I use the WordPress ‘classic’ editor instead of ‘Gutenberg’ to write my blog posts, and I know it shows.
Admittedly, I don’t like the gaps of white space after, and between, images and text or the blocks of run-on paragraphs of text that you’ve no doubt periodically encountered when you’ve read my posts.
WordPress is steadily making it less convenient and insidiously more frustrating for me to continue using the classic editor.
So, why don’t I switch?
Two reasons.
First, Gutenberg functions on a visual-spatial format.
I don’t have a visual-spatial handicap per se. But I do struggle with visual-spatial orientation. I loathe puzzles and mazes. I’ve never enjoyed chess or checkers. I can’t ‘see’ moves. Tetris: Complete frustration. My eye-hand and eye-foot coordination deficits are why I was generally chosen last for teams when I was in elementary school. But, in Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Susie Right Over, I was the kid most likely to clothes-line Susie, because I was that strong country girl who knew how to play rough. It was straight-forward planning. No visual-spatial challenges. A line of us taunted Susie. She ran. We held the line. Susie went to the nurse’s office. Our parents were called…
I digressed. Sorry.
Mathematics was (is) so hard for me, but give me words to read and write, and it’s Katie Bar the Door. No problems there.
I can keep directions straight. I don’t become disoriented. However, when looking at a map, I have to orient the map and physically face the correct corresponding ordinal direction. I can’t rotate the directions in my head. Using Google maps or whatever to speak the directions to me doesn’t work either, because of the lag time while I work to get the directions oriented in my brain.
This is why the ‘block’ aspect of Gutenberg is so hard for me to wrap my head around. I can’t visualize block placement on a blank page.
On the Nicolas Cage scale, even thinking about switching to Gutenberg puts me on the far right side of his scale.
I have watched many YouTube tutorials about using Gutenberg. I haven’t found a tutorial yet that isn’t presented by a so-called ‘expert’ (aka smarty-pants who can’t relate to people with my learning style) and presented at break-neck speed. I gave up watching tutorials. The more I watched, the more I didn’t (and don’t) want to switch from the classic editor, despite the classic editor’s frustrating shortcomings.
Essentially, I’m a hamster running on a dysfunctional blog format writing wheel.
Second, I’m overwhelmed by all of Gutenberg’s features. It’s like math story (word) problems that require you to wade through and eliminate the useless information in order to identify the useful information.
My blogging needs are simple. I want to include images and text and eliminate the dreaded gaps of nothingness between those images and the text.
There is comfort in continuing to use the classic editor even with its shortcomings and frustrations rather than embracing Gutenberg and enduring the new and improved discomforts and unfamiliar frustrations. I haven’t reached the point of no return with the classic editor yet, but I’m close.
Suggesting I put on my big girl britches, make the switch, and deal with learning Gutenberg isn’t a bit helpful. Saying, “Oh, it’s not that difficult” or “I didn’t have any trouble switching” or similar statements doesn’t help me, either.
Despite my whining over this, there is something I can do to help myself. I have a WordPress website/blog that I kept up when I was teaching, but I unpublished it when I retired. The website has lain dormant like Smaug snoozing over his hoard of gold waiting for the day to awaken and return to the world of the living. Switching this sleeping website from classic editor to Gutenberg is where I could-maybe-sort of someday fiddle with Gutenberg’s features until I’m confident enough to make the switch here on my ‘real’ blog.
This is #MeOnMonday.
Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time
I wasn’t fond on the new editor either, but one day classic was just gone. From that point I copied previous posts and overtyped. Sometimes I stuffed up, but at least I didn’t have to deal with the new editor
I’m concerned about that happening, too — classic editor going POOF! I will keep your work-around solution in mind. Thank you.
ghostmmnc: I’m with you on blocks not making sense. If you’re like me, it’s not the basic arithmetic functions and calculations that give me fits. I can take care of banking and simple accounting and all that usual life-arithmetic. It’s the higher level math that involves words and letters and solving this for that and *gasp* geometry… nope.
You and me both! I still use classic. I tried block and none of it made sense to me. I’m sure I have discalculia – I’ve never understood math.