg may mean little to the use of your website on an ongoing basis. Henceforth, we will be looking at ways to optimize the Gutenberg feature — primarily to offer your users a more visually consistent and user-friendly experience.

Clients who contact me regularly for maintenance will already be set to go. A legacy WordPress website (older than 3 years) will see virtually no change. As a practice, I test version 5.0.1 on an offline version of your site before pushing anything out to live sites. If this is helpful to you, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Sometimes unexpected change can be startling and this is a larger change for WordPress… a quantum leap since WordPress was made available 12 years ago. It would seem a disservice NOT to make this known to clients.

The future of WordPress — currently the most widely-used content management system on the internet — is the subject of much speculation. But it’s entirely in keeping with the tenor of technology in general. Digital technologists are in the business of improvement. And the one certainty we can count on is — the future will bring change.