A solid first step, but needs some iteration

I really don’t understand all the Gutenberg hate I see here. WordPress is in DESPERATE need of an editor overhaul, and the community has recognized this for YEARS. TinyMCE and it’s limitations just don’t cut it any more. Gutenberg is a great first step toward making WordPress’s editor much more friendly, flexible, customizable and efficient… but yeah, it’s not there yet.

For starters, the editor desperately needs to support Markdown syntax. If you want to specify a header, or a list, etc… it requires that you stop writing, remove your hands from the keyboard, and use your mouse/trackpad to click around a bit. It’s very disruptive. I’m not entirely clear on whether improved Markdown support is even on the roadmap.

Also, support for legacy metaboxes is still very rough. There’s definitely some room for UX improvements that integrate metaboxes more seamlessly into Gutenberg. But then, this is still beta, and there’s still a lot of polish to be done.

If you are asking yourself “Should you use this plugin right now, in it’s current state?” Well, that depends. It’s far too dependent on mouse interactions right now for anyone that wants to just write. But if you work with a lot of other content types, like embeds (Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, etc), or you’re a developer that has a need to create custom “content blocks” for any reason, you might actually be VERY pleasantly surprised.