A truly zen, distraction-free writing experience is my white whale of WordPress features. The one that landed in WordPress 3.2 was pretty close to perfect, but the block editor changed everything. In the early days of the Gutenberg project, contributors worked on different ways to improve the writing experience after reviewers said they found it…
For a long time I could not compose posts with the Gutenberg editor. I tested each release of the plugin throughout its journey into WordPress 5.0, but found it too distracting for my basic needs. It seemed better suited for building a brochure website, not for someone who uses WordPress primarily for writing. This is…
After overwhelming feedback from testers indicating that Gutenberg is not well suited for simply writing posts, the project’s contributors are considering a few options for improving the writing flow. These proposals are spread across several tickets on GitHub. Two weeks ago, Gutenberg technical lead Matias Ventura submitted a PR exploring the possibility of introducing a…
Ever since the demise of WordPress’ old distraction-free writing mode, users have been forced to look elsewhere for a truly zen writing experience. Gutenberg’s current design trajectory doesn’t seem to be putting it on track for delivering the minimalist writing environment that many writers crave. The project has a lot of publishing and design-related functionality…
WordPress.com has unveiled a refreshed post editor that makes content front and center. The most noticeable change is the user interface. The sidebar of meta boxes is now on the right-hand side instead of the left. Clicking the Post Settings link hides the sidebar, providing a cleaner interface. The preview and publish buttons are no…
When we asked readers what they thought of the new Distraction-free writing mode in WordPress 4.1, a majority of readers responded that it was an improvement. However, a number of others stated they preferred the old version. Readers also took to the comments to describe their first impression of the feature. Since the release of…
In order to see the post meta boxes using Distraction-free Writing Mode in WordPress 4.1, you have to move the cursor away from the post editor. During the editing process, you may need to preview a post several times. Since the preview button is only available when the publish meta box is shown, you have…
After nearly four months of development, WordPress 4.1 “Dinah” in honor of jazz singer Dinah Washington, is available for download. Led by John Blackbourn, 4.1 contains several improvements such as a new default theme, an improved distraction free writing experience, and plugin recommendations. Twenty Fifteen Twenty Fifteen is a two-column theme with a focus on…
John Blackbourn announced this afternoon that he will be merging the Focus Project into WordPress core ahead of the upcoming 4.1 release. Last week Jeff Chandler explored how the Focus Project plans to enhance distraction-free writing in WordPress. If you haven’t been following the project, it’s essentially a complete re-think of the way WordPress has…
One of the feature plugins under development for possible inclusion to WordPress 4.1 is called Focus. Focus enhances the Distraction Free Writing mode in WordPress. Janneke Van Dorpe is the lead developer for the project with Mark Jaquith and Andrew Ozz contributing as well. Unlike DFW mode in WordPress 4.0, Focus keeps the meta boxes,…
I never used to pay much attention to WordPress’ Distraction Free Writing mode. When the feature landed in WordPress 3.2, I thought I’d never use it. I was so used to the post editor screen as it was that I thought I was able to tune out all the extra noise related to content creation.…
Distraction free writing mode is something I rarely use in WordPress but WP Smackdown has a great post that explains how using two plugins can enhance the distraction free writing experience. The Just Writing plugin enables the ability for preferences to be stored on a per-user basis as well as a few other features. Meanwhile,…