As you've likely already heard, WordPress 5.0 includes Gutenberg; an entirely new publishing experience. In the past, we've discussed Gutenberg quite a bit and think it's a great opportunity to robust content. In fact, we were not only one of the earliest adopters of Gutenberg when we created our Gutenberg block for Gravity Forms, but we've also been active contributors to the project for quite a while.
How Does Gutenberg Impact Gravity Forms Users?
At the moment, standard Gravity Forms installations won't see much of a difference. You'll still have the same form creation and editing experience that you've always known.
When it comes to embedding forms into posts or pages, you will see a few changes. Since the default WordPress post editor is being changed, you might notice that the Add Form button is no longer in its standard place.
A New Experience When Embedding New Forms
Within the old WordPress post editor, clicking on the Add Form button would allow you to select your form and options, then insert the Gravity Forms shortcode into your page. Due to the area no longer existing, the button will no longer be there when using the new Gutenberg editor. This leaves you with a few different options for embedding your forms:
- Place the Gravity Forms shortcode within a Gutenberg shortcode block.
- Install the optional Gravity Forms Gutenberg block from the Downloads page or on GitHub.
- Go back to the old post editor using the Classic Editor plugin.
Of course, as Gutenberg matures, we'll be further integrating Gravity Forms with Gutenberg to gain a more seamless experience directly within the core Gravity Forms plugin.
The Future of Gutenberg Support in Gravity Forms
Over the years, Gravity Forms has become the go-to WordPress form plugin for businesses who rely on stability, security, and compatibility. With larger adoption than any other WordPress form plugin on the market, especially amongst enterprise clients, we want to ensure that anything we do is fully backwards compatible for both users and 3rd-party developers alike.
Right now, Gutenberg is still very much in a state of heavy development. Due to our customers' high expectations, we can't confidently merge our Gutenberg block into the core Gravity Forms plugin while still keeping our promise to provide the high-quality product that we're known for.
We'll be keeping an eye on things and eventually merging our Gutenberg features into the core Gravity Forms plugin, but for right now, we've chosen to focus on stability and extensibility.
Should I Avoid Updating to WordPress 5.0?
We always recommend updating to the latest release of WordPress. Gutenberg aside, WordPress 5.0 does include several changes that will improve the stability and security of your site. Even if you're not a fan of Gutenberg or aren't ready to fully make the jump yet, you can always update and use the old post editor with the Classic Editor plugin.
Gravity Forms will still work the same as before, with the exception of the Add Form button when using the Gutenberg editor. In fact, unless you're embedding a form into a new page or post, you won't see a difference when it comes to Gravity Forms.
Our Hopes for the Future of Gutenberg
Moving forward, we want to see Gutenberg further mature into a stable product, as well as address the various accessibility and developer concerns that have existed for quite a while now.
Even as Gutenberg releases today in WordPress 5.0, we're still seeing a constant flux within the Gutenberg codebase, as well as accessibility issues that can cause issues for people with various individual needs. Gutenberg has certainly been making progress, but like any other new feature, it still has some growing up to do.
As the Gutenberg project progresses and is able to address those concerns, we'll be able to move forward with a more thorough adoption of it within Gravity Forms.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we're still excited about the Gutenberg project, but are still looking for a certain level of maturity that our customers require. We're still working hard to bring some great features to Gravity Forms that will utilize the Gutenberg editor, and we believe you'll absolutely love what we have coming in the future as Gutenberg matures.
If you have additional thoughts about Gutenberg, good or bad, we'd love to hear more from you. Leave us a comment below to keep the discussion going and with any luck, we'll be able to work together to make WordPress and Gutenberg truly amazing.
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I have many websites using Gravity Forms that are sitting on WordPress 4.9.8. My migration path consists of a 2 phase approach with a backup performed on site for each phase.
Phase 1 is to install the Classic Editor and update to WordPress 5.0 without using the Gutenberg Editor and update all plugins. I need to verify WordPress 5.0 will not have a conflict with the existing collection of installed plugins or have functional issues, while getting the benefit of overall improvement from a WordPress Version 5 environment.
Phase 2 is to test with WordPress 5.0 with Gutenberg Editor to ensure there are no incompatibility issues with the new editor. I have approximately 20 plugins installed on each site (and don't have the same collection of plugins on every site). These sites are in production mode.
The test effort to perform both phases is about 30 to 45 minutes. I have 24 sites; hence it will take more than 12 hours. If I discover any problems, there will be additional work-efforts to troubleshoot and resolve the issues. The phase 2 work-efforts are mainly a non-billable service that will be on the back-burner. I have no intention to jump onto the Gutenberg bandwagon immediately.
My Gutenberg Deployment Plan is to first create a new website with Gutenberg and put it into production. If the result the new development is a stable site and without issues, I will begin to look at my existing install base and decide on those websites to convert. On a piecemeal basis, I will convert those websites to use the Gutenberg Editor over a period of time. Also, I need to roll-out training for my customers with these change sites. I don't see all of my install base using Gutenberg. Some websites will need to be redesigned, instead of converted. And, other sites will simply stay with the Classic Editor for their life-cycle
The documentation Gravity Forms has provided regarding WordPress 5.0 is essential for me. I don't expect any problems with Gravity Forms. Thank you for verifying backward compatibility.
Hence, it seems Automattic is creating more work for me because of their loosey-goosey planning with Gutenberg that is almost ready for full production.
As soon as I was able to get Gutenberg working, I immediately noticed that Gravity Forms was missing its functionality. If you experience something similar, the first thing you should do is search for the plugin name and append it with Gutenberg. Fortunately, Gravity Forms had a solution for this. They created an add-on that you have to install and activate to make their plugin work with Gutenberg.