No matter whether you are a beginner website developer, a website owner, or simply interested in the world of WordPress, chances are you have already heard about Gutenberg. But what is it and what does it do exactly? To help you learn more about the topic, below we are going to discuss in depth a set of questions you need to know about Gutenberg. Afterward, in our upcoming articles, we are going to dive deeper and share with you some handy technical knowledge regarding the Gutenberg editing and development experience. 

But now, without further ado, let’s take a close look at the basics and see the most important 10 things you should know as a beginner. 

Question 1: What is Gutenberg?

To put it simply, Gutenberg is the new block-based editor specially developed for WordPress. The launch of Gutenberg is considered one of the most significant changes to WordPress in recent years. Contributors have been focused on developing Gutenberg since January 2017, until finally in 2018 with the launch of WordPress 5.0 it became available for users. What Gutenberg does is that it simplifies the overall user experience of WordPress for developers, designers, and those who are writing, editing, and publishing on WordPress. With the help of blocks, users can have a better visual representation of what their future pages, posts, or the entire site will look like once it is published. 

Question 2: What is the official roadmap for Gutenberg?

Gutenberg is continually under development. According to WordPress, there are 4 phases outlined in the Gutenberg project. At the moment, work is underway for Phase 2.

But now let’s take a look at the 4 main phases:

• Phase 1 – Easier editing: The first phase of Gutenberg is already available in WordPress with constant ongoing improvements
• Phase 2 – Customization: The second phase which is currently under work includes features such as Full Site Editing, Block Patterns, the Block Directory, and Block-based themes.
• Phase 3 – Collaboration: The third phase will offer users a more intuitive way to co-author content on pages.
• Phase 4 – Multi-lingual: Last, but not least, phase 4 consists of the core implementation for multi-lingual sites.

Question 3: When and where was Gutenberg started?

Looking back at the history of Gutenberg, the very first phase of developing the editor started in the first three months of 2017. During this time, the team was focused on designing, planning, prototyping, and testing the prototypes. This was the editor focus part of the project and helped the development team understand how to approach the project. Later in the same year, in June, the very first plugin was launched during WordCamp Europe.

Question 4: When was Gutenberg first available for WordPress?

To be accessible to WordPress customers and become a core part of WordPress, the team needed to merge Gutenberg into WordPress 5.0. This happened in December 2018. Also, it is important to mention that with each version of WordPress, a new version of Gutenberg is included. This may cause some confusion, so in case you are not sure which version goes with the version you are using, WordPress created a list, which you can see on their official website by clicking here. 

Question 5: Why was the regular WordPress editor changed to Gutenberg?

Before Gutenberg, WordPress was already the most popular publishing platform in the world. However, Gutenberg takes things to the next level. With this editor, the team’s goal was to improve the block experience and perfect it in a contained, user-friendly environment. As WordPress is an open-source platform, continuous improvements and innovations are required to make sure that the user experience is equally intuitive and enjoyable for both beginner and more advanced users. 

Question 6: What are blocks and what is their purpose?

Looking back at the classic WordPress editor, there was a need for some improvements in terms of editing. When it came to creating posts and pages with all types of images, and multimedia, adding embedded content from social media, creating polls, or inserting other elements, it required a mix of various approaches that were not as intuitive and user-friendly as it is know in the case of the Gutenberg editor. 

Here are some examples:

• Media library/HTML for images, multimedia, and approved files
• Pasted links for embeds
• Shortcodes for specialized assets from plugins
• Featured images for the image at the top of a post or page
• Excerpts for subheadings
• Widgets for content on the side of a page

The team’s goal was to make these more obvious and consistent for the users, so they came up with the idea of blocks. With Gutenberg, all the things listed above can be solved through blocks. Editing, searching, and shifting these blocks provide the user more pleasant editing and publishing experience. Also, the concept of blocks created a new common language in WordPress that made it possible to connect users to plugins and replace such old content types as widgets or shortcodes.  

Question 7: Is the drag-and-drop feature available in Gutenberg?

Yes, when developing the Gutenberg editor, the team was and has been ever since focused on creating a dynamic editor that is easy to use. This includes rearranging blocks smoothly. For this, the drag-and-drop feature is key. 

Question 8: What browsers does Gutenberg support?

It is a common worry that Gutenberg won’t support particular browsers. The good news is that there is no need to worry at att. Gutenberg supports all major browsers, such as Android, Chrome Android, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, iOS, Edge, Opera, and Internet Explorer 11. For most browsers, Gutenberg supports the current and the last one or two versions still available. 

Question 9: Is it possible to style blocks in Gutenberg?

Blocks come with their own styles, which themes can add to or even override them. The other option is when blocks provide no styles at all, so you can fully rely on what the theme has to offer. 

Question 10: Is Gutenberg made to be properly accessible? 

As you may already know, Gutenberg is still under continuous development. This means that at the very moment, not all aspects are accessible. 

Conclusion

We hope our selected list of questions helped you understand better what Gutenberg is, what it is for, and how it works. As a WordPress user, no matter whether you are a developer, designer, editor or you simply publish content for a blog from time to time, it can come quite handy to understand how Gutenberg makes the work easier and what features you can benefit from for a more pleasant and enjoyable user experience. See you in the next one!