WordPress and Gutenberg

I know I’ve been on and off, always repeating myself with writing out more WordPress-related tutorials, however, even though I have been busy (because life happens, of course), I’m still on track with following the awesome volunteers that make WordPress so awesome. The biggest, latest anticipation for WordPress for this year is the upcoming the release of WordPress 5.0. The date was projected to be released early this year in April 2018, but it may take a little longer than that.

Who here has been using WordPress for their blogging platforms or just your sites in general? I’m pretty sure at around this point, we have gotten used to using TinyMCE as our content editor. TinyMCE had been the standard text/content editor for many online platforms, from blogging/CMS software to forums to fiction/fanfiction writing sites, and in some cases, social media platforms. We all have gotten used to seeing TinyMCE. Some were even tweaked and customized to fit the platform it’s being hosted, which makes it a lot cooler with flexibility. Many of us have grown using TinyMCE wherever we go and create our content. However, with the upcoming release of WordPress 5.0, we eventually will part with TinyMCE and start a brand-new era of blogging/CMS.

Hello Gutenberg!

The folks at Automattic and its individuals have been working for some 2-3 years now for the newest release of WordPress. The main feature that everyone has been hearing about and are anticipating is WordPress 5’s completely re-scripted text editor called Gutenberg. I mentioned TinyMCE in the earlier post because Gutenberg will be replacing TinyMCE as our content/text editor. I haven’t seen the feature myself, but I do plan to in the near future (and possibly write about Gutenberg in the upcoming days). For the time being, Gutenberg is available as a plugin for those who are interested in being beta testers. However, if you decided to become a contributor to Gutenberg and want to try to test this feature out, then it’s the best idea for you to do your testing in a local environment, not in a live production site (such as your blog/personal site, for example).

This is where I get to shift a few things with my upcoming WordPress tutorials. I’ve mentioned that I’d be opening some focused on theme development, but before everything else, I feel that it’s better to focus right from the beginning first. I have already touched base on the local environment and specific software such as AMPPS and Local by Flywheel, but lately, I have been using Local by Flywheel to make my child themes for my other blogs/sites.

So, as a start for my WordPress (basic) tutorial series, I’m going to introduce local environment development first using Local by Flywheel, and in turn, you can create a sample site and test the Gutenberg plugin there instead of installing it in your existing WordPress blog/site. A week ago, I signed up for basic Gutenberg courses so I can have a head start on how the upcoming WordPress 5 is going to look like. You can go ahead and sign up also ($13 for the entire course at a limited time) and get yourself ahead as well. After I get myself more familiar with Javascript, I also signed up for Zac Gordon’s Gutenberg Development course so that I can learn how to build plugins strictly for Gutenberg when possible.

What about theme development?

The addition of Gutenberg may affect in some ways on how to build custom themes. Maybe it won’t. But as far as I can see, the order of my tutorials would be something tentative like this:

• WordPress Development with Local by Flywheel
• Gutenberg
• Theme Development
• Plugin Development (?)

Again, I’m not sure when I’m going to start my Local by Flywheel tutorial. Maybe soon. We’ll see.