I’ll try to answer the concerns by @ctoffolo and @stigfaerch from my perspective as a member of the Product Strategy Group and a previous developer on the FriendsOfTYPO3/frontend_editing extension (“frontend_editing” from here on).
We all agree that TYPO3 should have intuitive editing available. The high-level objectives are indeed high-level. Specific features, like frontend editing, did not belong in that context, so they weren’t mentioned in the article.
If you look at frontend_editing (an editor based on CKEditor that directly edits content in any compatible frontend implementation), neither WordPress nor Drupal has that type of feature built into the core.
To take one example, the Gutenberg editor, which is available for both WordPress and Drupal, is a backend block editor that can be made to resemble the frontend to a greater or lesser degree. It is not true frontend editing.
This has good reasons, and true frontend editing, like the frontend_editing extension provides, may not be what we want to put into the TYPO3 Core. Especially if we want the TYPO3 Core to be as widely compatible with different frontend implementations as possible.
Frontend_editing has shown to be an excellent sales too that removes any worries about UX that the client might have. However, more advanced features are very hard to implement, because you have to bridge concepts from TYPO3’s backend with how they are implemented in the frontend. Those differences can be very complex! The extension’s JavaScript can also interfere with JavaScript used in the frontend. As a result, the extension is hard to maintain and keep compatible.
I believe intuitive editing in TYPO3 must to take into account TYPO3’s decoupled nature and support structured content. The editor itself is just one of many UX improvements related to intuitive content management and editing. Some features might come in v14, others later.
The frontend_editing extension is great in isolation, and it may work well for you and many others, but from experience, I have come to believe that it is not a solution that can become the universal solution in the Core.
On stage at the All Questions Answered session at T3CON24, I said that recent versions of Gutenberg may have features that makes it implementable in TYPO3 and that supports our content structure. But that doesn’t mean it has to be Gutenberg or that Gutenberg will work in the end. We need to figure out what’s right for the long haul.
That’s why Rachel’s article is inviting people in with their ideas and a willingness to contribute. You’re very welcome to join the work! 