The Gutenberg block editor has done more to turn the WordPress ecosystem on its head than anything in recent memory. And it has required both web designers and website owners to do some soul-searching.
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That might sound like quite a heavy impact for a content editor. But when you consider just how different Gutenberg is from the old Classic Editor, things start to become clearer.
When you think about it, the Classic Editor is, well, just a big word processor in a box. Its lack of flexibility often leads us to bypass it completely and use a page builder plugin instead. While page builders can still do many things that Gutenberg can’t, for rich content creation Gutenberg offers the potential to do much more – and without necessarily needing big, heavy plugins.
Now, those in the market for a WordPress theme have something else to think about. Could a Gutenberg-optimized theme be the best fit for your project?
What a Gutenberg-Optimized Theme Is
A Gutenberg-optimized theme assumes you’ll use the block editor as your main tool for building layouts and creating content.
So, what exactly is a Gutenberg-optimized WordPress theme? An optimized theme will offer features that are designed to help you take advantage of Gutenberg. It assumes you’ll be using it as your primary tool for building page layouts and creating content. As such, you might find:
- Custom blocks that enable new layout or content options;
- Custom styles applied to default Gutenberg blocks;
- Back end editor styles that closely resemble the front end;
This isn’t necessarily a complete listing of potential features. Theme authors may throw in any number of other block-related goodies as well. But it does provide a solid starting point when shopping for a theme.
Why This Is an Important Decision
Like just about every other aspect of WordPress, you have multiple options when it comes to content editing. These days, you can choose to stick with the Classic Editor, use a page builder plugin such as Beaver Builder or Elementor, or opt for Gutenberg.
But when it comes to those last two options, you really are making a long-term commitment. Page builders, even ones that write clean code, are difficult to simply uninstall and move on from. It means reformatting existing content – not a pleasant task on a large website.
Gutenberg is a similar experience. While you certainly can choose to move on to a different editing tool, you’re going to lose some existing formatting (particularly on the back end) during the transition.
Regardless of what direction you go, it’s critical to choose your preferred editor carefully. In essence, you are making an investment in both building and maintaining your website with this editor for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, you’ll want to consider which option makes the most sense for you – both now and a few years from now.
Disrupting the Status Quo of WordPress Themes
The WordPress theme market has been humming along for years by providing users with alternatives to the Classic Editor. This is especially so with commercial themes, where page builders have been a popular throw-in item.
Sometimes, a theme will include a bespoke page-building tool from the theme author. More often, widely-used options like Visual Composer (now known as WPBakery Page Builder) are packaged in.
The basic assumption here is that people who purchase that particular theme probably aren’t interested in the Classic Editor. They’ll want the ability to create custom layouts, embed media and other slick features with a few mouse clicks. That isn’t something the Classic Editor can easily do, and so page builders have been the preferred method.
While this makes sense, it also can make for a frustratingly uneven experience. Not all page builders are alike and some can be quite proprietary (just try disabling one that uses shortcodes). To make matters worse, some users get stuck with an outdated version of a page builder that came bundled with their theme. This can lead to incompatibilities with other plugins and WordPress itself.
A Different Take on Theme Features and Functionality
This is part of why Gutenberg was introduced into WordPress core. One of its aims is to provide a more standardized way to do these tasks. A way to create content that is more theme-independent, thus more modular. Indeed, this is what blocks are intended to do.
Because this functionality is now available within a default installation of WordPress, it theoretically means the role of a theme changes as well. Now, themes can focus on what they’re good at: taking the content you’ve created and styling it accordingly.
If a theme does include extras for content creation and layout, it can do so through custom blocks. These add to the basics that come with WordPress, allowing users to craft more complex pages. And they can do so using a native editing experience, as opposed to that of a page builder.
That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, we haven’t seen a massive number of theme authors adopt this new methodology just yet.
The Potential Downsides of Gutenberg-Optimized Themes
While this all sounds a bit Utopian, a theme optimized for the block editor has its drawbacks, too.
For one, even a theme that includes a number of custom blocks is still unlikely to match the power and flexibility of an established page builder. That’s not necessarily the fault of the theme author, though.
Just think of the time it took for the biggest page builders to get where they are today. Gutenberg is still very early on in its lifespan and it will take a while for it to catch up – if it ever truly does. It’s debatable whether that is even a goal of the project.
It also matters how custom blocks are implemented. Ideally, they’ll be part of a separate plugin, allowing you to switch themes without losing anything. If they’re fully baked into the theme, you risk losing access to those blocks if you switch themes again down the road.
Overall, Gutenberg’s relative youth may be its biggest drawback.
Overall, Gutenberg’s relative youth may be its biggest drawback. While the ecosystem continues to grow, it still has some gaping holes that need filled in.
Determining Whether a Gutenberg Optimized Theme Makes Sense for You
So, how do you know if a Gutenberg optimized theme is the right choice for you? A lot of it depends on what you need from your content editor right now, along with where you see your website going in the future.
When Gutenberg Makes Sense
There are a number of instances when going with Gutenberg is a great choice. Take, for example, those who are starting a new website from scratch. If you aren’t necessarily looking to fully replicate a page builder experience, but do want to create some more advanced content, the block editor provides a solid foundation.
Those who want more control over their editing environment may also look to Gutenberg. You get to pick and choose features, while customizing the editor to match your needs. There’s a lot more flexibility here than with the typical page builder.
In addition to any blocks that come with your theme, new ones are being released all the time via the WordPress community. And, if what you need doesn’t exist yet, you can even create your own custom blocks to do the job.
The performance and convenience of a native editing solution is also attractive. Using a Gutenberg optimized theme helps you build a beautiful website without the overhead of a massive third-party plugin. Performance enhancements have been steadily released and the UI is much improved since WordPress 5.0.
Reasons to Hold Off
Of course, this newfangled editor may not be right for everyone. To start, Gutenberg’s default offerings – even when combined with custom blocks from your theme – are not as robust as a full-on page builder. This isn’t really a flaw, as Gutenberg isn’t designed to be a complete solution out-of-the-box.
Still, if you want more, you’ll have to add (or even build) your way up when it comes to features. This could be a major turn-off to those who just want to start out with a full slate of options. That’s the big advantage of a theme that bundles a page builder.
Then there are those who have an existing website that utilizes a page builder. You might prefer the continuity of sticking with that builder when you upgrade to a new theme. Otherwise, a switch to Gutenberg could mean reformatting some content. Sometimes that’s desirable, but it depends on your time, budget and future goals.
What Will the Future Look Like for WordPress Themes?
It certainly seems like the WordPress theme market has come to a fork in the road. Many authors are still bundling page builders, while some are slowly moving towards Gutenberg. Things are still heavily tilted towards the former, however.
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The longer the block editor is around, the more theme authors will look to utilize it.
One wonders how long this imbalance will remain. Gutenberg certainly isn’t going anywhere, as it has a large amount of resources dedicated to its future development. It would appear that, the longer the block editor is around, the more theme authors will look to utilize it.
So, does this mean you should avoid a theme that includes a page builder? Probably not for the foreseeable future.
The page builders that have a strong user base and revenue stream are likely to be around for the long haul. They haven’t gone running for the hills just yet, and don’t appear to be in any immediate danger of doing so.
But it’s not all sunshine. Perhaps the biggest downside of staying with the theme and page builder model is innovation. As WordPress continues to build around Gutenberg, it’s possible that these types of themes become outdated. In addition, theme authors may simply pay less attention to them as they move on to the new way of doing things.
Building with or Without Blocks: An Important Decision
Taking it all into consideration, the most future-proof decision is to opt for a Gutenberg optimized theme. However, it’s far from a requirement at this point in time.
Both WordPress and its vibrant community are all about providing options. So, if you’d prefer a theme that is geared towards a page builder – go for it!
Likewise, if you want to take advantage of the latest developments in WordPress, look for a theme that caters to the block editor. The selection may be somewhat limited when compared to more established products, but it’s where things are headed.
With over 35,000 plugins and themes available for WordPress, it's possible that conflicts can occur between OptimizePress and themes or plugins running on your site.
Conflicts usually occur because some plugins or themes may use scripts which conflict with scripts already used inside OptimizePress, or because of other code conflicts.
Fixing Plugin & Theme Conflicts (with LiveEditor)
Although it's not possible for us to modify the code in third-party themes and plugins to work with OptimizePress, we have developed a section within OptimizePress which can help with some of these conflicts.
This section is called 'Disable Styles & Scripts' and you can find this within OptimizePress > Support > Disable Styles & Scripts
If you are experiencing problems using the LiveEditor with certain plugins, these options have been found to help resolve these issues. Please note disabling a specific theme or plugin from rendering inside the LiveEditor will stop any functionality attached to it from working within the LiveEditor or pages created with it. Normal Wordpress pages and posts remain unaffected.
Incompatible Plugins
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PLEASE NOTE: This is not an exhaustive list. If your plugins are not listed here, it does not mean they are guaranteed to work. We do update this list but with so many plugins available, it's possible that a plugin not listed here could cause problems with OptimizePress
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This page contains a log of themes and plugins with known conflicts with OptimizePress 2.0
- Better Search Replace - This plugin corrupts OptimizePress data in the database for pages created with the Live Editor and essentially destroys the pages. Avoid using this plugin at all costs. As an alternative, please use our plugin, as well as this plugin to update URLs on your site (always take database backups): https://wordpress.org/plugins/velvet-blues-update-urls/
If you have used the 'Better Search Replace' plugin and have issues with your live editor pages, you will need to restore your database from a point before you ran that plugin as there is not anything we can do on our end to fix this. - SEO Redirection (Fakhri Alsadi) - this plugin breaks the optin functionality of forms inside OptimizePress because it redirects our optin form submission URL /process-optin-form [Confirmed August 2015]
- Hybrid Connect (should now work if you use the latest Op2 and Hybrid connect) - known to cause issues in the LiveEditor. (we are considering fixes for this at the moment). The Hybrid connect team are working with us to fix this asap.
- Page Expiration Robot Pro - sometimes will not render on pages, or causes page content to disappear in LiveEditor
- WP Minify - breaks our page layouts as it does not correctly minify CSS and JS (this will result in your pages looking messed up)
- Affiliate Resources Page (Jack Born) - Stops the Pagebuilder process working properly
- LinkTrackr - breaks pages in certain browsers
- Digg Digg by Buffer - breaks the LiveEditor and stops items being editable
- Exclude Pages from Navigation - causes issues with duplicate pages or 'ghost' pages appearing
- Pretty Links Lite / Pretty Links Pro - breaks some functions of OptimizePress including the exit redirect function
- Wordpress HTTPS (SSL) - breaks the LiveEditor on some server configurations or if certain settings in the plugin are not used properly. Please see our article here regarding using an SSL with this plugin.
- Lightbox Plus ColorBox - breaks LiveEditor
- 404 Redirection - can break your Optin boxes or cause strange redirection after opt-in
- CKEditor for WordPress - stops WYSIWYG functions / text block editor from working
- WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin - causes images and elements to disappear
- Revolution Slider - conflicts with OP2
- W3 Total Cache (W3TC)- this plugin WILL work with OptimizePress but Do not use the 'minify' function as this will break the styling on your pages. Also if you're using OPtimizeMember do not use the object caching mode as this can cause issue
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- SEOPressor - breaks the LiveEditor
- WPMU - known to cause some issues (we are investigating this)]
- Ultimate Tiny MCE plugin - causes issues in the LiveEditor with updating elements
- Evergreen Post Tweeter - Tom Ewer - breaks the auto responder integration
- Cformsll - plugin causing live editor to not work properly. When clicking to edit or add an element, the loading icon swirls forever when the plugin is activated.
- Fancybox for Wordpress - can cause issues with OptimizePress pages (because we have Fancybox code inside OP2)
- Fancybox - incompatible, causes serious issuews with OP, don't use it
- Easy FancyBox - incompatible, breaks some parts of OP, better don't use
- Wow Slider - known to cause issues
- Tiny Coffee - known to cause issues
Incompatible Themes
- Place - Responsive Blogging WordPress Theme (ThemeForest)
- BootstrapPress
- Enfold theme - known to break some of our responsive resizing. Also some templates can be cut off. Templates being cut off can be fixed with custom CSS: @media only screen and (min-width: 960px) {body.op-plugin .container { width: 100%; }}
- ElegantThemes - known to cause some interference with certain parts of liveeditor
- United Theme's Nevada Theme
- Udesign Theme - causes issues with fonts
Incompatible Hosting Services
- GoDaddy* - although OptimizePress will run on GoDaddy hosting, their hosting environment is quite restrictive and we often find sites run slower on GoDaddy and also may have trouble updating. This is not a bug in OptimizePress as Godaddy servers are typically very under-powered and set with very restrictive resource limits which may cause these issues. Contact our support team if you have issues with Godaddy and we'll try to help as best we can.
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- SEOHosting - Some customers have reported strange errors when editing their sites whilst on this hosting