Update: “Try Gutenberg” Call-out available in WordPress 4.9.8

Update August 2, 2018 – 9:30 am ET

The release of WordPress 4.9.8 seems to move forward as planned starting the process at 20:00 UTC / 4 pm ET. The update script check about every hour. 

If you need to avoid the Gutenberg Nag, or Gutenberg for that matter we listed 12 methods in a different post.

One the Make blog for the Core team, Gary Pendergast posted a few notes about the new feature:  “Try Gutenberg” Callout in WordPress 4.9.8

Q: Is the Try Gutenberg callout a one time message

Once you dismiss it, it won’t reappear. If you want to bring it back at any point, open the “Screen Options” dropdown on the Dashboard, and check the “New Editor” option.

Gary Pendergast

Update July 31, 2018 – Release 4.9.8 moved to August 2, 2018

An additional modification on the logic for showing the Try Gutenberg prompt in the dashboard triggers another Release Candidate (RC3) before 4.9.8 will come automatically to WordPress sites.

Gary Pendergast posted a new track ticket early morning, narrowing down the rules for when the Gutenberg call-out is displayed in the WordPress dashboard.

• When Gutenberg is either not installed, or not activated, only show the callout to users with the install_plugins capability.
• When Gutenberg is activated, expand that to include all users with the edit_posts capability.

The Gutenberg team released Gutenberg 3.4 version today with 60+ change log items. For users switching back and forth between Gutenberg and Classic Editor there is now a warning in place, to caution editing  content in blocks with the Classic Editor.

Then we will be doing final 4.9.8 release on Thurs (Aug 2), time also still TBD. The 2 days between RC3 and final will allow the Gutenberg team to ensure that GB v3.4 is running smoothly and do a v3.4.1 if necessary

Paul Biron, co-release lead for WordPress 4.9.8 on #core channel.

New design of the Introduction to Gutenberg page, by Kjell Reigstad:

Update July 30, 2018 – Release maybe moved to August 2,2018

Last week the Core and Gutenberg teams discussed how and when best to let users know that when they create content with  Gutenberg editor and then decided to go back to the classic editor that they might lose  data and formatting for the Gutenberg content. The 3.4 version of Gutenberg has some conditional warning messages built in and is ready to be released.

Some contributors worry, that if users decide to no use Gutenberg, that they won’t use the Classic Editor for editing instead but deactivate Gutenberg and won’t be able to see the warning. For those users there would need to be also a warning coming from Core, which won’t be in 4.9.8, now available as Release Candidate. Putting any warning into core would  require a quick release of 4.9.9.

On Monday, Gary Pendergast suggested to move the 4.9.8 release to August 2, 2018 for the following reasons. 

• Gutenberg 3.4. is on target to be released tomorrow, moving 4.9.8  two days would give the Gutenberg Team to release a 3.4.1 update fixing any unforeseen flare ups.
  
• The Try Gutenberg dashboard call out now  shows a link to the live demo for people who don’t have enough privileges to install plugins so they still can acquaint themselves with Gutenberg. For the link to get into the call-out the core team would need to issue 3rd release candidate version before the final release comes out. The new design of the Gutenberg landing page includes a live demo of Gutenberg and is scheduled to be released tomorrow as well.
  
• Another issue was filed, requesting a warning for users with assistive technology, and to recommend to install the Classic Editor. If the release is mover a couple of days, a solution might make it into 4.9.8. It’s release tomorrow, 4.9.9 will be it.

The final decision on the 4.9.8 release date/time will be made by the release leads when they start their day on Monday. Stay Tuned. by 19:00 UTC (3 pm ET)

Methods to avoid the Gutenberg Nag

There are a few plugins available that suppress the so called “Gutenberg Nag”.

• Paul Biron, release co-lead for 4.9.8, created a plugin to hide the Gutenberg Nag for different user capabilities. It’s  available on GitHub
• David Decker made his available on GitHub.
• Luciano Croce published the  “Dismiss Gutenberg Nag” on the WordPress plugin Repository
• Jeff Starr’s plugin “Disable Gutenberg” also disables the Gutenberg admin notice.
• Sara Gooding on WPTavern reviewed the Classic Editor Addon Plugin, that also implemented a feature to disable the 4.9.8 nag, but also needs the Classic Editor plugin installed

Update July 20, 2018 – Released in Beta 2.

The Dashboard Call out to Try the “new, modern publishing experience” is now available in WordPress 4.9.8 Beta 2.

Parallel to getting the next WordPress core version ready for release, the Gutenberg Dev team is working on the milestone 58 “Try Callout” to get identified blockers resolved. In this week’s core dev chat, Tammie Lister kept the door open for the team to punt the call out once more should those blockers not be resolved by the time the Release Candidate for 4.9.8 comes about next week.

Update July 18, 2018 – Call out issue resolved for Core, “Call out” milestone focus for Gutenberg 3.3

Core Committer, Gary Pendergast changed the status of the long ongoing trac ticket “Introduce “Try Gutenberg” callout” opened by Mel Choyce almost exactly a year ago to ‘resolved’. A few people worked on it in various capacities: Apart from Mel and Gary, kudos to Joen Asmussen, Tammie Lister, Joe McGill, Sergey Biryukoc, Aaron Jorbin, Birgit Pauli-Haack, Marius Jenson, Andrea Fercia, Josepha Haden, Chris Lema, Kjell Reigstad,  Matias Ventura, and Michelle Weber. With this status changed the Dashboard Callout is ready to be added to the Beta 2 of WordPress 4.9.8 release for July 19, 2018.

Matias Ventura, co-lead of Gutenberg development opened a milestone on the GitHub repository for issues that need to be resolved before the “Try Gutenberg” invitation is posted in the Dashboard and made it the focus for the next Gutenberg version (3.3 with a tentative release date of July 25, 2018)

A few months ago, Daniel Bachhuber posted a list of issues that should be resolved before several thousand users are starting using Gutenberg, heeding the upcoming call to test the new editor. Today, he posted a blog post with an update on those issues.

Update July 17, 2018

Today Beta 1 of 4.9.8 was released, and I was hoping to be able to test the now famous “Try Gutenberg”. Turns out the first version of the “try Gutenberg” prompt is still being worked on and getting the last polish. 

It will be ready for Beta 2. Kjell Reigstad published the latest mockup on the trac ticket. – Ignore the pink squares, they just help with the white space around it.-  In the last few days, the wording for the two columns experienced a few changes.

Kjell writes in comment #148 of the trac ticket:  “This hits on all the points we need, and is simple and clear:

1. Gutenberg is coming in the next major release
2. If you’re worried about compatibility, there’s a plugin to help ease the transition.
3. The plugin lets you use the editor you’re used to until you’re ready to switch.”

There are quite a few Gutenberg online Live events coming up this week and next week. Experts from different areas of the WordPress community are available for free. Take them up on their offer to asked them about your site getting ready or other Gutenberg implementation issues.

Feel free to connect via comments if you have questions or use the form on the Contact Us page to send us an email to pauli@gutenbergtimes.com

8 Truths about Gutenberg

Update July 9, 2018

Kjell Reigstad posted another iteration of the possible designs yesterday. Here is one of the mock-ups. All three drafts show a Blocks selection window and language that give the user choices and assistance regarding their decisions to try it or not.

Update July 5, 2018

The WordPress Dev Team just releas 4.9.7 as a security and Maintenance release. The original release map was moved to 4.9.8. Here is the updated post on the make blog

Update July 2, 2018

Early June, Mel Choyce published an modified layout for the “Try Gutenberg” prompt on the WP-Admin Dashboard. She incorporated suggestions  from Chris Lema‘s mock-ups and updated copy by Michelle Weber. The current version for the call out looks like this:

It shows three columns with instructions on how to install the Gutenberg plugin, and how to submit feedback.

From the DevCat Summary of core weekly contributor chat we learn that “Try Gutenberg” is one of the likely focuses for the 4.9.7 release.
Paul Biron and Joshua Wold will head this version as co-release leads with Sergey Biryukov and Jon Bossenger as co-deputies. You can follow the progress of this version and issues via the Make Blog Tag 4.9.7. Weekly Developer Meetings happen every Wednesday. The next meeting will take place on  Wednesday, July 4, 2018, 4:00 PM EDT in #core slack channel.

As mentioned earlier, Daniel Bachhuber maintains a list of issues considered blockers before Gutenberg can put in front of ten-thousands more users. It just received an additional take of “Priority High”

Update May 8th, 2018 
Yesterday, the hosting team published their notes from the May 2nd meeting.  Mark Schroeder confirmed that Try Gutenberg has been pushed to the next 4.9. version.

More Notes regarding the “Try Gutenberg” prompt

Known Issues with Themes & Plugins
To make it easier for users/site owners to decide if they should try it, we published a list of known issues with Themes and Plugins. and link to the various sources.  Try or not to Try?  The post was first published end of April, but received more attention just last week.

Trac Discussion on Try Gutenberg prompt
In his article about the Try Gutenberg prompt, WPTavern’s Jeff Chandler wrote a nice overview on the discussion behind the scenes on how the prompt should appear in the dashboard. 

Fix issues first, before thousands of users hit Gutenberg
Daniel Bachhuber identified a set of known issues from the Github repository, which he thinks should be fixed before the Try Gutenberg prompt is added to a WordPress core version.

Update March 27, 2018
Tonight, Jb Audras,  announced the release of the 4.9.5 RC version.

“The Try Gutenberg callout will ultimately not land in 4.9.5 release. There are still a few issues that need to get fixed before it’s ready for the level of attention this will bring. It will probably land in a dedicated 4.9.6 release in a few weeks (also see related trac ticket: #41316)”

“Unfortunately, there are still a few more issues in Gutenberg that we need to get fixed before it’s ready for the level of attention this will bring, so we’ll probably aim for a small, quick 4.9.6 release a week or so after 4.9.5.

Gary Pendergast (pento), Core Committer, wrote earlier.

---

To encourage more people to try Gutenberg, this new Dashboard box allows site users to easily install and try out Gutenberg.

While testing Beta 1 of WordPress version 4.9.5 I didn’t see a Call-out to try Gutenberg in the Dashboard.  However, lurking in on the latest meetings in Slack channels #Core & #Forum I found out the call out to site owners and users will be available with the RC on March 27, 2018 and then released with the WordPress 4.9.5. version on April 3rd, 2018. At least that’s the plan for now.

The corresponding Trac-ticket was closed a few hours ago. Props: Gary Pendergast, Mel Choyce, Joen Asmussen, Tammy Lister, Joe Mcgill, Sergey Biryukov, Aaron Jorbin 

As to the actual Call out to Install / Activate the plugin, there are three different messages:

• If Gutenberg is not installed, and the user can install plugins, show the Install Today button.
• If Gutenberg is installed but not activated, and the user can install plugins, show the Activate Today button.
• If Gutenberg is installed and activated, and the user can edit posts, show the Try Today button.
• For any other cases (ie, Gutenberg isn’t installed, and the user can’t install plugins; the user can’t edit posts), the button “Install Today”  is hidden.

We also learn from the trac-ticket the different iterations on the layout. Five months ago, the team already went through the design phase, but it also felt was still to early for the 4.8.x version and it was pushed into 4.9, 4.9.1 etc to 4.9.5. The Gutenberg Dev Team seems to be comfortable now to have a whole lot of more users us Gutenberg on their sites.

The #forum contributors & volunteers are preparing for the onslaught of – possibly – millions of  people trying out Gutenberg and having questions together with the Gutenberg development team.

During the meeting one member suggested strongly to add the following sentence to the call out:

“If you are not comfortable with, or have doubts about using pre-release software, you should not install this plugin.”

Another team member suggested also to reach out to Themes and Plugin developers and let them know about the call-out, just in case they don’t see it in the Release Candidate.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The first questions that came up in the forum meetings and their answers:

Q: Can I go back to the old editor?

A: Yes, just uninstall the Gutenberg plugin. (After 5.0: Yes, just install the Classic Editor plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-editor/)

Q: What happens if I disable the Gutenberg plugin?

A: Your posts will largely remain in tact, but you may need to provide your own styling for the few elements that Gutenberg was providing styling for, and replace a few blocks.

Q: Will switching to Gutenberg affect my existing content?

A: No.

Q: Can I edit existing content in Gutenberg?

A: Yes, you can continue editing using the classic bloc (which mimics the behavior of the current editor inside Gutenberg) or you can try the “convert to blocks” option to split the content to the regular Gutenberg blocks.

Q: Can I use it with my themes visual page builder?

A: Some plugins may have started working on their Gutenberg support, but when testing with the plugin it is not unlikely that some of them may not work with Gutenberg yet.

Q: Why there is not an option in the dashboard for switching between G and old editor?

A: There is, hover over a post and you can use the classic editor for that post, it’s an option along with the usual edit, quick edit and trash links.

We’ll update the list before the release,

Here is the link to the FAQs in Gutenberg Handbook

Probably worth repeating frequently: Gutenberg Frequently Asked Questions https://t.co/HrJ6vOZnjm

— Gutenberg Times (@gutenbergtimes) March 22, 2018

How can you help?

Starting April 4th, 2018, assist other users in the Gutenberg plugin support forum. If you are already comfortable using Gutenberg on your own site, and you have some time to spare,it would be very helpful, if you could answer questions in the support forum of the feature plugin once the WordPress 4.9.5 is released.

Where should issues be reported?

Updated: Feb 24: The support team expects users to report issues on the support forum of the feature plugin. Support contributors check if it’s a legitimate issue and create a ticket on the GitHub repository of Gutenberg

How can the “Try Gutenberg” prompt be hidden from the Dashboard?

There are some folks out there, feeling their site owners or users should not see the “Try Gutenberg” prompt. One of them built a plugin that’s available on GitHub. 

8 Truths about Gutenberg

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