
WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ - se7entime
https://ma.tt/2018/11/a-gutenberg-faq/
======
GeneralMaximus
I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found
_anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin
ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with
a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few
years ago.

My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an
easy to follow tutorial teaching you pretty much anything you might want to do
with the software. PHP isn't the prettiest language, and WordPress itself
feels a bit creaky at times. But it's a practical tool. It does the job, and
does it very well.

Since I'm a JavaScript developer, I was optimistic about Ghost becoming a
viable alternative to WordPress. Sadly, Ghost's plugin API still doesn't seem
to be complete. Without that, it can't replace WordPress for anything besides
basic blogging. That seems to be the niche the Ghost developers are interested
in, though, so I don't think it's coming anytime soon.

I'm really excited to see this release. Gutenberg is certainly a step in the
right direction for the editor, and I'm planning to upgrade all my websites
over the next few weeks!

~~~
joekrill
You're absolutely right. The big issue (for me, at least), is that it's a
security nightmare. At least last I used it. It seemed there were security
exploits popping up every day. Either from the core codebase, or from some
random plugin everyone seemed to be using. I think that was just the nature of
how their plugin system works? I'm not sure if anything's changed, but
_maintaining_ a WordPress install is not fun and requires constant - almost
tiring - oversight.

~~~
dpau
I used to help artists with setting up Wordpress portfolio sites. But the
constant maintenance required (updating Wordpress & plugins, making sure that
all plugins are secure and maintained, and checking after each update to make
sure nothing was broken), as well as the rise of platforms like Squarespace,
Wix & Weebly, means that I no longer recommend Wordpress for those types of
clients. Artists just want to show and sell their work, not deal with whether
or not a plugin update is compatible with their version of Woocommerce.

~~~
photomatt
Check out Jetpack, it can auto-update all your plugins, and has a "Rewind"
feature with real-time backups so you can one-click take your site back to a
previous state if anything didn't work.

~~~
dazc
Jetpack has some nice features, the comments form especially. It is, however,
very bloated - especially since you'll often only use 2 or 3 features on any
one site.

~~~
photomatt
Since Jetpack code is also what we run on WP.com (tens of billions of
pageviews) it goes through a huge amount of performance tuning and
optimization. The way modules work when you turn them off they don't have any
overhead, similar to turning off a plugin. If you were using literally one
thing it might feel like a lot, but as soon as you use 2-3+ things Jetpack
does it's a lot more efficient than separate individual plugins to accomplish
the same task.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Can you give a couple examples of when / how Jetpack has to be a single
plugin, instead itself being a suite of individual plugins?

If the knock on that product is bloats, and the compromises adoption, how is X
a benefit to those who refuses to abopt the whole alphabet?

------
artichokeheart
The big problem with 5.0 is that it's not actually ready and they are shipping
because of Wordcamp.

There are 152 open issues that they conveniently allocated 1 to 5.0, 28 to
5.0.1 and the rest to future point releases.
[https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/12/06/5-0-gutenberg-
sta...](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/12/06/5-0-gutenberg-status-
update-dec-6/)

The introduction of Gutenberg is a huge change and yes if you've been
following the development, you're probably ready for the major changes but if
you weren't following along you're in for a nasty, buggy, surprise.

~~~
stevenicr
"if you weren't following along you're in for a nasty, buggy, surprise. " this
scares me and may bring tears. I don't have time to backup all the sites I
have with custom themes and plugins.

Hope someone writes a tutorial on how to undo this update, including the
database and change over to the class press fork.

~~~
keepkalm
Yeah, I think it deleted all my plugins this morning. Yay.

------
josefresco
As someone who hosts over 150 WordPress websites for small businesses ... I'm
not thrilled about this release and the work it will entail given the editor
overhaul.

Another user posted this:
[https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/12/06/5-0-gutenberg-
sta...](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/12/06/5-0-gutenberg-status-
update-dec-6/)

Also this posted by the author of Advanced Custom Fields, a very popular
plugin:
[https://twitter.com/wp_acf/status/1070089217479307264](https://twitter.com/wp_acf/status/1070089217479307264)

~~~
calibas
Supposedly, you just install this and you're good to go:
[https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-
editor/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-editor/)

I just tried updating to 5 on a test copy, as far as I can tell it didn't
break anything.

~~~
willio58
For as long as that plugin is supported..

~~~
hrrsn
2022 at the earliest.

------
adevx
I know this is not for everyone, but sometimes it makes sense to jump off the
CMS bandwagon and build a custom site. First I used Drupal but got tired of
rewriting the site on every major release and jumped on WordPress. Then on
WordPress I realized I could not create the user experience I was after
without committing massive amounts of time and resources in custom
plugins/themes. Leaving me too dependent on a moving target that might take a
direction I don't agree with. It looks like there is a plugin for everything,
but having them all play nice together is difficult. The more plugins the
bigger the security risk, and the greater the risk of an update breaking your
site.

I rewrote the site in Node.js/Express with Vue.js and server side rendering.
The ecosystem is ready with so many libraries to quickly get up and running.
Another major benefit is being able to design your own database instead of
having everything stored as a post (WordPress).

~~~
two2two
I would love to do something like this. Drupal was a nightmare for me as a
designer. Wordpress is much more manageable, but HTML/CSS/Javascript are king
for me to have full control. What I'd like to learn next is implementing a
database to cover the CMS side of things. Any resources you care to share that
would put me on that path?

~~~
malydok
I believe that the static site generators of this day are the next step in
custom web development. I'm currently working on a Gatsby.js project using
Contentful as the content provider and it really feels like the stack of the
future - build with all the shiny tools but send a fast, static website to the
end user.

------
Vanderson
Will Gutenberg actually help Wordpress? I don't think so. Why? Most site
owners aren't designers and don't do layout or content building well at all.
Maybe I am short sighted on this though.

Much of my business has been replacing sites that run on Wordpress with my own
CMS Archetype. Even though it lacks a lot of the power of mass of WP plugins,
it makes up for it with simplicity of production and ease of use.

Some site owners want more control/power over layout building, and others
would be overwhelmed by the extra features of Gutenberg.

Will Gutenberg become a core complaint of WP in the future? Maybe. The biggest
complaints I've gotten about Wordpress are these:

1\. Can't hand it off to clients to edit their own content, because it's too
hard to learn. Or if you do train someone, it turns into a cycle of
retraining. (though this seems to be Gutenberg's real target goal)

2\. Updating is painful. Plugins break on a regular basis.

3\. Security, WP sites get hacked alot. Think this is primarily because most
WP sites aren't run by professionals, but individuals.

But also, #2 applies here, there's motivation to _not_ upgrade because of the
possibility of breaking the site.

There are others, but Gutenberg would not solve these 3 largest problems with
WP that I have run into.

~~~
nyc111
> Will Gutenberg actually help Wordpress? I don't think so. Why? Most site
> owners aren't designers and don't do layout or content building well at all.
> Maybe I am short sighted on this though.

I agree! I use wordpress.com because I DON'T WANT TO DESIGN MY SİTE. Nor do I
want to design each individual post. I want my blog to have a uniform look. I
may make some tweaks to CSS and that's all. I don't want to think about
design.

WP is arrogantly pushing the new editor but I tried it and I see no use for
it. I think it should only be an option for people who want to design their
own site.

It's true that there is no other place I can take my blog to. WP knows this
and they know they can get away with it.

------
o_____________o
Here's the holy land:

\- React components (Gutenberg)

\- You can visually edit react components (Gutenberg)

\- You can render the site with anything (Gatsby?)

Wordpress made some insane decisions with Gutenberg, like 1. storing the
parameters (data you enter visually into the component) in an HTML comment
(!!!) alongside the rendered HTML and 2. deciding to show the equivalent of
"FATAL ERROR IN THIS COMPONENT" when the component author makes any adjustment
to the markup output. Their idea for the latter was for you, the component
author, to keep a deprecated version of any change alongside the new version.

They have the start of something great but crippled it with laughably bad
decisions. Feels like... well, developing in the PHP ecosystem again.

More specific discussion:
[https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/10444](https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/10444)

------
leonk
No mention here about Gutenberg's lack of support for accessibility standards.
They pretty much went full steam ahead and left the accessibility team behind.
See: [https://rianrietveld.com/2018/10/09/i-have-resigned-the-
word...](https://rianrietveld.com/2018/10/09/i-have-resigned-the-wordpress-
accessibility-team/)

~~~
motdiem
There's a whole paragraph in the linked article talking about accessibility -
it looks to me that they're mostly planning to improve it in the next few
point releases. It's too bad they couldn't bake it in from the start, but at
least they seem to acknowledge it

~~~
ahoy
not "couldn't" but "refused to"

------
kareldonk369
You guys need to check the 1 star reviews for Gutenberg on the link below for
some good comedy. Most reviews are 1 star.

[https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gutenberg/reviews/?filt...](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gutenberg/reviews/?filter=1)

------
wtmt
Maybe I’m in the minority here. Is this the “new editor coming soon” on
wordpress.com blogs? If yes, I tried it and was left more confused than before
(features like copying an existing post with its categories, tags and content
in order to create a new post were missing). So I switched back. I’ve found
WordPress becoming more complicated to administer and use over the years. I
hope aiming towards simplicity doesn’t inadvertently add more complexity.

~~~
personlurking
The move seems aimed more at website building (ex. Wix) than blogging. These
should be two different products because the blocks-based idea makes WP.com
unusable for blogging, IMO. As a 10-year user, if they remove the option to
revert, I'll be taking my blogs elsewhere.

------
mmsimanga
This reminds me of Drupal 8 which was a massive departure from previous
versions. As a part-time Drupal user with a handful of sites. The changes in
Drupal 8 were just too much for me. Suddenly I had to learn Composer before I
could do anything. Nothing wrong with Composer but if you aren't fulltime PHP
developer this is just too much to learn to use a CMS. Installing Drupal
changed from just unzipping a file to a whole convoluted process (I know I
exaggerate).

The technologists were happy but the hobbyists not so much.

~~~
mgbmtl
Composer mostly replaces 'drush make'. You can still download zip files (for
core, themes and modules).

Composer helps if you have to manage complicated modules. For example, CiviCRM
is CMS-agnostic and bundles its own versions of Symfony, Guzzle, etc. If we
only used zip files, we would end up with library conflicts. Composer helps
fix that.

(However, I agree that Drupal tends to make things insanely complicated, and
the upgrade process is underwhelming.)

------
andy_adams
Is anyone else impressed with WordPress/Automattic's willingness to "just
ship" despite things not being perfect?

As someone who struggles shipping software that basically nobody uses, I don't
know if I'd have the guts to say "it's good enough" on a project as big &
widely used as WordPress.

~~~
matthiaswh
Quite the contrary. "Just ship" is a great approach for individuals or
startups. WordPress is a behemoth that powers a significant portion of the
web, including numerous enterprise corporations, and is the lifeblood of
thousands of freelancers and agencies. They should hold themselves to a much
higher standard.

When WordPress ships a bug, or a security vulnerability, or drastically and
negatively alters the user experience the repercussions are vast and long-
lasting.

I can't imagine how many man-hours and how many millions (billions?) of
dollars it costs every time this happens.

~~~
andy_adams
I know what you're saying, but on the flip side: How many billions
(trillions?) of dollars has been created by WordPress? And it keeps growing!

I feel that this "shipment" has been fairly responsible, with the Classic
Editor plugin as a fallback for people who don't want Gutenberg.

------
EnderMB
For what Automattic want WordPress to be, WP 5 seems to be a sensible move. WP
is a viable choice for the Squarespace and Wix crowd that want to build a
website without knowing anything about how to design or code. These services
are eating their (lucrative) lunch, and a move toward ease of building makes
real sense.

Sadly, this isn't the reason WP is popular. People use it because it's the
most popular CMS, because of the marketed belief that it's the easiest to use,
and because there is a perceived belief that it's quick to develop features
because "we'll just use a plugin for that". While there are many teams out
there that do WP "right", I'd say they are in a small minority. Most WP sites
I've used have been a total mess.

I've used a lot of content management systems and frameworks in the past, and
while it's on a framework many refuse to use, I'd say the best open-source CMS
available for user experience and extensibility is Umbraco. While the core
community can be a bit reclusive to outsiders, and HQ eager to push profitable
products, Umbraco is easy to use, easy to install, and has a rich ecosystem of
plugins to allow developers to build stuff easily. I liken it a bit to the
early Rails community in how it acts.

As far as WP is concerned, I feel that WP is too big to simply be a site
builder to some, and a framework to others, making Gutenberg a knee-jerk
reaction that doesn't really solve either problem. The best thing they could
do is accept that WP developers are analogous to React developers or Rails
developers in that they define themselves by their framework of choice, and to
do that WordPress needs to expand into its own PHP framework. Gutenberg can be
a part of that, but it would be a part of the framework, not the driving force
behind page creation.

Disclaimer: A few years ago, I was making a tidy side income from porting WP
sites to Umbraco, and if I weren't too busy I'd continue to do it because
there is no shortage of pissed off clients with crappy WP sites that want a
usable CMS.

------
neya
This looks very similar to Sir Trevor:

[http://madebymany.github.io/sir-trevor-
js/example.html](http://madebymany.github.io/sir-trevor-js/example.html)

------
chiefalchemist
I updated a test sight to 5.0. I activated Gutenburg. I played with the
blocks. I looked for - having just done some Shopify work for a friend - a way
in WP to preview page (while on desktop) that simulated mobile. Again, like
Shopify.

Afaik there is no such preview. I'm aware "the WordPress way" is fond of
turning its back on industry standards. But ignoring "mobile first"? If the
dev team missed that, what else did they miss?

------
stevenicr
surprised no one has mentioned the fork,
[https://www.classicpress.net/](https://www.classicpress.net/)

I brought up similar issues times ago when WP was rolling out major changes
that were likely to break things and not add any value to a majority of WP
users. Glad to see enough others have banded together to actually make a good
fork a serious option now.

I have already begun using a couple of plugins that convert WP sites to static
html /css - so no updates needed, no more breaking things from auttomatic.

Unfortunately some of WP sites I'm running need to stay open to udpates
regularly, fingers crossed I can revert them when the update rolls out.

------
asadkn
If you have ever used Medium.com or the inspired niche of editors that
followed, you will love Gutenberg.

It's in this niche of editors where other names would be Dropbox Paper, and
obviously the best in niche Notion.so - but Gutenberg is quite decent so far.

------
akras14
I’ll just leave this here: [https://www.alexkras.com/how-to-rollback-
wordpress-5-to-olde...](https://www.alexkras.com/how-to-rollback-
wordpress-5-to-older-version/)

------
pmlnr
I seriously dislike the fact that an exteremely wide-spread open source
project - wordpress.org - is driven by a for-profit company, wordpress.com. I
guess there's no way around it, given Automattic employs most contributors,
but this is not the first time when community requests and doubts are ignored
(see emojis, half-baked media library refactoring, etc).

On the other hand, I'd welcome if these forced changes would revive half-
forgotten CMS systems - Typo3, Silverstripe, concrete5, or boost newcomers,
like Grav, ProcessWire. Maybe this will break the WordPress monoculture.

(downvoting an opinion, that is not how discussions should be made.)

~~~
tvanantwerp
I've been looking hard for an open source replacement for the backend that
would let my users edit as simply as with WordPress, but not tie my hands with
PHP and an odd API for creating the front end. But so far, I haven't found
anything that meets users needs like WordPress does. I wish there were more
competition in this space. The closest I've seen--different services that let
you create content and provide a GraphQL API--are all SaaS and not very cheap.
Maybe the financial incentives to create a viable WordPress competitor that's
open source just aren't there anymore...

~~~
eloisant
When you say "not very cheap", you're illustrating the problem: people don't
want to spend money in their CMS.

Companies spend hundreds (or more) a month on various SaaS services but are
looking for dirt cheap for something as critical as their public facing
website.

~~~
dpkonofa
I don't think that's it, though. I think the issue is moreso that they have to
pay for the CMS and then, typically, for someone to customize it for them to
make it what they want it to be. You're essentially paying a very high price
for the development and paying another cost on top of that for just the
platform might seem excessive to those who don't really know how it all works.
People don't mind spending money on a CMS as long as they know how it fits
into the project. The issue is that most developers just pick a CMS and don't
pay for it because they want to keep more of the money from the client rather
than because they know what they're doing and it's the best choice for the
project.

------
usaphp
For anyone who is managing multiple wordless sites and is scared of the amount
of work it will take to update and check compatibility of each of them, I
strongly recommend trying [https://managewp.com](https://managewp.com), it
made my life so much easier with managin our company blogs

------
Slashbot
Gutenberg, and this whole medium.com style look to websites layouts and
interactivity just makes me think it is about time for an Apocalypse. Probably
starting with silicon valley going down in a sink hole (make it goolag
first).. like real soon please.

I'd rather go back to reading sites off geocities with starry backgrounds and
little animated gif's everywhere..at least those looked like someone had fun
putting them together, than this automated fking pile of readability styled
over sized fonts design for people who can't see good shit that is getting
spewed out from so called website 'designers' and 'content writers' if you in
anyway like this style of a website design and user experience for readers,
just kys... I mean at least think about it, perhaps reflect on how awful you
are as a human.

~~~
nsriv
Imagine getting this worked up about black text on white backgrounds.

------
vezycash
Are they ditching php? Webhosts have the most to gain financially from a
switch to node.js powered WordPress.

~~~
Ivoah
Care to explain how webhosts would gain financially by switching to node.js?

