Prepare your WordPress website for Gutenberg editor update

“A new, modern publishing experience is coming soon. Take your words, media, and layout in new directions with Gutenberg, the WordPress editor we’re currently building.”

WordPress is giving its default editor a makeover and a new name – Gutenberg. The overall aim behind this new visual editor, Gutenberg, is to simplify content creation in WordPress. Gutenberg changes how pages and posts are created within WordPress. Currently creating rich-content pages in WordPress means using a lot of short-codes and 3rd party page builders – Visual Composer, SiteOrigin Page Builder, Divi Builder, Bold Builder and Beaver Builder being some of the most popular. Default WordPress will now add this page-builder functionality to the back-end of every WordPress site by the means of Gutenberg. Click here to see a demo of Gutenberg by WordPress.

However, please note: Gutenberg is still under development as a core WordPress functionality, however, it does currently exist as a plugin. There is speculation that Gutenberg will be released in core WordPress 5.0 and thus those who updated their websites to 4.9.8 received a notification to install Gutenberg or install the classic editor in plugin form.

Gutenberg currently has over 200,000 active installs (at the time of writing this blog) and WordPress is encouraging users to install the Gutenberg plugin to give feedback and report any bugs they encounter. While new WordPress installs will benefit more from built-in Gutenberg rather than WordPress’s original built-in editor, existing websites which currently use other 3rd party page builders may run into difficulties.

Gutenberg vs other page builders – Will Gutenberg replace other page builders?

Well, at least not in the near future. Gutenberg still has a long way to go to compete with the functionality of popular page builders such as Visual Composer, SiteOrigin Page Builder, Divi Builder etc. For example, Gutenberg developers are still yet to add multiple columns options into Gutenberg which is a standard feature in page builders.

However some points to consider are:
– Gutenberg will be included in WordPress 5.0 by default when it is released which means that existing websites will get Gutenberg even if they don’t want it.
– Numerous open-source developers are ready to contribute to Gutenberg.
– Theme developers will create Gutenberg focused themes.
– Most plugin developers will focus on making their plugins compatible with Gutenberg rather than other page builders.

Some of most popular page builders have already announced Gutenberg elements/updates to their page builders. And others are actively looking for ways to integrate their current page builders with Gutenberg.

Will WordPress 5.0 Gutenberg break my existing website?

Existing WordPress website owners will need to analyse each of the themes, plugins, posts, pages etc, they currently use to verify compatibility with Gutenberg before updated to WordPress 5.0 (with Gutenberg built-in).

Irish Web Experts can work with you to analyse your WordPress website’s theme, plugins, pages and posts etc to check compatibility with Gutenberg and also find more options suited to your website. We have great expertise in creating stunning, high performance WordPress websites and e-commerce stores (using Woocommerce) customised for your business and brand, as well as providing support and maintenance to existing websites. We have Contact us for more information.