Orange Ambition Design

Helping Business Owners With Website Marketing, Social Media and SEO Needs. We’ll be your favorite WordPress Specialists.

 

In the Way That Works for You

Coming Soon to a WordPress back end near you; the Gutenberg Editor update

The plan is, whenever WordPress Core 5.0 rolls out, that Gutenberg could be the new default editor in WordPress. It’s been causing a lot of commotion on the support groups and feedback that we’ve seen has been primarily negative. Since we love change at Orange Ambition, we thought we’d give it a little test drive and see what all the fuss was about.

When we say there’s a lot of commotion, we really mean discussion, and there’s lots of it! We really wanted to focus on what this would mean for users of current page builders and themes such as DIVI, so started our research in the Elegant Themes blog to see what was going on over there, and found this little round up article they wrote. There’s quite a varying degree of opinions on the subject. And some interesting articles that show lots of the functions too. Kinsta has a great write up over here. And lastly, Chris Lema has some insights into what he interpreted as the goal of these changes here. He decided things changed somewhere along the way.

What’s the Difference?

What changes will you notice if they roll out the Gutenberg editor as the new default? Well, it’s going to be a pretty drastic visual change.

 

WYSIWYG
GutenBergEditorLayout
GutenbergPageBuilder
The first thing we noticed after downloading and installing the Gutenberg Plugin (not meant for live sites, still in development), was how narrow it was laid out on the screen. In toodling around with it for half an afternoon, we found both some good and some not so friendly things going on. First, instead of a nice wide space to work in, things get narrowed down into blocks of space, stacked on top of each other. At Orange Ambition, we do tend to use page builders on quite a number of sites we build, so we were looking forward to test driving the Gutenberg Editor. Once we got in though, things felt hidden and not intuitive. If you’re adventurous though, and willing to experiment and poke around, you’ll find lots of interesting things.

 

The Gutenberg Posts blocks allow some neat embedding features.

The Gutenberg Posts blocks allow some neat embedding features.

GutenbergBlocks

Not an intuitive, “drag and drop” style builder. Still pretty intuitive though. But, you won’t be building on the front end as it stands right now.

The team developing Gutenberg is said to be working to ensure compatibility with many of the highly popular plugins. It will be interesting what challenges a company like Elegant Themes will come up against in making something like the DIVI theme compatible with it’s built in builder or the ever popular Beaver Builder by The Beaver Builder Team.  In it’s current form, the builder in the DIVI theme is completely stripped away of almost all functionality when the Gutenberg plugin is activated. The only thing left as evidence of DIVI is the page layout format tool, and it gets shoved far down to the side and almost hidden.

DIVI gets hidden with Gutenberg

DIVI builder is completely hidden and barely of any use after installation of Gutenberg

 

 

Compatibility

Posts are backwards compatible, and shortcodes will still work. We are continuously exploring how highly-tailored metaboxes can be accommodated, and are looking at solutions ranging from a plugin to disable Gutenberg to automatically detecting whether to load Gutenberg or not. While we want to make sure the new editing experience from writing to publishing is user-friendly, we’re committed to finding a good solution for highly-tailored existing sites.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/

At the end of our play session with Gutenberg, Orange Ambition was left with the feeling that WordPress is working to take control back from all the page builders (DIVI, Beaver Builder, Elementor, Site Origin’s Page Builder, etc.) out there and bring it in-house, but so far, it’s half-assed. So hopefully, in their compatibility workings, they do automatically detect other page builders in existence on the site already and don’t interfere. Perhaps with time and development, as is their goal at WordPress, we will see this morph into a powerful customizer tool which includes front-end editing. Only time will tell. As a WordPress user since about 2.0, the Zebra has always been happy with the changes that have been implemented by WordPress. Changes just take getting used to. It’s funny though, that many of these changes that have been implemented over the years, we don’t use them here. They’re made more for the casual users. Which is good for the marketplace. Let Matt Mullenweg take over the world of Wix and Squarespace users and tempt them with something just as simple and user friendly as what they’re trying to achieve in the Gutenberg Editor. The Zebra here just asks for a toggle switch to shut it off if desired, according to what’s appropriate for the client situation. All page builders and customizers and previewers have their own quirks, and Gutenberg will surely be no different.

 

Our Recent Projects

Speak With a Specialist to Get Started Today!

Let’s get to know each other. Our first hour consult is free so we can learn about your business and needs and see what tailored solutions we can provide for you.

What They’re Saying

Customer Testimonials

Sherry is very capable, diligent and a bundle of information. I have and will continue to refer her to others. 

Phil H

Owner, Advantage Home Health Solutions

Anytime I have required assistance with my website Sherry has always been able to make the changes or provide me with advice that is very helpful.
David P

Author, Self-Publisher

When I was first introduced to Sherry at Orange Ambition, I was frustrated, disillusioned and stuck. My previous experiences with others designers left me feeling helpless and totally reliant on them, their ideas and their schedule. Sherry, was a like a breath of fresh air in my world. Working with her given me back my inspiration, creativity and vision. I feel empowered again. Another huge bonus, is that she is making suggestion that save me money. I highly recommend giving Orange Ambition Web Design for all your web design needs. Thank you, Sherry, I love working with you!

Carolynne M.

Owner, Living Life In Joy

Sherry’s attention to detail & responsiveness makes her my first choice for web design and IT support. Her consideration for online security and privacy is excellent. Thank you!
Andrew J

Real Estate Agent, CIR Realty

Its been 5 months since I last posted a Review and I just have to post another one because in those 5 months Sherry has been able to mentor and teach me how to get our Ranking up to Number 1 with SEO on Google… Tonight when I went on google and searched in the Red Deer Area we were officially in Number 1 Spot on the Map. Her advice has helped us tremendously!! If you haven’t called Sherry yet WHY NOT?! She’s amazing and has helped us save so much money, while getting the most out of our Website!! Thank You Orange Ambition !!

Kayla C

Owner, West Country Pump & Filtration

Satisfaction Guaranteed

There When You Need Us

You’ll find Orange Ambition Design to be very responsive. Call, email, text, meetings online or in person. We’ll be there, on time, everytime. You’ll get to feel like our only client with personalized, responsive service.

Affordable Plans & Pricing

We have plans and packages to suit every size business and needs. And with billing by the minute, you’ll only pay for what you use and use every minute you pay for. We’re not lawyers, so we don’t charge like them. Prcing starts at $98/hour. Discounts available on package pricing.

30 Days of Free Staging

No charge stage hosting for your project for 30 days during the build and design phase. You’ll be able to check in and see the progress of your website build. Once your project is complete, we’ll help you get set up with affordable web hosting that suits your project and your budget.

Available to new website build projects for any of our clients.