5 Things to Know About WordPress 5.0 (Gutenberg)

With the release of the aptly-named “Gutenberg” version of WordPress comes a whole slew of new features.

In this blog post, we’ll dive in and take a look at some of the most notable features, giving you a breakdown of what’s new and why!

The Content Editor is Gorgeous—and Brand New!

WordPress all but scrapped the previous editor and started over with a block-based editor that comes with some of the functionality of popular editing frameworks like Visual Composer or the Muffin Editor.

One of the main features of a block-based editor is that it allows you to easily create sections on your page, float things left/right, and really customize the layout/look and feel of your site without knowing how to code. Previously, WordPress requires a plugin to accomplish this (typically as part of a premium theme), but now it’s natively built-in to WordPress itself.

The Classic Editor is Still an Option (Although We Recommend Going with Gutenberg)

Not everyone likes change, right? And in this case, if you’re one of those people you can still use the classic editor, although we’d definitely recommend sticking with the new one.

In order to enable the classic editor, you need to download and install a plugin called “Classic Editor.” Essentially, it deactivates all of the new, cool Gutenberg features (if you want that) and restores the classic visual/HTML editor that everyone is used to with WordPress. This plugin is also created and maintained by the WordPress team, so you don’t need to worry about installing a potentially-sketchy, third-party plugin.

2019 is WordPress’s Most Powerful Default Theme Yet

Most of the previous versions of WordPress default themes were primarily set up to be blog-based websites. Yes, you could sorta of “rig” them to look like full-fledged sites using pages and some other tactics, but in their most basic form—well, they were pretty basic.

That’s all changed with the 2019 theme, where you can actually set it up out-of-the-box for a variety of websites. You can use it to design a photography website, a corporate website, even a magazine site—all sorts of different options are possible with the stock theme. Yes, premium themes will always be better for specific things, but this is the first time ever that the default theme has been this powerful.

Most of the Essential Plugins are Already Compatible with WordPress 5.0

Most of the top WordPress plugins like Sucuri, Yoast, WP3, Jetpack, etc. are already compatible with version 5.0. On top of that, most of the important premium theme makers have already updated their themes to be compatible with 5.0 as well, so no worries there.

However, there are still a lot of lesser-known plugins and less popular themes that are most likely not compatible with WordPress 5.0, so you need to proceed with caution if you’re updating and make sure you check everything on a one-by-one basis.

Upgrading to 5.0 Should Not Affect Previously-Posted Content

WordPress 5.0 was created in a way that the new block-based functionality shouldn’t affect previously-posted content. This means that any content that was posted using the old editor should stay the same and not be affected.

However, it’s important to understand that if you go and edit any new content with the Gutenberg editor, then it may be affected—so this only applies to content that’s previously been posted and not edited again after upgrading to 5.0.