[Research] Explore Gutenberg compatibility with Pressbooks

[SteelWagstaff]

Feature Description

The Gutenberg editor for WordPress is approaching greater maturity. Promised support for the classic editor from WordPress core team is through 2022. We should research the feasibility and desirability of allowing Pressbooks users to create content using the Gutenberg editor or a restricted subset of it.

Other Notes

See previous research https://github.com/pressbooks/pressbooks/issues/924 and test implementation in Aldine: https://github.com/pressbooks/pressbooks-aldine/pull/46

See the state of a11y issues described in the 2019 audit of the Gutenberg editor: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/projects/25

See https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/02/09/core-editor-improvement-curated-experiences-with-locking-apis-theme-json/ + https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/02/implications-wordpress-joining-block-protocol/

[brylie]

Any update on this issue? We are in the research phase of a project and are considering using Pressbooks. However, we are primarily concerned that Pressbooks is compatible with WordPress Gutenberg.

[SteelWagstaff]

@brylie We have not begun integrating Gutenberg with Pressbooks. This issue is not yet in our backlog and I don't forsee us tackling this in the first half of 2022. Basically, Pressbooks is not compatible with the block editor and will not be in the near future.

[arzola]

I think this could be a nice one to try on innovation days @cmurtagh @fdalcin @richard015ar I enabled Gutenberg on some cloned books from the directory and seems very promising, contents looks good and the block editor is not as bad as it used to be

[richard015ar]

Let's explore this! If for some reason it isn't a good path for us, we'll learn something for sure and we'd have a deeper understanding about why. The best scenario, we have a plan to implement this.