Working with the WordPress block editor

WordPress made a major change to how site owners edit blog posts and pages when it released its Block Editor (originally called "Gutenberg") back in in 2018. The block editor offers a more visual, flexible and powerful experience than its original Classic Editor, and WordPress has continued to iterate on the block editor in the years since its release.

While users can technically continue to use the old classic editor by installing and using WordPress' Classic Editor plugin, at some point WordPress will be ending support for that plugin. As such, we strongly recommend learning and using the block editor if you're not already doing so. In fact, ProPhoto ended its support of the WordPress classic editor in August of 2024. (This doesn't mean that the classic editor will not work, it just means that we are no longer supporting ProPhoto gallery and grid integration in the classic editor.)

While using the block editor is fairly intuitive, we'll cover a few of the basics. When accessing, you'll see that the block editor has two main sections. The content area on the left and the post (or page)/block settings pane on the right. 

The content area on the left is made up of blocks of different types. You can add a new block to the content area by clicking the blue "+" icon in the upper left of the window and dragging a block in. Or, by clicking the "+" icon in the content area itself and selecting which block you'd like to use.

There are large number of blocks to choose from, but the ones you will likely use most often are the paragraph, image, gallery and ProPhoto gallery blocks. When adding or editing a block, the block tool bar appears above the block giving you various customization options. For example, you can arrange blocks in the content area by using the drag handle, or by using using the up/down arrows in the block tool bar.

Each block also has their own settings that will appear in the right sidebar when you are editing that particular block. 

These block settings allow you to do things like change an image's size in an image block, or apply a ProPhoto gallery style in a ProPhoto gallery block.

The sidebar also offers post or page settings when the post/page tab is selected at the top.

Most of these post/page settings are covered in other articles within the Understanding WordPress section of our help center.