Just think of a scenario whereas the admin you have logged into your website’s admin panel and then by going to the editor area you tweak the visibility aspects and other features of your website. Suppose the editor area now offers an exhaustive range of tools and features for creating content and tweaking with the content usability on your site. Just by tapping on the screen and dragging things around you are satisfied with the editor option and the way it functions.
Different WordPress editors and varying experience
Obviously, the default block editor option in WordPress doesn’t offer such a repository of tools and features. The Classic Editor plugin is chosen by many for a rich writing experience. The Elementor page builder option is another option for creating custom page layouts.
Recently, a specially created interface for the WordPress block editor became very popular. Widely known as Iceberg this interface is preferred by WordPress bloggers and content creators who opt for a minimalist environment frequently besides preferring frequent markdown.
There are many WordPress bloggers who create posts by email while there are many others who prefer using mobile apps for posting from anywhere anytime. Apart from this audience, there are too many people who like using offline and third-party editors like Microsoft Word, Notepad, and similar things.
So, from the above description, it is clear that the editing tools and editing environments are too varied and multifaceted just like the people who use these tools. It is quite obvious that just like the preferences of the bloggers and content creators, editing tools are also of different types. There is no question of any one-size-fits-all editing solution.
Can WordPress Offer a Better Editor Suite?
Now coming to a very basic question, all through its working history, WordPress used mostly a single editor shared by its users widely. Though it has also evolved over time, there has been no such variety of elements that could address every specific preference. While the default editor has been very consistent, it failed to become fully sufficient for all user needs and preferences. Most writers often chose third-party classic editors for a distinct and distraction-free writing experience.
Now, coming to classic WordPress editor, it could not be satisfactory for many content creators. Many consider the vast majority of tools offered by the tool is largely irrelevant. On the other hand, the block editor draws a binary reaction from users. You can either completely love to use it or detest it like anything.
Keeping this variety of demands concerning the editor suits in mind, it is up to the WordPress to come with an editing suite that can bridge most of these differences and deliver a comprehensive editing and writing experience for the content creators and bloggers. The key is to reduce the common pain points and shortcomings of most editor suites.
Editors Registry and API
Some developers and experts in the WordPress fraternity are proposing future solutions that WordPress can embrace. Can WordPress incorporate a stand-alone editor registry to cover most of the highly demanded features and editing tools? The same registry can also come with an API that can help other plugin creators to deliver unique editing tools to the WordPress bloggers and content creators. Obviously, this will overwhelmingly change the editing experience of the WordPress platform. Such a proposal is already made to the WordPress and the said proposal also requested for a stand-alone editing screen from where writers can choose their preferred editors as needed or preferred.
This would allow users and bloggers to choose, install, and use a variety of editors, based upon their content type and the specific requirements. For example, a website admin can prefer using a Markdown editor for writing blog posts while the same admin can use a page builder kind of editing suite for tweaking the layouts of the website pages. This would open up unlimited possibilities and deliver a lot of freedom to WordPress users. But this needs to be initiated from the WordPress admin level.
How WordPress Can Help Developers to Deliver Such a Comprehensive Editor Solution?
According to the creators of very popular editor plugins such as Iceberg, this core offering from WordPress can actually give a boost to the development of many third-party editor solutions. By Delivering a comprehensive editor mode WordPress writing experience can be given a complete makeover and it would give third-party editing suites also a lot of room to experiment and improve their tools and features.
According to the experts some of the creative hurdles that the developers in building the Editor suite need to encounter include the following.
- Lack of hooks and filters apart from the age-old block editor. For example, we only have access to bottom and top areas and wrappers with the Block editor.
- There are no options for getting rid of existing editor components. For this, as of now we only need to depend on tweaking with CSS files for hiding these components.
- WordPress core Editor toolset still relies mostly on local storage which is a big disadvantage.
Most leading third party editor plugins actually address these shortcomings by creating a wide variety of plugins with different tools. In spite of the lack of features and backdated tools, block editor of WordPress can still be developed further and can be the stepping stone for further improvements in the core editing options.
Conclusion
Many WordPress users and bloggers still wish to find a comprehensive Editor someday that would give them absolutely everything to compose posts and tweak the look and feel right within WordPress. While as of now much of the onus for improving editing capabilities depended on third-party plugins, in the coming days WordPress can take responsibility on its shoulder and make things easier for everybody.