Josephine 5.9 has been released in WordPress. The big news about 5.9 is that Gutenberg finally has full site editing capabilities which means Gutenberg is ready to use in a live publishing environment.
WordPress Gutenberg is the future of content management and with the release of WordPress 5.9 that future is now. So it’s definitely time to consider exploring what Gutenberg has to offer. You may find that sites load faster, are easier to design, and because of a better user experience may help you exceed your business goals.
Should you wait before trying WordPress Gutenberg?
Some may feel that it may be safer to wait a few months or longer before downloading and using Gutenberg. This is a reasonable approach to adopting new technologies.
However, Gutenberg is not a new technology. Gutenberg has been “in the works” ever since November 2017 It has been in continuous development ever since.
So you don’t have to worry about Gutenberg being new because it’s not actually new. The new website editor is actually a fully mature product.
The full site editor sections have been released and tested over the past years until today with the release of WordPress 5.9.
Gutenberg has finally reached fully site edited status and is ready to use on live production sites.
In fact, sites are already being built with Gutenberg and there are many templates available for it now.
If you’ve ever used a page builder like Divi or Elementor, you’ll feel comfortable using the new full Gutenberg site editor.
The idea behind Gutenberg is to make construction sites easier. So there is a lot of incentive to adopt Gutenberg and get ahead of the curve.
Perhaps the wisest move would be to create a staging area to get to know Gutenberg, either online or on your computer with a desktop development environment such as Laragon which simulates a web server.
Gutenberg Navigation Block Editor
Customizer is gone when using Gutenberg
The old way to customize a WordPress page was to open the Customizer on a completely different webpage in the admin section.
For those who choose to use Gutenberg, instead of the old customizer, they are now freed to use the site editor.
The website editor can be used to design the entire website or a single template.
Those who have used the page builder will immediately understand the blocks.
The block model basically divides the web page template into sections called blocks. A webpage template is simply a collection of blocks that are organized to form a design and then styled using fonts, colors, and images. Each block has design options for fonts, layout, and colors.
WordPress Default Block Theme
With the release of WP 5.9 comes a new default block-based theme named, Twenty-Two (2022!). It’s a good place to start getting used to the new full block-based site editor.
WordPress announced that version 5.9 improves post flow:
“WordPress 5.9 features new typography tools, flexible layout controls, and finer control over details like spacing, borders, and more — to help you get not just a look, but a look that shows you care about detail.”
It also features a style guide that can help publishers swap out pre-made blocks that can be customized. WordPress 5.9 has drag and drop functionality that makes it easy to place page elements where you want them.
In version 5.9, list view allows you to drag and drop content exactly where you want it.
… Style each photo in your gallery differently, or make them all the same, except for one or two. Or change the layout using drag and drop.
However, there are many other free and paid templates that are Gutenberg compatible like the one at Astra And the pressure generation.https://wordpress.org/themes/astra/
Learn how to create websites with Gutenberg
Publish a WordPress web course titled, Simple website design with complete website editingwhich teaches publishers how to build websites with Gutenberg.
Some might feel hesitant to try the latest version of anything and that’s understandable.
Gutenberg may be the newest and newest but it has been around for years and is ready to go.
Given that this is the future of WordPress, it makes sense to take a look around to understand what it is capable of and how it can benefit your business.
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Read the official announcement
Learn to build with Gutenberg
Simple website design with complete website editing
Read about the Gutenberg site editor
