I messed something on wordpress

Question

I'm new to wordpress and I don't even know what exactly is wrong with my WP so bear with me for a bit.

The steps I performed:

• Picked a blank canvas theme and from the several headers and footers options I chose one of each
• I started by editing my site trough the edit button on the bottom right corner when you are viewing the site
• Then editing the home page
• Then creating a new one and editing it
• when I was editing on the URL like menu text box on top (one with ctrl+K) it said "page"

Later on I went through Worpress admin center > pages > all pages > "nature photos" and I had a different layout from the one I had configured earlier so I redid the layout I wanted thinking I didn't save the one before just to realise that they appear to be 2 distinct things.

So Now I am very confused.

1. What are each of the editing modes called?
2. Which one should I be editing?
3. When I edit through Worpress admin center > pages > all pages > "nature photos" no changes appear on the site. How can I make it so that they appear?

Answer 1

The two "modes" are Site Editor and the (Block) Editor.

Your first screenshot shows the Site Editor - this is where you edit the main layout components of your site, like the header, footer and templates used throughout your site. Depending on your theme, there may be a number of included templates you can also edit from within the Site Editor which control layout of the posts/ other pages.

The second screenshot shows the (Block) Editor for a page/post. Your site may be configured to show a static page as the homepage. The content of this page does not include the site layout components (header, footer, etc.). When you save/publish this page, the content changes will be reflected on your site for this page and where the page is used (possibly as the static homepage).

In the Site Editor, if you make changes to a reusable block or template part, when you save/publish the changes, it will warn you that this will affect the whole site.