Those two plugins might come as a surprise for some of you. I’m using the Block Editor, since it was still in a beta state and only available through the Gutenberg plugin. So I am not the usual user of the Classic Editor plugin. But I do have two sites I maintain where I’m using it.
What do the plugins do?
Both Classic Editor and the Classic Widgets plugin are used to preserve the “legacy components” from older WordPress versions that would nowadays use the Block Editor interface. The Classic Editor plugin allows you to either “deactivate Gutenberg” and use the old TinyMCE editor for your content, or you can decide on a per content element basis which editor you want to use.
The Classic Widgets plugin on the other hand brings back the old “widget admin area”, that was replaced with the “Gutenberg UI” in WordPress 5.8 and which now allows you to use any block in any widget area.
Why do I use both plugins?
The Classic Editor plugin is used on the podcast website I host. The podcast plugin I use there (this one will be presented in another blog post) does not fully work in the Block Editor. All “meta boxes” do work, but the editor crashed, at least for existing episodes.
I also use the plugin on a website of an acquaintance. That acquaintance is not a “technical person” and the new UI in the Block Editor for some plugins make it harder to create and edit content.
The Classic Widgets plugin is used on this very blog. I still use a theme that was written around 15 years ago, and that is using some widgets and widget areas that don’t work well with the new “Block Editor Widget Area”. As soon as I finally replaced the theme with an FSE one, I can remove this legacy plugin as well.
Conclusion
Even though I am a big advocate for the Site and Block Editor, I do see cases where plugins like Classic Editor or Classic Widgets are necessary. It should be our goal to make these plugins obsolete, especially if we develop plugins ourselves, but the reality is, that they will still be around for a couple of years.
Are you also using the Classic Editor? And do you it because you don’t like the Block Editor, or also because you have to deal with legacy websites?