A message from WordPress seemed to start the day well – an anniversary greeting as I’ve been on WordPress 10 years. Then the kick in the teeth: not only is a new editor is to be introduced but it will be the default, though the classic editor will be “available as a plugin”.

Gutenberg

Photo of Gutenberg statue in Strasburg

Gutenberg statue in Strasburg

They are calling it ‘Gutenberg’, which doesn’t bode well; it’s certainly arrogant as Gutenberg brought about a real publishing revolution and, of course, there’s already the Gutenberg Project which, by making so many of the best writers ever freely available to all, was close to being a similarly far-reaching publishing revolution.

I’m just hoping that this new WordPress editor applies only to the self-hosted blogs run under WordPress.org, not those constructed under WordPress.com. If the current excellent ‘classic’ editor is available only as a plugin then I might surmise it will be available only under WordPress.org.

Fixing things which ain’t broke

I’ve commented before on the tendency of projects run by ‘techies’, like WordPress, to fix things which ain’t broke. I read a note from WordPress on what the new editor was all about; I’m not completely computer/IT illiterate but I did not understand a single word – all about ‘blocks’ written, presumably, for block heads. (I may have also said before that WordPress needs some good technical writers!)

So far I’ve been able to ignore the message which appears every time I begin a new post, that the ‘new’ editor is better and easier – not for me it’s not. I tried it of course. Terrible. And, although I now write most of my blog posts on an iPad, the app is also terrible and I ignore it.

I hope I’ve got it all wrong as if turns out that WordPress.com users like me are forced to use the new editor I’ll probably be saying “Goodbye WordPress”.

PS. Although grumpytyke was born ten years ago, it was quite a bit later that he began to post (about four years later!).