Are you excited about the next major release, WordPress 5.0? According to Matt Mullenweg’s post in the core channel, the new targeted date for 5.0 is 6th December 2018. The 5.0 update is likely to ship out in the targeted date, however, it might also get postponed if any new information arises indicating the software is not stable yet.
The WordPress 5.0 update will include Gutenberg as its default editor. The Gutenberg Editor is vastly different from the current classic editor. It is all about the blocks. You will have to write, edit, and publish your blog posts through blocks available. It is a completely new experience for those who’re used to the classic editor. There are only two possibilities with this new editor—either you’ll love it or you’ll be very uncomfortable using it.
So, how do we prepare for the big change? Since 5.0 is bringing a big change in the editor, it is quite sure that the update will carry several bugs and issues. Therefore, to all our users, we recommend that you do not run the update on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play around with the newest version.
In case you update your production website with the WordPress 5.0 and the new editor breaks your website with issues and bugs, don’t worry! You still have a way out. You can install the Classic Editor Plugin from the WordPress Plugin Repo and use the old classic editor like before. If you choose to upgrade to 5.0 but not to use the Gutenberg editor, you will still get other improvements and fixes that have been included in 5.0.
The Classic Editor is supported until 2022 and now allows you to switch between Classic and Gutenberg on a per-user or per-post level, according to Matt.
If you’ve been playing with the Gutenberg editor since its inception, you might feel content using it. However, if you’re not ready for the new editor, don’t feel comfortable using Gutenberg, or if the new editor breaks some elements on your site, just go for the Classic Editor Plugin.
We, the Catch Themes team are also getting ready for the new update and preparing ourselves to make our themes and plugins Gutenberg-compatible. It might take some time, but we will surely bring our updated WordPress themes and plugins once the WordPress 5.0 rolls out.