Andrew Marks presents An Introduction to Gutenberg, WordPress's new editor at the Brisbane Northside WordPress Meetup on 22nd February 2018.

1. An Introduction to Gutenberg
(WordPress’s New Editor)

2. Misconception: It is NOT named after Steve Guttenberg

3. Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg

4. What is the Gutenberg WordPress Editor?
A new page builder that is being designed to integrate
with WordPress core
• It will add content blocks and page builder-like functionality
• It will replace TinyMCE as the default content editor
• It is slated to be released with WordPress 5.0

6. The Purpose of Gutenberg
• “The goal of the block editor is to make adding rich content
to WordPress simple and enjoyable.”
- From the Gutenberg plugin description on WordPress.org.
• “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.”
– Zack Katz, speaking at WordCamp Denver 2017

7. Matt Mullenweg is Completely Behind It
• In The State of the Word 2016, Mullenweg
announced that the visual editor would be one of
three core focuses for 2017.
• Matt took over as project lead for Gutenberg
earlier this year and assigned Automattic
employees Matias Ventura and Joen Asmussen to
lead the development.

8. Gutenberg is Currently a Plugin
• You can add Gutenberg to any WordPress site
today as a plugin downloaded from the
WordPress plugin directory.
• The Gutenberg plugin is usually updated weekly
as new features are included.
• As noted in the plugin description… this is beta
software. Use with care.

9. Gutenberg Will Be Included in WordPress 5.0
The revised Gutenberg roadmap was published in August.
• Nov 2017: 4.9 release
• Dec 2017: Begin merge proposal for Gutenberg
• Jan 2018: Gutenberg / Customizer crossover
No date for WordPress 5.0 has been officially set based on the
official WordPress roadmap.

10. Gutenberg is Definitely Not Finished Yet
• Many of the features of Gutenberg are still being implemented
• Don’t panic because it doesn’t work well right now
• Gutenberg is currently written using REACT javascript. With
Facebook’s recent move to relicense the project under the MIT
license, Matt Mullenweg announced that WordPress.com and
Gutenberg would be rewritten using a different library.

11. Gutenberg Blocks

12. Gutenberg Embeds

13. Some of the Good with Gutenberg
• It’s a move forward for the WordPress visual editor.
• Using HTML comments to store block info is clever.
• Disabling Gutenberg won’t break your site.
• The copy and paste routine is well executed.
• Solid HTML 5 output
• You can write your own blocks.

14. Some of the Bad with Gutenberg
• No more composing in the browser.
• The UI is a bit clunky.
• No shortcodes in paragraphs.
• No images or other embeds in paragraphs.
• Significant accessibility issues (at least currently)
• Older themes don’t style HTML 5 output.

15. What’s Unresolved with Gutenberg?
A Lot.
• The relationship between the Gutenberg editor
and themes.
• How will it be integrated into the WordPress
core?
• When will the Gutenberg WordPress Editor be
released?

16. What Should You Be Doing about Gutenberg?
• Give it a try
• Submit feedback
• Don’t panic (yet)
• gutenfree.com (Classic Editor plugin)