Project Gutenberg is the code name for a redesign of the WordPress post editor. It’s an ambitious change set to ship next month in WordPress 5.0. Taking inspiration from Medium and appealing to web authors who use WordPress more like a CMS than a blog, Gutenberg features a block-based design for visually laying out the text and elements of a web page.
As I test Gutenberg, I keep coming back to one question: is it good for blogging? The goal with Micro.blog is to make blogging easier so that more people will have their own site instead of delegating their web identity to a social network. Gutenberg is more flexible than today’s WordPress, but it’s also more complex for someone who just wants to type in a few sentences and hit publish.
I’ve been talking about this with Daniel on our podcast Core Intuition. Many WordPress users will love Gutenberg, but there will be a significant number who just want a simple posting interface for blogging. This is where a traditional native blogging app like MarsEdit or the focused UI around microblogging seem like much better fits.
Put another way, as WordPress matures I think it moves further away from the ideal blogging interface for someone who wants to write every day. Even as we add features to Micro.blog — domain names, themes, full-length posts, photos, podcasting — the core platform will always be rooted in the simple idea of a text box and a timeline.
Ashraf Ali I understand where you are coming from. Still, micro.blog could benefit from small tweaks like saving drafts automatically on posts and replies, queueing posts up, exposing markdown using a small breadcrumb nav. Again, not everything has to be revealed to the user, perhaps it's a setting thing for power users.
Still, micro.blog's simplicity needs to be balanced with some power user needs. Or quickly, you hit a wall. And I don't know if client apps can solve all of these problems when the browser and mobile apps are just as important to first-time users. It's a tricky situation.
Manton Reece @nerveband Agreed, there are a lot of areas we can continue to expand and refine. Thanks for the feedback!
Ron Guest @nerveband I actually think some of the things MB has done as ‘simple’ have made things more complicated (at least that was the case on my learning curve). I agree with your points and that improvements in UX design could make more power available in the apps without complicating the UI. But I think it is hard for one person to handle both the backend and a large part of the app dev work. So cheers to @Manton for the ongoing changes.
John Johnston love:
text box and a timeline.
Should be on a sticker.
Ron Guest I think if they add post templates to Gutenberg it could possibly deliver on fairly simple posting as well as more powerful flexibility. I could imagine a Independent Publisher theme that would provide a quick/simple blog post template as well as longer form post templates with photos or etc. That being said for my needs the only time I use the WP app for composition is to create a long-form post that doesn’t go to my timeline (because I will manually post a synopsis with link). Many different personas out there for blogging - it’s good WP can provide more ‘power’ for those who need it and still work well with MB.
Manton Reece @ronguest Anything in particular you're thinking of that turned out to be more complicated?
Ron Guest I’ve mentioned them before. But one was the UI for posting - as a non-markdown user I was stymied by how to style and post links (what goes in the brackets, what goes in parens) and how to control what happens for titles/longer posts, how to control photo aspect ratio, etc. It was all trial and error for me and, at the time, a bit obfuscated by running into some bugs (e.g. back when a vertical bar screwed up markdown processing, now resolved).
Manton Reece @ronguest Thanks, good point. I've been thinking lately about how best to revisit Markdown so that it is more approachable.
Kelly Guimont Random thought I had: I don't write in the editor so I don't really care what WP does with their UI. Yes it's because I've been online too long and learned (the hard way) to NEVER compose in the editor, I suppose. Maybe it's less of a concern now?
Kelly Guimont @mdhughes It used to be way less reliable to compose there so I quit doing it ages ago. I imagine it's improved, but why bother when I have MarsEdit? (:
Rene van Belzen I like the way the Amino app composes a link. Whenever the user pastes an url into the textbox, it prompts the user to enter a title, and combines it with the url into a linked text element.
jw @Verso this makes em realize how long it's been since i've used a blog's actual interface to write anything.
p.s. i miss ya and am sorry i've been so abnsent from Core Audio! Any chance I'll see you Saturday?
Manton Reece @Verso Good point, when I was using WordPress for my blog I didn't type directly in the editor very often either. I assume most people do, so I'm curious how everyone will react to Gutenberg.
Kelly Guimont Definitely a line of demarcation for people on the web, are you inherently suspicious of the online editor or not? (:
Manton Reece @renevanbelzen Thanks, I'll have to check that out. When sharing a link to Micro.blog on iOS, we do automatically create the Markdown, but not for pasting links.
Simon Woods It's interesting to see them make an aggressive move against Squarespace and the like.