Do you know one big reason why Wordpress is so popular? Because it is always evolving. It began in May 2003, but today’s WordPress looks and functions very differently. WordPress has received several updates at regular intervals to keep up with the times and changing needs. The year 2019 marked a big change for WordPress with the introduction of ‘Gutenberg’.

What is Gutenberg editor?

You all are familiar with the open-source TinyMCE content Editor present in WordPress for many years. Well, Gutenberg is the next version, 5.0. It is a new page builder designed to integrate with the WordPress core and it will totally change the way you create content in WordPress. The basic objective is to remove all the distractions and put content first.

Gutenberg is constructed with the idea of blocks. It has pre-built blocks of various types that you can use to put content, thus, it works like a drag and drop page builder.

The founder of GravityView, Zack Katz, spoke at the WordCamp in Denver in 2017:

“Gutenberg is an important step forward for WordPress. Gutenberg enables WordPress to build content layouts, not just write articles. It is one of the many transitions happening in WordPress toward a more simplified user experience.”

Matt Mullenweg was completely behind it as he took over as the project lead for Gutenberg and appointed Automattic employees Joen Asmussen and Matias Ventura to lead the development.

Why the change?

Even though WordPress is the most popular CMS and for building websites, it didn’t undergo any major changes and updates over the last few years. Meanwhile, in that time, other site builders evolved and began to attract WordPress users. Hence, WordPress came up with a big change in the name of ‘Gutenberg’.

In a blog post, Matt Mullenweg explained the goal of Gutenberg: To move forward every aspect of the WordPress platform for every type of user.

Features:

• The color and font of each paragraph block can be edited independently.

• The featured image can be customized by adjusting the opacity and adding text right from the editor.

• Buttons and tables are now added as a block in the editor.

• A new table of content sidebar widget appears when you add at least two headings. It gives a quick overview of your content’s structure. If the heading font sizes don’t follow a sequence, it shows an error message.

Some other features of Gutenberg are still being implemented or in beta stage. Gutenberg is not yet completely working for everyone, just like any new software, it is certainly not a finished product. Previously, Gutenberg was written using the REACT javascript, but after Facebook’s relicensing of the project under the MIT license, it was rewritten under a different library. It is being given by default from WordPress 5.0.

You may now revert back to the old TinyMCE editor with some hacks, but in future, Gutenberg will be the only option for content creation in WordPress. It is not perfect, not welcomed by everyone, but it has sparked a lot of debate and certainly got everyone talking.

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