Still not ready for prime time. Even at the start of 2021

  • This has succumbed to the Web 2.0 nonsense of the least possible interface, to the point of making it harder to use.

    However my main problem is that it doesn’t seem to even have the basic functionality of the Classic Editor. Maybe I haven’t found it, but I really shouldn’t have to search.

    You also can’t insert items that have been made available by various plugins. You can’t use other visual editors because it hides all those options away. You can’t use other plugins that have options in the Classic interface.

    This has to have the same available functionality as the classic editor as a minimum.

    It can’t even show me how it’s going to look with my existing theme. List formatting changes between the editor and the webpages. This is NOT a WYSIWYG editor, despite what the developers keep saying.

    I suspect some of people’s disappointment is that this looks a lot like many page editors like WPBakery and Siteorigin. So there is an expectation of some of that same functionality. And it just doesn’t exist. There’s basic visual functionality that some one who has ONLY ever used the minimal features on WordPress would appreciate. But ANYONE who has used an actual visual editor will find this terribly nonfunctional.

    Why this was released as a default is beyond me.
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    Added; Jan 2021
    A note here: I went back to Gutenberg this week to set up a website.

    It has improved a lot since 2 years ago. It’s actually mostly usable now.

    BUT it is STILL missing Classic Editor fucntionality. Like being able to specify the types of lists. numbers, alphabetical, i… etc etc. Being able to do indents.

    I’d like to be able to apply Headings to the list items, but not sure that’s even possible in the Classic Editor)

    The interface for creating links is STILL the most primitive and unhelpful it could be. I mean really. A single line text box that you put search text into? That may be helpful on occasion, but it is usually MUCH more helpful to be able to see the list of pages and posts etc, that the classic editor lets you do. Just pop up that interface.

    You can’t even create a link to media you have uploaded as a link. If I want to link to a PDF, I have to go through a stupid dance of inserting a file as a block, then getting the link to the file and going back to where I want to link to the file in inserting the URL. Completely nuts!

    It can’t even see anchors I’ve got on the page. How am I supposed to link a table of contents I have at the top to the anchors on the page with no ability to select them? Yes, I can manually go and find them all by looking at the HTML of the page. But what’s the point? At that point I would just go back to the classic editor.

    Every time I come back to Gutenberg, it gets slightly better, but I try to commit to it and then 10 minutes later I come up against some piece of basic functionality that is missing and I just go back to the classic editor. Maybe by 2023 it will actually be usable.

    • This topic was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by Norman Cates. Reason: Adding to review
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Norman Cates.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Norman Cates. Reason: Added more comments because apparently I can't add comments to my own review
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Norman Cates.
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  • Thanks for posting feedback!

    You also can’t insert items that have been made available by various plugins.

    If possible, can you note a specific plugin and an item from it you tried to insert but couldn’t so that there’s a specific example on file here?

    This has to have the same available functionality as the classic editor as a minimum.

    Not everything will work exactly the same way in the new editor. May I ask for an example of functionality that you’re missing in particular? I’m looking for specific examples.

    I see your point about page builders. It does seem that people tend to conflate block editing with page building, probably because the idea of a block component seems more like layout to some people when they hear about it at first.

    Thread Starter Norman Cates

    (@normancates)

    Yes. As far as I can see, none of the plugins that supply buttons in the classic editor (like CiviCRM, TablePress, Ultimate Book Blogger, Recencio Book Reviews) are able to put buttons into the Gutenberg interface. This means they can’t be used in the most efficient manner.

    Columns cannot be coloured. The best you can do is colour the blocks in a column which leaves big white borders around each block.

    This has been made better since a release around WP 4.9.8. Which is good.

    But still, after another attempt to use it for actual work, it falls far short of a professional tool

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