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Gutenberg was just too late to the game. Automattic sat too long, let third-parties come in and solve a critical user experience problem, and now they’re reapin

Gutenberg was just too late to the game. Automattic sat too long, let third-parties come in and solve a critical user experience problem, and now they’re reaping those consequences. When Gutenberg shipped, we had to install Classic Editor on hundreds of websites that were all running third-party builders. Some of those third-party builder sites even broke in the Gutenberg release, and we had to rollback core because of incompatibility. Don't get me wrong, I actually like building in Gutenberg and have done a few Gutenberg projects (using ACF Blocks [1]). But convincing clients/users to migrate from third-party builder that has locked-in content with advanced features like columns, modals, show/hide content, responsive show/hide controls, animation, effects, and a whole host of other various bells and whistles was just a nonstarter. They'd pay in man hours the same as they would for an entirely new, custom built site. And that was for every site. [1] https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-5-8-introducing-acf-blocks-for-gutenberg/ https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-5-8-introducin...

dawnerd 6y ago
Clients seem to like ACF with Gutenberg but the real problem is like you said sites that have used either a custom page builder before or just tons of legacy content. There just isn’t a good way to migrate it so you’re kinda forced to support both.
- codyogden 6y ago
  I agree. We sent out three quotes to clients who were daily engaged with and using their site who kept themselves informed on Gutenberg/WordPress news, etc. They were very excited at the prospect of a native editor...until they saw that migrating the site for Gutenberg would end up being double what they paid for the initial site (done by someone else).
marc_io 6y ago
I don't know if they are too late. WordPress is a 10 ton animal that moves rather slowly, but still has a growing user base. Gutenberg is part of a long-term project, as Matt said. I'm confident that they will eventually catch up and that the final product will be great. Let's say that, considering the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross “Five Stages of Grief” (Denial → Anger → Bargaining → Depression → Acceptance), we have not yet entered the “acceptance” part, as a community. (editing: grammar)
interestica 6y ago
My favourite incompatibility/bug with ACF+Gutenberg was when the act of previewing caused changes to go live on a site. Preview! I tore my hair out trying to solve - I didn't think there was any way that the preview wouldn't be completely insulated. https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-5-9-1-release/ https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-5-9-1-release/
pentagrama 6y ago
> Gutenberg was just too late to the game. Automattic sat too long, let third-parties come in and solve a critical user experience problem Estoy en desacuerdo. La experiencia que he tenido con plugins como Elementor, WPBackery, Divi, etc que apuntan a cubrir las mismas necesidades que Gutenberg, la considero muy mala, ya sea por performance, UX, o accesibilidad. Además de que constantemente te insisten con upsells "Go pro". En cambio Gutenberg está en el core de WordPress, no es una dependencia de un tercero que si deja de existir tu sitio probablemente se rompa, y si bien Gutenberg tiene un largo camino a mejorar, hoy en día ya es superior a los plugins existentes. Sorry my English is not good enough to write quick and clear.
- codyogden 6y ago
  Sin preocupaciones. You're not wrong! But I was not praising things like Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, etc. I hate them all equally for various reasons. I meant that those third-party plugins filled a market need, and Automattic brought Gutenberg into the market many, many years later after they had established themselves. This caused detriment to users because they weren't able to convert off of third-party editors easily or cheaply.
  - pentagrama 6y ago
    OK, but is not late better than never? All the new users of WP, now, will have the Gutenberg experience from the start, for free, possible minimizing the need to look for third parties plugins. Yes, the current users of third party plugin editors are tied to keep using it, or make the huge effort to ditch em (it breaks many things). But this is the risk of using any plugins for content creation is in it? Maybe a good plugin idea for the Gutenberg team is a migration tool from [plugin editor] to Gutenberg. I think that is not too late, the popularity of third parties builders make the statement that this feature was needed, and now is moving to core, and in my opinion with superior UX/Dev teams of all the freemium third parties plugins. The future is shining.
photomatt 6y ago
You make a good point that some folks using "classic" are really using one of the page builder plugins that are incompatible with Gutenberg. My long-term view there is that "proprietary," as in specific to a single plugin, data structures and UI are going to be less and less appealing to users over time as the standard rails of blocks and the applications being written on top of Gutenberg blocks, including the mobile apps, become more of a must-have for many sites. The future of page builder plugins is extending Gutenberg, not trying to recreate what it does well with fewer developers and a much smaller community. This switchover has already happened for a good chunk of the user base, over half, and the remainder will have an opportunity to switch on the cadence that they redesign their site, which is usually every few years.

dawnerd 6y ago

Clients seem to like ACF with Gutenberg but the real problem is like you said sites that have used either a custom page builder before or just tons of legacy content. There just isn’t a good way to migrate it so you’re kinda forced to support both.

codyogden 6y ago
I agree. We sent out three quotes to clients who were daily engaged with and using their site who kept themselves informed on Gutenberg/WordPress news, etc. They were very excited at the prospect of a native editor...until they saw that migrating the site for Gutenberg would end up being double what they paid for the initial site (done by someone else).

marc_io 6y ago

I don't know if they are too late. WordPress is a 10 ton animal that moves rather slowly, but still has a growing user base. Gutenberg is part of a long-term project, as Matt said. I'm confident that they will eventually catch up and that the final product will be great. Let's say that, considering the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross “Five Stages of Grief” (Denial → Anger → Bargaining → Depression → Acceptance), we have not yet entered the “acceptance” part, as a community. (editing: grammar)

interestica 6y ago

My favourite incompatibility/bug with ACF+Gutenberg was when the act of previewing caused changes to go live on a site. Preview! I tore my hair out trying to solve - I didn't think there was any way that the preview wouldn't be completely insulated. https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-5-9-1-release/ https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-5-9-1-release/

pentagrama 6y ago

> Gutenberg was just too late to the game. Automattic sat too long, let third-parties come in and solve a critical user experience problem Estoy en desacuerdo. La experiencia que he tenido con plugins como Elementor, WPBackery, Divi, etc que apuntan a cubrir las mismas necesidades que Gutenberg, la considero muy mala, ya sea por performance, UX, o accesibilidad. Además de que constantemente te insisten con upsells "Go pro". En cambio Gutenberg está en el core de WordPress, no es una dependencia de un tercero que si deja de existir tu sitio probablemente se rompa, y si bien Gutenberg tiene un largo camino a mejorar, hoy en día ya es superior a los plugins existentes. Sorry my English is not good enough to write quick and clear.

codyogden 6y ago
Sin preocupaciones. You're not wrong! But I was not praising things like Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, etc. I hate them all equally for various reasons. I meant that those third-party plugins filled a market need, and Automattic brought Gutenberg into the market many, many years later after they had established themselves. This caused detriment to users because they weren't able to convert off of third-party editors easily or cheaply.
- pentagrama 6y ago
  OK, but is not late better than never? All the new users of WP, now, will have the Gutenberg experience from the start, for free, possible minimizing the need to look for third parties plugins. Yes, the current users of third party plugin editors are tied to keep using it, or make the huge effort to ditch em (it breaks many things). But this is the risk of using any plugins for content creation is in it? Maybe a good plugin idea for the Gutenberg team is a migration tool from [plugin editor] to Gutenberg. I think that is not too late, the popularity of third parties builders make the statement that this feature was needed, and now is moving to core, and in my opinion with superior UX/Dev teams of all the freemium third parties plugins. The future is shining.

photomatt 6y ago

You make a good point that some folks using "classic" are really using one of the page builder plugins that are incompatible with Gutenberg. My long-term view there is that "proprietary," as in specific to a single plugin, data structures and UI are going to be less and less appealing to users over time as the standard rails of blocks and the applications being written on top of Gutenberg blocks, including the mobile apps, become more of a must-have for many sites. The future of page builder plugins is extending Gutenberg, not trying to recreate what it does well with fewer developers and a much smaller community. This switchover has already happened for a good chunk of the user base, over half, and the remainder will have an opportunity to switch on the cadence that they redesign their site, which is usually every few years.