Gutenberg

WordPress The next step is to find a new home, and after exploring some options, I have decided WordPress is our future home. Granted, it wasn’t my number one choice, but after trying to … read more

Gutenberg
wordpress.org

As someone who builds websites by hand-coding for nearly the last 30 years, I don’t mind a little manual coding when I compose in TypePad. I actually find it easier than using the TypePad’s “WYSIWYG” (What You See Is What You Get) editor, and just prefer the straight up code editor for full control over formatting and layouts.

When TypePad announced their closure a few days ago, we were scrambling to move our contents over to WordPress. To be fair, the plan was always to move to something modern, because we saw the writings on the wall with TypePad, when the platform stopped accepting new accounts during the pandemic (in 2020). When it seemed like this wasn’t a temporary thing, we started exploring alternative options, starting in early 2025.

Now that we’re settling in on WordPress, their compose editor, called Gutenberg, was a total shocker to me. It was a struggle to understand it. It was so new and different than what I understand of a compose window that I gave up on it immediately, and deactivated it in favor of the Classic Editor.

Although Gutenberg is definitely not something for me, I do recognize that many people love this new “block” approach to writing and composing. Each block does something different. For example, the default block is paragraph (text). If you want to add an image, you can drop in an image block, etc. Please watch the video below, it has an overview of block-writing.

Gutenberg was introduced in December 2018, so WordPress users have been using it for a long time now. Some people love it, some people hate it. To me, this was designed for new, younger writers, who writes and consume contents on iPad and large phones.

For now, I’ll be sticking to the Classic Editor. I’m pretty happy with getting wheartm.com up and running in less than 24 hours. The last two days was just me learning how everything works. So far, I’m pretty impressed with everything.

Covernews

Covernews
afthemes.com

WordPress offers “1000s of Options” for themes on their website, but only a handful for the entry or free tier. Believe me, I’ve spent hours looking at all their free themes – they all suck.

Of course, you can always download third-party themes or pay for your own theme, but from my understanding, you need a Business Account, as per their FAQ.

This feature is available on sites with the WordPress.com Business and Commerce plans, and the legacy Pro plan. If you have a Business plan, make sure to activate it. For sites on the Free, Personal, and Premium plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

A business account is $25 a month vs $4 for the Personal account. As you can see, that’s a massive difference in pricing.

The theme we’re using is called CoverNews, by AF Themes. It looks like what you would expect with an online modern blog or magazine-style. Personally, I think it looks too busy, but this is what modern looks like. I would like some sort of reading option, and maybe there is something like that on WordPress?

Like many free themes, additional customizing features, such as typography style and colors, are locked behind a paid feature, which requires an annual subscription. If you want to download the theme, head over to afthemes.com and get the free version to check it out for yourself. The free version is actually very good.

P.S. This article was composed on Classic Editor (Code) for WordPress. It was writing exercise and an experiment in learning how to craft an article with images and formatting. It was to understand how WP interpret html codes. For example, WP will respect CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) but will ignore some older html markup. Once you understand its limitations, you can work around it to create and control your layouts without having to use their Block Editor.