I am struggling to get any sort of decent formatting with the Gutenburg Editor. It seems that there is no mechanism for setting styling for a given page or operation. Any styling has to be applied to each block individually. So, if you want to use a particular font and size on a page, or post, then you have to set that font type and size on each block that you enter. Incredibly frustrating.
I would have liked the ability to select a number of blocks to which I could apply settings, and options.
Other issues, or points I find frustrating:
- Adding an inline Image. The option to add an inline image only appears after you have started typing. Which means if you want an Image at the start of a line you have to start typing and then move to the beginning to add your inline image. No too arduous I will admit, except that I only found out about the ‘inline’ image once I had already spent many hours trying to place an image at the start of a line.
- The Generic HTML block. If you switch to preview, then with it in preview, switch to another block, the HTML block will not switch back to edit mode. You have to asve as draft/publish and then re-edit the page to be able to edit the block. At least that is the only mechanism I have found that works.
- Tables. To add a header you have to switch to HTML, to control the column widths you have to switch to HTML. If you want vertical banding instead of horizontal banding you have to switch to HTML.
My issue with the Gutenberg editor is that creating a blog should be easy. I shouold not have to learn a whole new way of thing, of interacting, of UI clicks to create a blog.
If I look on WordPress forum for solutions it appears that there are a plethora of Plugins to the Editor to add feqatures and improvements. But I should not have to go looking for these just to create a Blog that looks the way I want it.
WYSIWYG editors for HTML have been around for years. Did we seriously have to invent a new one, and a functionally incomplete one at that.
CoBlocks
Loaded up CoBlocks plugin which adds a number of additional blocks to Gutenberg. Thought I would see if getting these additional blocks improved the usability of Gutenberg. And they certainly do. They provide the ability to:
- Easily set font-type, font-size, font-color. True its on a Paragraph by paragraph basis, but at least you can easily set these attributes.
- Divide the page into a number of variable width columns, as opposed to a fixed number of columns where the width is determined by the browser.
- Easily insert shapes and media into the page. (See below examples.)
CoBlocks does not add to the ‘Inline’ set of elements, which is a bit of a shame, but even so the ‘Row’ block is definitely a giant step forward in making Gutenberg more useable for content layout.
Interesting UI. When you add a block into a ‘Row’, it places the block above the Row, as opposed to inside it. The ‘Row’ block then drops down.
My hightlighted text.
Would have liked a bit more control over the button size. The button size does vary with the text font-size, but there is more space around the text than I like.
CoBlocks does provide a range of button shapes, just not the control over the padding between button and text.
