At Automattic, we challenge ourselves to continuously use and test the products we work on. This time we are challenging ourselves to re-create a Longreads article using our new (soon to be in Core) block-based editor – Gutenberg.
The Challenge
- Use the latest version of Gutenberg (currently 2.5)
- Recreate an existing Longreads post as closely as possible
- Stay within 2 hours
For my test, I chose Welcome to the Center of the Universe by Shannon Stirone.
The Outcome
It took me about 22 minutes to set up the new post using Gutenberg. While copy/paste was surprisingly efficient and smooth, the editor lacked additional typography formatting options to get the results I wanted.
Here are some things I wish worked better:
- Theme imposed limitations on styling and layout. I wish I could see all editing/formatting tools even if they are inactive for my current theme.
- Better visual cues where one block ends and another begins.
- Not clear how to insert a new block between existing two already created.
- Text formatting tools like line-height, letter-spacing, paragraph padding (all sides), selective words color (same for links)
- More styles and customization options for the line separator
- Photo caption editing options
Below screencast video is to show how things went for me:
Overall, it was a good experience with a lot of potential and flexibility! #Gutenberg
Automattic Design 
Comments
Thanks for writing this post. You’ll be pleased to know that looking at better ways to add blocks in-between other blocks is being investigated here: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/5396.