One of my colleagues, Álvaro, runs the site Gutenberg Plugin Review that’s worth bookmarking, and following, if you’re interested in the growing category of Gutenberg plugins.
Update (2019-05-22): Gutenberg Times recently published a post covering almost 100 plugins for the block editor that you may find really helpful too:
This is quite a list!
Featured image by Tim Easley
I enjoyed Gary’s talk at the 2018 WordCamp about how Gutenberg is really just an iteration on past WordPress developments:
This definitely falls into the This is cool! category. The Gutenberg Blocks Design Library is an awesome plugin that used standard blocks to create a range of useful layouts.
What’s great about this plugin is that it uses blocks that are part of the new WordPress Editor already, and combines them to create a collection of mini-layouts for a variety of use cases. I especially love that this doesn’t require you to add a new level of complexity to the new editor.
Instead, it uses the blocks that are already available, but in prepackaged combinations that address practical needs.
There’s a free version of the plugin with about 50 free combinations. You can read more about this over at WPTavern:
I noticed that Gutenberg 5.0 has added a RSS block to the editor. This is probably a bit nerdy, but I was pretty excited to see this addition to the block editor.
My “Interesting stuff” page is an experiment in sharing things I find, well, interesting online. I had to install a separate plugin to add a RSS feed that I created, initially. The new RSS block makes it as easy as it should be to just add a RSS feed to a post or a page.
I like it!
This wasn’t the only addition through Gutenberg 5.0. Here’s the announcement post with details of the new Kindle block, and a great tweak to the Cover block:
If you’re still unsure about the new WordPress Editor (aka Gutenberg), it’s worth watching Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word keynote at the recent WordCamp US 2018 event in Nashville.
You can find links to parts of the talk, along with slides, and commentary in Matt’s post, here:
I’ve been using the new Editor almost exclusively lately, not because I work for Automattic, but because it’s actually a pretty enjoyable way to write posts.
I still prefer to write longer posts in my text editor, and then add the posts into the editor afterwards (I’ve always been a little twitchy about my only version of long posts being in an online editor, just in case something goes pear shaped and I lose it all).
The new Editor isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good! It does work a little differently in some respects, but that isn’t a bad thing (necessarily). Also, it’s improving (I can add galleries that work the way they’re supposed to! Yay!) all the time.
MarsEdit is my favourite blog editor for my laptop. I use it daily, mostly for work-related posts that I publish. It makes it so much easier for me to publish to a variety of blogs (we have a lot of internal blogs at Automattic).
The new WordPress Editor has changed how we write blog posts and pages in the WordPress dashboard. I’ve been using the new editor more and more, lately, and I like it a lot for the most part.
At the same time, I don’t see myself giving up MarsEdit anytime soon. It’s a terrific app that I haven’t appreciated nearly enough.
In the short term I am not planning to add much in the way of block-specific functionality to MarsEdit. As I mentioned above, I think that blocks are going to appeal more to web authors who are managing full-fledged sites, and less to bloggers who appreciate the streamlined workflow that MarsEdit emphasizes.
Daniel Jalkut
I don’t see any reason why MarsEdit fans should stop using MarsEdit with WordPress 5.0 out. For one thing, you don’t have to switch to the new block editor. You can install the Classic Editor plugin, and keep blogging the way you’ve been doing it till now.
The new WordPress Editor is great, but it hasn’t reach feature parity with its predecessor in some respects. One area that stands out for me is galleries. It doesn’t seem possible to create galleries that open into slideshows like the current version of the feature in the Classic Editor.
I just published a draft post using MarsEdit, and I noticed that WordPress will add the post as a Classic editor block (at least on WordPress 4.9.8 – my host hasn’t released the 5.0 update yet).
Given the changes to the editor, and how central this has become to the WordPress experience with WordPress 5.0, it can be worrying if your workflow is dependent on an editor that you’re much more familiar with, and comfortable using. I’ve been hesitant to use the new editor, too.
If MarsEdit is central to your blogging workflow, keep doing what you’re doing. I see the new WordPress Editor as adding another option, not precluding you from doing what you’ve been doing till now.
Daniel Jalkut wrote a post about MarsEdit and WordPress 5.0. It’s worth reading.
Matt Mullenweg (my boss*) has published a Gutenberg FAQ that you should read if you’re interested in Gutenberg (aka, the new WordPress Editor aka the block editor), the upcoming WordPress 5.0 release, and the accessibility debate about Gutenberg.
*In case you weren’t aware, I work for Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com). I don’t speak for Automattic, but I do believe in our mission, and love working there.
By the way, we’re hiring!
I just read Manton Reece’s thoughts about the new WordPress Editor (formerly known as Gutenberg), and I don’t really agree:
As I test Gutenberg, I keep coming back to one question: is it good for blogging? The goal with Micro.blog is to make blogging easier so that more people will have their own site instead of delegating their web identity to a social network. Gutenberg is more flexible than today’s WordPress, but it’s also more complex for someone who just wants to type in a few sentences and hit publish.
The new editor is available to both WordPress.com and self-hosted sites ahead of the WordPress 5.0 release. I’ve been using it on this site for a couple weeks, and in a couple test sites so I can anticipate or troubleshoot issues that our users may encounter.
I think there’s some merit in Reece’s perception of Gutenberg. I also think I fall more into the category of bloggers who like to open a simple editor and start typing into a text box.
A lot of WordPress users don’t want this simpler experience. I come across many people who want a very visual editor where you can create pretty dynamic layouts on the fly.
The new editor may be more for those people, but it can work pretty well for someone who wants to open a blank editor window and start typing, too.
Put another way, as WordPress matures I think it moves further away from the ideal blogging interface for someone who wants to write every day. Even as we add features to Micro.blog — domain names, themes, full-length posts, photos, podcasting — the core platform will always be rooted in the simple idea of a text box and a timeline.
Granted I’m a little biased because I work for Automattic, and I believe in what we’re doing. At the same time, I was a blogger long before I joined this company, and WordPress has been synonymous with “blogging” for me for almost 14 years.
I’m still deciding whether the new WordPress Editor is going to be the default on my personal site. It’s still early days for Gutenberg, and I think it has an exciting future.
That said, I like my simpler text windows, Markdown, and monospace fonts when I write (thank goodness for MarsEdit). Not everyone does, and WordPress is still flexible enough to accommodate almost all of us.
(Now, if I could just configure this blog to play nicely with all its IndieWeb cousins again, that would be great.)