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If you’ve been keeping up with the blog here at LP Creative, you already know the importance of publishing fresh, relevant, consistent content on your website and blog.
While the WordPress editor is a fairly intuitive tool, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered your own frustrating moments with it. Whether it’s trying to fit an image into a post (and having it just look weird), or general format issues that leave you less than satisfied… it can be a discouraging experience at times.
Luckily, WordPress is currently working on a new content editor designed just for you. Intended to be more user-friendly and straightforward, Gutenberg is something we’re extremely excited for! The official release date isn’t known as of yet, but we’re so excited about it we just can’t wait to share it with you! If this new development has you just as excited as we are, you can go ahead and download the Gutenberg plugin.
Some of our favorite new Gutenberg Editor features are:
Blocks
In the past, I’ve always felt like I was composing blog posts (and building pages, for that matter) in a mysterious word processor that I only kind of understood. I could picture how I wanted the post to look in my head, but couldn’t get it to translate properly onto my webpage. The introduction of “blocks” in Gutenberg helps to combat that visual-to-formatting disconnect.
By simply clicking a “plus” sign in the upper left corner, you’ll be presented with different types of “blocks” to choose from. Basically, “Which type of content would you like to add?”
You can choose from a headline, quote, image, video, image gallery, buttons, audio, and (of course) a plain old text paragraph.
Once you choose the type of block you want to insert into your post or page, you’ll move on to the next new-and-improved feature:
Edit Your Blocks in One Convenient Window
In the old version of the WordPress editor, changing the elements of an image was a process done in multiple windows. If you wanted to add a caption or put keywords in the image tag, you had to head to the Media Library, select an image, and edit its properties from there.
Now, simply by clicking on an image, you can add a caption right there within the editor, and edit any other image properties using the handy sidebar to the right of your screen. No more clicking in and out of the post editor to customize your images!
The same goes for non-image content – text blocks, quotes, headlines, etc., can all be edited conveniently in one view.
Text Controls
Gutenberg’s powerful new text controls allow you to manipulate your text blocks in a straightforward, user-friendly style. Easily change text size to fit your needs without interfering with the format of your other blocks, and seamlessly give your text a different background color than the rest of the page — you can even be super-fancy and give the first letter of your text the “drop cap” treatment, making it larger than the rest.
Image Galleries
This is probably my favorite feature of them all: the ability to build an interactive image gallery within the editor, and without the need of 3rd party collage software. By clicking that handy “plus” sign, you can choose “image gallery,” upload the images you want, and let the editor place them in a beautiful gallery format in just a few minutes. You can pull a slider to change the number of columns, you can add headlines, and you can assign a different link to each image.
Video
There’s no denying that video is one of the most popular ways to connect with an audience, but putting it on your website hasn’t always been the most intuitive thing to do. Now — again with that “plus” sign button — just click on the plus, scroll through the options and click on “embeds,” and let yourself be amazed by all of the 3rd party embedding options at your fingertips. All I had to do was select Youtube, paste in a video URL, and smile to myself as it appeared on my blog post… no headache, no frustration; just a perfectly-working video nestled properly within my words.
Try Gutenberg out for yourself!
You can read and read all day long and still not fully understand the exciting new changes to this familiar editor… so why not give it a try yourself? As an LP Creative client, you get to enjoy a few fun perks, including the opportunity to try the demo version of Gutenberg within a staging environment of your own website! If you’re interested in this, please be sure to send us a message so we can help set you up for success.
And, for a visual overview of Gutenberg, head on over to the WordPress website for this helpful trailer from the WordPress team.
Happy editing!