Gutenberg

My menu settings for the Gutenberg Editor.

~ beetleypete ~ 32 Comments

I am reposting this from the blog of Ron Walker. https://ronscountry.com/depotblog/
He has compiled a You Tube tutorial on some basic settings for the Block Editor. It is clearly explained, and easy to understand.

After realizing many are still struggling with the block editor intimidation factor, I created a video tutorial that I hope will help some get started. Having a familiar or standard layout of things you use often is the first step in getting comfortable learning. These are the basic menu settings I use, to lessen the overwhelming options in the block editor.

If you like the video, please like and subscribe to the channel. That way you will get notifications of future videos. I may make more tutorials based on the feedback and questions left here, or in the YouTube video comments.

Bad News From WordPress

~ beetleypete ~ 178 Comments

In case you haven’t seen the notifications, WordPress will shortly be doing away with the ‘Old Editor’, and forcing us to use the ‘New’ Block Editor. This supposedly improved Gutenberg editor will replace even the original block editor, so everyone on this platform will have to bite the bullet and try to cope with it.

I have written before about how I consider it TOTALLY UNNECESSARY for WordPress to do this. People who are not good with technology -like me- are dreading this all over the blogging community. As with so many things in the modern world, WordPress is choosing to ignore the ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ commonsense maxim, and I have yet to read any reasonable excuse as to why they consider the change is worthwhile.

If ‘business users’ find the new system better, then let it just be an option for them. That should be easy enough for WP to arrange.

Paying to blog won’t help. I pay for a plan, but that will still not allow me to keep my cherished ‘Original Editor’. Many current bloggers struggle to get the best out of the basic system, and they will now be forced to try to adapt to a change that seemes to me to offer no discernible improvement for the average blogger.

June the first is the big day, so brace yourselves!

I am very serious about this, and worried that I may get so frustrated with trying to cope, I might have to give up my one real joy in life, blogging.

If any of you very tech-savvy bloggers have an ‘idiots guide’ to the new system, or even screenshot tutorials, I for one would be grateful to see them.

**UPDATE** Video guide from Fraggle, via this link.

https://fragglesotherplace.com/2020/05/22/the-new-editor-for-wp/

Another short fast track guide from Ron in Alabama.

Quick and Dirty (New WP Editor)

 

Otherwise, I might be saying a sad ‘Farewell’ to you all, on June 1st.

If that happens, it’s been fun, and I send you all my best wishes.

Changing things that already work

~ beetleypete ~ 73 Comments

I have just been reading a post on another blog about the forthcoming ‘Gutenberg Editor’ change from WordPress. In case you are unaware of the impending change, here is a link to Worpress’s take on it. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/

As you will see, it is quite technical, at least to someone with my level of computer knowledge. I like to keep things simple, one of the reasons I chose to blog on the WordPress platform, six years ago. I also notice that this new system is aimed at helping those bloggers who use a Tablet Computer, or Smartphone. I still use a PC tower set up with a ‘proper’ keyboard. For all the tech-savvy people out there, I suspect this will cause little or no upset. Those of you self-hosting a dot-com blog on this platform might welcome a change to make life easier too, if that is what actually happens.

But as I said, I like to keep things simple. I still use what is known as the ‘Old Editor’. When WP changed to the supposedly ‘Improved Editor’ some time ago, I chose not to leave the old system. So as you might imagine, I am far from looking forward to having the ‘Gutenberg Editor’ imposed on me.

All through my life, I have been constantly frustrated by unnecessary change. The old saying ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ works very well for me. Not all of us can adapt to upgraded computer systems easily, and some of us (including me) struggle to get the best out of the current manifestation of WordPress, let alone one more technical.
Anyone else remember ‘Windows XP’? That was a great operating system, and I still have no idea why it had to change. Oh, actually I do. To make us spend money on the ‘new and improved’ one.

Planned obsolescence is the spectre of modern life. It won’t be long before the CD and DVD disappear, PC towers become obsolete, and if you are not doing everything ‘hand-held’, you are yesterday’s news.

If have a suggestion for WP, and all other such companies. If you want to make changes, sell ‘advances’, and foist unwanted ‘improvements’ on us, that’s fine. Just leave the original system in place, for those of us who just about cope with using it, and will possibly be forced out of blogging by changes we cannot get our heads around.