WordPress recently updated to version 4.9.8 and if you have automatic updates installed, you were probably surprised when you logged in and saw this alert to install Gutenberg at the top of your dashboard:
Now, you’re probably wondering whether or not this is something you should install, but before I dive into that, I want to give you a brief overview of what Gutenberg is.
A Bit About Gutenberg
WordPress was initially released back in 2003, and although it has gone through some incredible overall changes as a platform, the classic posts & pages editor really
Introducing Gutenberg:
A new visual editor for WordPress that has been rebuilt for media rich pages and posts. This new system uses a new tool called “blocks” that allows you to ‘insert, rearrange, and style multimedia content with very little technical knowledge. It looks something like this [source]:
This blog post was written and composed using Gutenberg. and while it’s not a perfect solution to WordPress’ default editor, it’s definitely an improvement.
Is Gutenberg for you?
This is ultimately a question that you will need to answer for yourself, but in the long run, I recommend getting to know how it works since once WordPress 5.0 is released (in the next few months), this will become the default post and page editor for WordPress. If you’re not quite ready for that change, WordPress has been kind enough to include a “Classic Editor” plugin that will allow you to keep on using the same old editor you’re used to… at least for a while.
If you’re not quite ready to try out Gutenberg, the good news is, your classic editor is still in place until the WordPress 5.0 update is released, so you don’t have to do anything until then if you don’t want to. In the meantime, keep a close eye on your WordPress installation because the update is coming soon!
More Info
Learn more about what Gutenberg can do on the official WordPress Gutenberg page: Click Here
The guys over at WP Learning Lab made a great walkthrough video explaining this new update. Check it out: