WordPress Has Never Offered an Ideal Writing Experience
It needed to be said. I know some of you loved writing in the classic editor. I know some of you enjoy the current block editor. Some of you may have even been thrilled with the platform’s earlier attempt at a distraction-free writing mode.
But, for actual writing, WordPress has always been kind of, sort of , OK — maybe even good — but not great.
Coupled with a content-focused theme with great typography and a registered editor stylesheet, both the classic and block editors could be equals. They would offer an interface and experience of editing the content as seen on the front end. However, having the back and front ends meet does not necessarily mean you have an ideal writing experience. It can be a top-tier platform for layout and design. However, for typing words on a screen, there are better tools.
When I talk about writing, I am generally referring to mid or long-form content. If you are penning 200-word posts, dropping in photos, or designing a landing page, WordPress is as good as it comes. For publishing software, it is a powerhouse that few systems can rival.
However, publishing and writing are two different things.
There was a time that I wrote pages upon pages of essays, fiction, and everything else by hand. With a pen and pad, I spent hours drafting papers for my college classes. Even in my final two years, as I took four or five English and journalism courses at a time, I clung to what I knew best. The feel of the pen in my hand was a source of comfort. It glided atop the page in legible-but-imperfect cursive.
It was not until an ethnography class that I had to put down the pen and move on to the technological upgrade of the computer. Don’t get me wrong. I was a speedy typist at the time and was well on my way to becoming a WordPress developer. I did not come of age with computers, but I picked up the skills I needed quickly. I was even writing blog posts in the OG classic editor back then.
However, writing was such a personal act for me, and the keyboard and screen felt impersonal. A 30-page ethnographic paper on modern literacy changed my view on the matter. Since then, I have not looked back.
If you are concerned that I will say that you are stuck in the past, that is not the case. The tools we use can be a great comfort to us. I would not tell a pianist not to compose their next piece on the old church piano they have played since childhood. That may be one source of their inspiration, likewise, for someone’s favorite writing software.
What I have learned is to try out new things once in a while. I am very much the type of person who gets stuck using the tools that I am comfortable with, so I remind myself to mix it up from time to time.
The classic WordPress editor and […]
