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WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

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Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#101

Post by sparkzilla »

dpkonofa wrote: post #78
sparkzilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you are "excited" to see this release. For those of us who create Wordpress sites for clients, this is a mess. A comparison of Gutenberg to any of the major Page builders (Visual Composer, Divi, Enfold etc.) shows that Gutenberg is simply not ready for production. Features are missing, and there simply isn't the finesse you get from a page builder. Gutenberg should have been offered as an extension,…

I hate to start this off this way but this comment makes me feel like you're either a very novice WP user or simply a designer that likes to advertise themselves as a dev but doesn't actually do a lot of coding. Divi and Visual Composer are both absolute messes from every aspect except for ease of use and they're incredibly bloated even for simple page layouts. Everything ends up as an inline style, the actual load t…

The whole point of WordPress is that you don't need to do much coding, so that point is moot. The vast majority of WordPress developers are designers or non-technical people who either don't know how to code, or who can hack a bit of code now and then.

When I make a site for a client I have to balance many options 1) how fast can I do it 2) including how many bits and bobs do I have to add in to even make it work 3) What it will look like 4) will the client be able to update it afterwards. Speed and underlying tech is way down the list.

I generally use Enfold [1] to build client sites. Divi's interface is too complex and slow to navigate. VC is faster, and I have used it on occasion. Gutenberg also has a slow interface. Gutenberg also requires the download of loads of blocks or block packages, which surely bloat the page, and cause confusion. I've tried Atomic blocks [2] etc, which only works well when you pair it with the Atomic Blocks theme. But sometimes I might need a different blocks. So now, you've now got multiple hero sections, each with different parameters, css and coding. That's bloat and inconsistency.

Gutenberg simply doesn't give designers the level of control over existing page builders. Read this comparison of Gutenberg vs Elementor [3]. I don't use Elementor, but the author concludes -- like me -- that Gutenberg is no match for exiting page builders. To paraphrase, he concludes that Gutenberg is for unsophisticated users who are creating single page layouts with low precision.

BTW, I don't know what themes or clients you have, but Enfold allows all the elements to be locked so that the clients can't mess with the layout. It's also very easy for them to login and see the page structure so that they know where they are. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's far better than Gutenberg.

IMHO, instead of finding out what developers actually wanted and were using, WordPress decided to roll its own system, which would be fine if it was optional. But, now that it's core, it's just an inferior, anti-competitive PITA.

[1]https://themeforest.net/item/enfold-responsive-multipurpose-... [2]https://wordpress.org/plugins/atomic-blocks/ [3]https://createandcode.com/gutenberg-vs-elementor-comparison/

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#102

Post by Silhouette »

calibas wrote: post #46
CM30 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a WordPress thing or a software with a developer ecosystem thing? Because that's always the catch with any script really. If you're using third party themes and plugins for anything, then you're putting trust in the developers of said themes and plugins that they know what they're doing coding and security wise. The exact same situation is true of everything from WordPress to Drupal to vBulletin and XenForo t…

It's not exclusively a Wordpress problem, but in my experience it's especially bad with Wordpress.

Indeed. Staff at the hosting service I use for professional purposes have always been very down on WP. My understanding from our various conversations is that for any systems where they were providing some sort of managed security service, it was a time sink to keep everything up to date. For any shared hosting systems where they weren't also managing the security, there would be frequent compromises and then that would get things blacklisted, so potentially other customers using the same shared resources could be negatively affected in at least two different ways. They don't seem to have become noticeably more positive about any of this in recent times despite the arguments about WP security being better these days, which suggests that there is still enough of a problem to be concerned about.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#103

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

Isn't drupal better though if you're just wanting to take advantage of its API despite the php-ness?

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#104

Post by mmsimanga »

This reminds me of Drupal 8 which was a massive departure from previous versions. As a part-time Drupal user with a handful of sites. The changes in Drupal 8 were just too much for me. Suddenly I had to learn Composer before I could do anything. Nothing wrong with Composer but if you aren't fulltime PHP developer this is just too much to learn to use a CMS. Installing Drupal changed from just unzipping a file to a whole convoluted process (I know I exaggerate).

The technologists were happy but the hobbyists not so much.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#105

Post by asadkn »

If you have ever used Medium.com or the inspired niche of editors that followed, you will love Gutenberg.

It's in this niche of editors where other names would be Dropbox Paper, and obviously the best in niche Notion.so - but Gutenberg is quite decent so far.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#106

Post by liveoneggs »

photomatt wrote: post #66
sparkzilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you are "excited" to see this release. For those of us who create Wordpress sites for clients, this is a mess. A comparison of Gutenberg to any of the major Page builders (Visual Composer, Divi, Enfold etc.) shows that Gutenberg is simply not ready for production. Features are missing, and there simply isn't the finesse you get from a page builder. Gutenberg should have been offered as an extension,…

We had it as an extension for a year and a half, and in that time it became the fastest growing plugin in WP's history. User tests also showed significant issues with our current editor approach and much better results with Gutenberg enabled, that's why some hosts have had it on by default since the summer. I agree it's not for everyone, that's why there's an opt-out, but it is an improved experience for the vast maj…

advertising it to everyone probably helped :)

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#107

Post by adevx »

two2two wrote: post #47
adevx wrote: post #27

I know this is not for everyone, but sometimes it makes sense to jump off the CMS bandwagon and build a custom site. First I used Drupal but got tired of rewriting the site on every major release and jumped on WordPress. Then on WordPress I realized I could not create the user experience I was after without committing massive amounts of time and resources in custom plugins/themes. Leaving me too dependent on a moving…

I would love to do something like this. Drupal was a nightmare for me as a designer. Wordpress is much more manageable, but HTML/CSS/Javascript are king for me to have full control. What I'd like to learn next is implementing a database to cover the CMS side of things. Any resources you care to share that would put me on that path?

For what it's worth, I went with PostgreSQL, decided not to use an ORM but a query builder (knex.js). Knex.js gives you database migrations and is good for basic querying. It is easy to drop down to raw SQL if you need something more complex or optimized.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#108

Post by stevenicr »

ryanmccullagh wrote: post #65
deltron3030 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main advantage of Wordpress and what makes it unique is that it‘s a real ecosystem, it scales from normal users, or business users/marketers who operate on a very high level, web designers, down to full stack developers and infrastructure devs, covering the whole business - design - dev continuum. There‘s like a guaranteed influx of new clients downstream, who start small with a site builder, and get snatched up…

> There‘s like a guaranteed influx of new clients downstream, who start small with a site builder, and get snatched up as clients as they grow. I like your point here, can you elaborate?

There's also a lot of situations where updates can break custom themes or other custom code. Sometimes it's an old plugin that is left not-updated that causes a break or a hack and the site is broken. Many times these are setup and look nice for the client, by someone who is not maintaining any longer.

Then the site breaks they go online looking for help. This is not always a wordpress fault, sometimes it's a plugin issue for example.

However with the Gutenberg thing being forced in, I expect there will be a lot of broken custom themes and lots of people without backups. If their site is set to auto update core, there may be lots of work in the coming weeks.

I'm glad WP is not abandoned, but again (for the umpteenth time) wish new features were added as plugins and not forced into core. Akismet is added in backend as a plugin for people who want to use it, but it's not running by default during an update (as far as I can remember) for example.

At least automattic had notices in the backend dashboard warning about a new editor coming - not sure the notice warned that it may break some custom things - not that the average client would know that they have a custom thing.

Should be an interesting few weeks ahead.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#109

Post by stevenicr »

photomatt wrote: post #66
sparkzilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you are "excited" to see this release. For those of us who create Wordpress sites for clients, this is a mess. A comparison of Gutenberg to any of the major Page builders (Visual Composer, Divi, Enfold etc.) shows that Gutenberg is simply not ready for production. Features are missing, and there simply isn't the finesse you get from a page builder. Gutenberg should have been offered as an extension,…

We had it as an extension for a year and a half, and in that time it became the fastest growing plugin in WP's history. User tests also showed significant issues with our current editor approach and much better results with Gutenberg enabled, that's why some hosts have had it on by default since the summer. I agree it's not for everyone, that's why there's an opt-out, but it is an improved experience for the vast maj…

I wish people in the tech bubble would realize that "why there's an opt-out" - is like saying 'you can stop the beating by.." - why not just make it 'opt in" - when there is consent, side effects can be considered easier, and then there is more of a chance someone actually knows how to opt out / change the consent of this thing running.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#110

Post by cityzen »

two2two wrote: post #47
adevx wrote: post #27

I know this is not for everyone, but sometimes it makes sense to jump off the CMS bandwagon and build a custom site. First I used Drupal but got tired of rewriting the site on every major release and jumped on WordPress. Then on WordPress I realized I could not create the user experience I was after without committing massive amounts of time and resources in custom plugins/themes. Leaving me too dependent on a moving…

I would love to do something like this. Drupal was a nightmare for me as a designer. Wordpress is much more manageable, but HTML/CSS/Javascript are king for me to have full control. What I'd like to learn next is implementing a database to cover the CMS side of things. Any resources you care to share that would put me on that path?

If you're interested in full stack serverless solutions, AWS Amplify looks really good. It handles a lot of the provisioning of resources and creation of GQL resolvers, etc. I spent an afternoon with it a few weeks ago and it completely changed my outlook on the future of the web and CMSs.

https://aws-amplify.github.io

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