Dev Chat Summary, December 3rd

https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/core/p1417640435005108

Hits

  • Focus rolled out to wordpress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/.

Misses

  • BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 3
  • RC1

Decisions

  • Recommended plugins will move to a new tab in the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party installer. The popular plugins tab will remain.
  • Strings will be released to translators on Wed. the 3rd.
  • RC1 possibly on the 3rd. Possibly not.

Assignments

  • @tellyworth will move recommended plugins to a new tab.
  • @johnbillion will work on about page text, clearing the 4.1 milestone, and triaging tickets reported against trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision..
  • @nacin will release strings.
  • @johnbillion will tagtag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.) RC1.

Links Mentioned

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30516
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30337
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30435

Focus

johnbillion [15:03]
No agenda today, we’ll do it live :sunglasses:

johnbillion [15:03]
First up, #30516

WordPress TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. [15:03]
#30516: Focus v2: adminadmin (and super admin) toolbar rendering issues
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30516

johnbillion [15:05]
From some cursory testing it looks like this rendering issue is confined to Chrome on Hi-DPi devices but I’d like to make sure

johnbillion [15:05]
If people can test this on as many browsers as they can that would be great

johnbillion [15:06]
All you need to do is check the toolbar renders correctly after leaving DFW

mark [15:06]
Fix is in, just need to verify it?

johnbillion [15:06]
Correct

azaozz [15:07]
Right.

Recommended Plugins

tellyworth [15:09]
johnbillion: no big changes re the recommenders.

tellyworth [15:09]
I think the only decision to make is, does it stay where it is on the Popular tab, rename the tab, or move to a separate tab?

nacin [15:10]
I think it makes sense for it to be a separate tab, especially if we think we can become more confident in the recommendations over time.

nacin [15:10]
There’s an issue of broad discovery that “Popular” solves.

nacin [15:10]
Otherwise it feels like you’re looking through a ship porthole.

nacin [15:11]
Every “marketplace” / “store” / whatever needs some kind of home base.

nacin [15:11]
If we have 30,000 plugins and they’re only browsable via tiny, curated lists like recommended and featured, or by searching, you’ll never find good stuff.

tellyworth [15:11]
Ideally, recommended ought to be pretty close to popular by default (minus the problems popular currently has).

nacin [15:11]
If you have to search for arbitrary terms just to find what’s cool and interesting out there, that’s a problem.

tellyworth [15:12]
I’ll make a quick patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing. to move it to a separate tab. Do you think popular ought to stay exactly as-is, or change in some way?

nacin [15:12]
And once you start to install things, you’ll only get recommended similar ones, which further puts you into a tunnel-vision.

nacin [15:12]
Do you have suggestions for changing it? I’m not familiar with its problems.

nacin [15:13]
I am all for experimenting/changing everything/anything there. I just have opinions about stripping it down too much without something like decent browsable categories and such, otherwise you’ll feel trapped and discoverability plummets.

tellyworth [15:13]
popular shows plugins you already have installed, for one.

tellyworth [15:14]
Also it tends to be self fulfilling, the most popular are at the top and that feeds back into more popularity.

nacin [15:14]
I’ve argued before that it _helps_ to see what you already have installed. “Oh, cool, the plugin I have is actually pretty widely used.”

helen [15:15]
i think it’s better as a new, separate tab.

tellyworth [15:15]
btw the recommender doesn’t recommend similar plugins. It recommends other plugins used by people similar to you. So you’re not getting one narrow list of subject matter.

mark [15:15]
iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. app store doesn’t filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. out stuff you have.

nacin [15:15]
@tellyworth: Right, sorry, I was abbreviating.

tellyworth [15:15]
I’m ambivalent, just laying out the things that have been mentioned to me.

jeffr0 [15:17]
I’m for Recommended being in its own tab.

nacin [15:17]
Feels like a separate tab isn’t a bad choice for now. We also removed a tab we used to have in 4.0, so it’s not like it’s true proliferation of tabs.

tellyworth [15:17]
ok, I’ll update the ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. with a patch for a separate tab and look for feedback.

jeffr0 [15:17]
Do you know if it will recommend plugins that haven’t been updated in two years?

tellyworth [15:19]
jeffr0: generally no, but I can do some further tweaking if that sort of thing is happening. It looks for plugins in use on recent WP versions only, excludes antique installs, so abandoned plugins should be rare.

tellyworth [15:19]
The ticket has a plugin that will help identify bad recommendations if they’re happening – -#30337

WordPress Trac [15:19]
#30337: Recommended plugins to replace Popular plugins tab
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30337

jeffr0 [15:20]
Ok, cause in testing, it’s recommending plugins that are 5-8 years old. When it has more data to use, those plugins should be filtered out automatically?

nacin [15:20]
We should probably put a last_updated >= -2 years ago on it

nacin [15:20]
explicitly.

johnbillion [15:21]
Same as the search results

ipstenu [15:21]
(So update your readmes, people with older, awesomer, plugins that still work)

johnbillion [15:21]
^

johnbillion [15:21]
As long as they still work

kronda [15:21]
joined #core

johnbillion [15:22]
Let’s do a new tab fo Recommended then

Plugin Directory I18ni18n Internationalization, or the act of writing and preparing code to be fully translatable into other languages. Also see localization. Often written with a lowercase i so it is not confused with a lowercase L or the numeral 1. Often an acquired skill.

johnbillion [15:22]
@nacin Update on the plugin directory i18n?

nacin [15:22]
@johnbillion: Basically, there’s a lot of moving bits all happening at once. @stephdau continues to work on getting plugin readme translations ready (readme => GlotPress => loading it on wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ localeLocale A locale is a combination of language and regional dialect. Usually locales correspond to countries, as is the case with Portuguese (Portugal) and Portuguese (Brazil). Other examples of locales include Canadian English and U.S. English. sites => sending the info through the APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. to coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.’s plugin installer). The code to generate language packs is done and has been functional for months; it just needs to be hooked up to automatically trigger when we start to introduce new plugins. I created #meta-i18n as a better location to track all of this.

There are some minor core changes that need to happen in 4.1 to support localized plugin/theme installers come early 2015 (once things are getting translated). I am not sure who is working on that at the moment, but it might end up being some amalgamation of me, @stephdau, and @tellyworth? (I am behind thanks to the holiday on whether there was recent movement.)

Strings

nacin [15:23]
Separate update: Strings will be released to translators in the next few hours. As part of that, I typically audit every new string for grammar, spelling, voice, and such. (Sometimes changes happen accidentally, etc.)

nacin [15:23]
We can then release the about page in the next day or two and things should be OK.

nacin [15:23]
I don’t think there are very many new strings in 4.1 at all.

nacin [15:24]
In the last few releases, the about page has been a majority of strings, I think.

johnbillion [15:24]
@ocean90 has some stats on the new string count

ocean90 [15:25]
~150, includes fuzzy ones (edited)

nacin [15:27]
In similar releases, there are three or four languages that have that # complete within an hour.

nacin [15:27]
Or a few hours. (Also not referring to the English non-US ones.)

petya [15:29]
It would be great if that number had an additional zero for 4.1 though 🙂 (edited)

nacin [15:31]
I just mean how quickly they are translated, not how many languages are ready on release day, which for 4.0 was 20, and within a week or two 40. But yes. :simple_smile:

About Page

johnbillion [15:31]
So I’ve been working on the About page text, I’ll put the first pass up onto #30435 shortly

WordPress Trac [15:31]
#30435: 4.1 About screen
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30435

RC1

johnbillion [15:32]
There are a handful of bugs from the 4.1 milestone list that I want to get in tonight and then RC1 will be tagged

nacin [15:33]
RC1 usually implies all tickets are closed, except perhaps some housekeeping items (about page, pointers, etc).

johnbillion [15:34]
Agreed, majority of the rest will get moved to future release

nacin [15:34]
Or tracking tickets etc.

nacin [15:34]
Everything should be punted at this point unless it is a regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5., a critical bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority., or 4.1-specific; and then those all need to be dealt with.

johnbillion [15:35]
That’s about all I have on my list for today, except to mention that the alpha/beta forum has been quiet

ipstenu [15:36]
That really scares me too, johnbillion – I was expecting a lot more “OMG! What is this vanishing focus thing?”

janneke [15:36]
At what point does https://core.trac.wordpress.org/report/60 need to be clear?

nacin [15:37]
Yesterday? :simple_smile:

janneke [15:37]
Okay. :simple_smile:

janneke [15:38]
Btw, why are there closed tickets in there?

nacin [15:38]
probably a report bug.

johnbillion [15:38]
Same here @ipstenu, especially as the pointer has only just gone in

mike [15:40]
We definitely have a problem with users not testing until RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta).. :confused:

mike [15:40]
Have a feeling there will be a lot more feedback then.

johnbillion [15:41]
Ok well that’s all that was on my list to discuss, which makes this one of the shortest meetings we’ve had for a while

johnbillion [15:41]
Open floor for at least the next 20 mins

johnbillion [15:42]
Tonight I’ll be continuing with the About page text and clearing the 4.1 milestone. I’ll also look at triaging the tickets reported against trunk as it looks like there are quite a few tickets in there which aren’t actually trunk tickets.